Nice plugin that can soon cost you several hundred dollars

  • There is much to like about The events calendar. It is well crafted, looks good and works well. But it is unfortunately rather poor on features. This can be remedied by purchasing e.g. the $89 pro extension, which will add recurring events and the ability to create custom fields, CSV import, and a few other items. However, it leaves out so many features that it just barely adds any value. If you really want your calendar to be useful, you may need up to several additional $89 purchases, and it will quickly run into several hundred dollars. At that point there are other more reasonable options.

    Here is some free advice: If you want to purcase one of their extensions, you should know that the product pages are only marginally informative. In order to know what each extension does and does not do, you need to go to the support pages and read through them as well.

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  • Hey @singolfsson,

    I just saw your review and thought I’d follow-up to say thanks. The fact that you gave us three stars shows you gave this a lot of thought and I genuinely appreciate the transparency and honesty of your feedback, as does the rest of the team over here.

    You raise a lot of excellent points. But it’s this comment that really sticks out for me:

    However, it leaves out so many features that it just barely adds any value. If you really want your calendar to be useful, you may need up to several additional $89 purchases, and it will quickly run into several hundred dollars.

    Do you think that’s because The Events Calendar lacks features that makes it less effective as a standalone calendar, or because your calendar has specific needs that aren’t directly addressed by the plugin? The reason I ask is because we’ve intentionally tried to pack as much into it as possible. We’ve even received feedback that there is too much offered in the plugin. The fact that we see reviews on both sides of the spectrum tells me that that we’re walking a fine line between trying to offer too little versus offering to much, and the difference has more to do with the specific needs of a calendar than a failure on the plugin to deliver.

    Recurring events, custom fields, additional calendar views, venues and organizers, event submissions, ticketing, time zone support, importing, email marketing, integrations with other services… that would be a lot to offer in a single package. And, to be honest, many of those features would be overkill for the majority of use cases — which we’ve learned since first releasing The Events Calendar in 2010 and by staying in touch with people using it and learning from their experiences.

    That’s not to say your feedback is incorrect or invalid — it’s more that what you’re looking for in a calendar plugin is likely what we consider to be on the “power user” side of things. And that’s why we’ve chosen to break things up where we offer a solid standalone calendar that’s capable of managing events as well as a free ticketing solution to support it, while offering what we consider to be advanced features as premium extensions. It’s the same thing plugins like WooCommerce, Advanced Custom Fields, Gravity Forms, and a whole host of other plugins do. We benefit because it allows us to give work away in the form of a free plugin without sacrificing sustainability. You benefit in that you can still get the additional functionality you need without having to pay for the core calendar. And everyone else benefits from enjoying a free product that serves the vast majority of needs. It’s tough to create a win-win-win situation, but I think we’re doing a pretty good job and getting better all the time.

    But, I get it. No one wants to pay more than they have to or want to. It’s good for us to get this sort of honest feedback and you can rest assured that we’ve not only seen your review and read it, but that we will actually use it as we continue trying to strike that perfect balance.

    Cheers to you, and I hope the calendar serves you well! Please stay in touch if you come upon anything else you think would make The Events Calendar even better.

    Geoff

    • This reply was modified 3 years, 10 months ago by geoffgraham.

    Somewhat ironically I found this review via a link in a community support forum for The Events Calendar. I agree with everything the original reviewer says; TEC is an excellent product, but after buying the ‘Pro’ version and several add-ons, it still seems that every query I have RE: customisation is met with a reply along the lines of ‘we don’t provide that service but here’s a link to some guys who can but who will possibly charge you more than what you’re getting paid to build the whole rest of the website’. I use other ‘pro’-level plugins from other providers but I’ve rarely had this many virtual doors closed in my face. It’s exceptionally frustrating. If you want specifics I’d point to things like being able to change labels on fields, or to be able to re-order fields – particularly ‘additional fields’. If I want to change a spelling (eg ‘Organizer’) I have to go rummaging into PHP code. TEC is a great plugin/system, as long as your needs don’t stray very far from what is provided.

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