Move venues from The Events Calendar
Overview
If your site has been running The Events Calendar (the plugin by StellarWP, with or without Events Calendar Pro), you can move its venues into Dirigible Locations without exporting anything. Go to Locations → Import & Export → Import: when The Events Calendar has venues on the site, the page starts with Move from The Events Calendar and a button that reads them.
It works like any other import: you see a preview of every venue first, nothing changes until you choose Import, and you can Undo it for 7 days. The Events Calendar's own venues are never changed, so you can go back and forth until you're happy. You need an Editor or Administrator account.
Venues first, then events
Move the venues before you move the events with Dirigible Events. Its own Move from The Events Calendar links each event to the location of its venue's name, so events moved after the venues get their Location straight away. Events moved earlier keep the venue's name and address on the event itself; open them and choose the location by hand.
Move the venues
- Go to Locations → Import & Export and open the Import tab.
- Select Read … locations from The Events Calendar.
- Check the preview. Every venue says New, Update, Skip or Error. A venue with no latitude and longitude says it won't show on the map (see below). Untick anything you don't want.
- Select Import.
- Open a few locations and your map to check them. If something's wrong, select Undo this import: it removes everything the import added and nothing else.
- Move the events with Events → Import & Export, then deactivate The Events Calendar when you're happy. From then on each venue's old address (
/venue/cafe-zoe/) sends visitors and search engines permanently to its location, as long as the location is published. Nothing redirects while The Events Calendar is active, undoing the import takes the redirects away with the locations, and there's nothing to set up. The Events plugin does the same for the events' addresses.
Reading the venues again later is safe: a venue that's already on the site is found by its web address (or its name and street address) and shows as Skip (No changes) unless something changed in The Events Calendar since.
What comes over
| In The Events Calendar | In Dirigible Locations |
|---|---|
| Venue name, published / draft / private | Name and status. The web address (/locations/<name>/) keeps the venue's name. |
| Description and featured image | The location's Content and Image. The image is shared, not copied. A description written in the classic editor becomes paragraphs you can edit block by block. |
| Address, city, state / province, ZIP | Street address, City, State, ZIP code. |
| Phone and website | Phone and Website. |
| Map pin (Events Calendar Pro) | Latitude and Longitude, when Events Calendar Pro had looked the address up. The free plugin keeps no coordinates. |
Map pins need a latitude and longitude
A venue from the free Events Calendar has no coordinates, so the import looks its address up (free: the US Census Geocoder for US addresses, then OpenStreetMap) and places the pin, as for a spreadsheet (see Map pins need a latitude and longitude). A venue whose address isn't found comes over without a map pin, and the import's results list it; open it and find its address in the Map panel.
What doesn't
- The venue's country: Dirigible locations carry a street address, city, state and ZIP code.
- Its map settings (show map, show map link): the site's map settings apply.
- Organizers: Dirigible Events keeps an event's organizer on the event. The Events plugin's move brings them over.
- The old addresses themselves: locations live at
/locations/<name>/, The Events Calendar's venues at/venue/<name>/. Once The Events Calendar is deactivated, the old ones redirect to the new (see step 6).
