Migrate from The Events Calendar

Why switch

The Events Calendar is a solid product with a large community. But there are good reasons to consider a move:

• Cost - TEC’s full suite costs $699/year. NetterTech Events’ free plugin includes many features that TEC charges for (recurring events, per-occurrence ticketing, zero-commission WooCommerce integration). Pro add-ons are coming soon.
• Performance - TEC stores events in WordPress’s default data store, which slows as your event count grows. NetterTech Events uses custom database tables designed for fast calendar queries.
• Ticketing fees - TEC’s Events Tickets Plus charges a 2% commission on bookings. NetterTech Events has zero per-ticket fees.
• Check-in - NetterTech Events Pro includes QR code check-in with volunteer mode. TEC requires the paid Tickets Plus add-on (~$149/year) and has no volunteer mode at any tier.

What transfers

The NetterTech Events Migrator imports:

• Events - titles, descriptions, dates, images, categories, tags
• Venues - names, addresses, maps, capacity
• Organizers - names, contact details
• Recurring events - TEC recurrence patterns are converted to RFC 5545 RRULE format
• Custom fields - mapped where equivalents exist

What needs manual setup:

• Ticket types and pricing - review and recreate in the new system
• Shortcodes and blocks - replace TEC shortcodes with NetterTech Events equivalents
• Theme template overrides - if you customized TEC templates, you’ll need to adapt them for NetterTech Events’ template structure

Step by step

1. Install NetterTech Events alongside TEC

Both plugins can coexist during migration. Install and activate NetterTech Events while TEC is still running.

2. Run the migration

1. Install the NetterTech Events Migrator plugin
2. Go to Events > Migrate and select “The Events Calendar” as your source
3. Click Analyze to preview what will be imported
4. Review the preview, then click Migrate
5. The Migrator reads directly from TEC’s database tables - no export/import files needed

3. Verify

1. Compare a sample of migrated events against the originals
2. Check recurring event patterns are generating the correct occurrences
3. Test the ticket purchase flow
4. Verify calendar views display correctly

For future updates, see the upgrade guide.

4. Switch over

1. Update any shortcodes from TEC format to NetterTech Events format
2. Update any template overrides
3. Deactivate The Events Calendar
4. Flush rewrite rules to update your event URLs: go to Settings > Permalinks and click Save Changes (no need to change anything). Then visit a few event pages to confirm they load correctly. If you see a 404 error, repeat the save.
5. Verify all event URLs are working

5. Rollback (if needed)

The Migrator tags all imported data for clean rollback. If something goes wrong:

1. Go to Events > Migrate
2. Click Rollback to reverse the most recent migration
3. Reactivate TEC

Your original TEC data is never modified or deleted during migration.

Feature mapping

Questions?

Email events@nettertech.com if you’d like help planning your migration or if you have questions about feature parity.