The Events Calendar is our cornerstone plugin, and it’s required in order to run any of our premium calendar add-ons, including Events Calendar Pro, Community Events, Filter Bar, and others.
In other words, Events Calendar Pro runs alongside The Events Calendar and enhances it with extra features, including recurring events, additional calendar views, calendar shortcodes, advanced widgets, custom event fields and more.

To keep your plugin up-to-date and retain access to assistance from our support team, yes, you need to renew each year.
However, that doesn’t mean you have to renew in order to keep using our products. Once you download and install our plugins, they’re yours to use as long as you like. But if you don’t renew your subscription, you won’t receive important product updates or support.

Unfortunately, no. However, you can use event categories or tags to create calendar views that only display certain events. For example, you could create a direct link to a calendar view that only shows events categorized as “Fitness,” like this example from our demo site. With Events Calendar Pro, you can use shortcodes to embed your calendar on other WordPress pages and posts, then filter that calendar by category.

Yes! For direct access to support, you’ll need an active paid license for any of our premium plugins. If you don’t have a license, you’re always welcome to use any of our self-help resources, including our knowledgebase, extensions, release notes, and the WordPress.org forums where everyone can help one another.

Installing The Events Calendar is the best way to try it out. This plugin is available for free from the WordPress plugin directory and includes all of the core calendar features. If you’re curious about the features included in Events Calendar Pro, we have a live demo you can check out to see recurring events, widgets and shortcodes, and venues and organizers.