Modern Events Calendar (MEC) positions itself between The Events Calendar Free (limited) and The Events Calendar Pro (expensive). The free version on WordPress.org includes multiple calendar skins, basic booking/RSVP, some recurring event patterns, and Event schema markup – features that The Events Calendar puts behind paid extensions. MEC Pro ($75/year or $179 one-time) adds payment processing, advanced recurring events, and additional display options.
What Makes MEC Different
MEC’s free version is more capable than most “free” events plugins. The multiple calendar skin options (Tile, Agenda, List, Monthly, Yearly, Daily, Weekly, Countdown, Timeline, Slider) give visual variety without additional purchases. The basic booking module lets visitors RSVP to events with their name and email, and the admin sees a list of RSVPs per event. This covers the most common small business events use case – a workshop or class where you want to know who is attending without processing payments.
The downside is complexity. MEC has more settings than The Events Calendar free, which means more time spent in the admin panel and more decisions to make before your calendar looks right. The plugin interface reflects its feature breadth – more options means more pages of settings to work through.
Step 1: Create Your First Event
Go to MEC -> Events -> Add New. The event editor includes standard WordPress content plus MEC-specific fields organised in tabs:
- Date & Time – start/end date, time, all-day toggle, and time zone
- Location – address fields that integrate with Google Maps
- Organiser – organiser details reusable across events
- Options – event cost display, registration URL, capacity limit
- Repeat – recurring event configuration
- Booking – enable/disable booking for this event
The tab structure keeps the event editor organised. Work through each tab before publishing – a published event with missing date data or empty location does not display correctly in calendar views.
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Step 2: Choose and Configure Calendar Skins
MEC’s calendar skin selection is its strongest free feature. Go to MEC -> Settings -> Skin to configure the default calendar skin and its options. Each skin has its own settings – the Monthly skin has day cell height and event display count settings; the Timetable skin (showing events as blocks in a schedule) has column width and colour settings.
For most general-purpose event sites, the Monthly skin with the Agenda or List skin for mobile devices covers the standard use case. The Countdown skin works well for a single upcoming event featured on a page. The Timeline skin is appropriate for conferences or festivals where multiple tracks run simultaneously.
Step 3: Recurring Events
MEC Free supports recurring events with more flexibility than The Events Calendar Free. In the event editor’s Repeat tab, configure:
- Repeat Type – Daily, Weekly, Monthly, Yearly, or Custom
- Repeat End – specific date, number of occurrences, or never
- Exclude specific dates – remove individual dates from the recurrence pattern (for holidays, closures)
Excluded dates are a practical feature. A weekly class that does not run on bank holidays can be configured once with exclusions rather than creating separate events for each occurrence.
Step 4: Booking Configuration
Enable booking for an event in the event editor’s Booking tab. Configure:
- Maximum capacity – total attendees per event
- Tickets – free ticket types for RSVP (MEC Free). For paid tickets, MEC Pro with payment gateway integration is required.
- Booking form fields – which information to collect from attendees (name, email, phone, custom questions)
- Confirmation email – the email sent to attendees after booking
Shortcode Reference for Common MEC Displays
MEC provides shortcodes for embedding calendars with specific configurations. The most useful shortcode parameters:
[MEC id="X"]where X is the ID of a saved MEC view (created in MEC -> Shortcodes). This approach is cleaner than inline shortcode parameters – create your calendar configuration in the MEC Shortcodes admin, save it with a name, and embed it using the generated ID. This way you can update the calendar configuration from the admin without editing shortcodes on pages.
For a quick inline calendar showing the next 30 days of events in list view:
[MEC style="3" sf_status="0" time_limit_start="today" time_limit_end="+30 days"]Style 3 is the List skin. The time_limit parameters restrict the date range to the next 30 days. sf_status=”0″ hides the search filter above the list.