EventKoi November Update: Brand New Event Query Loop Block, Event Series Pages & More

November brings one of our biggest updates this year, focused on giving you more control and flexibility when displaying events.

The highlight is the new Event Query Loop block, which lets you filter, sort, and lay out events with far more precision. You also get a bonus Event Data block that gives you yet another way to display event data across your site.

finally, we’ve also introduced Event Series pages to give recurring events a dedicated, organized home.

Here’s a quick walkthrough of what’s new and how these changes open up more possibilities for your site.

Event Query Loop Block

I’m super excited about this. Ahmed did a fantastic job here.

The short story is that the Event Query Loop block is a super powerful version of our old Events List block.

Here’s a side-by-side feature comparison of the two blocks:

How does the Event Query Loop block work?

The Event Query Loop block is a super powerful version of our old Events List block.

Out of the box, we’ve given you grid and list layouts which you can then customise further with spacing, colours, and more.

You can also filter by event start dates and events that take place within a set time frame.

The Event Query Loop block is a block variation of the Core WordPress Query Loop block that lets you nest multiple blocks inside it. This gives you unlimited layout customisation using the core Group and Columns blocks.

Add all your event data via a single block: The Event Data block.

This is a single block that lets you select from all available data fields, including: Title, Description, Date and Time, Location, and Image.

This means our Event Query block is made up of a columns block and multiple Event Data blocks:

Building the Event Query Loop block this way gives it tremendous flexibility, while still keeping things simple.

To learn more about the Event Query Loop block, check out this post:

Heads up! You’ll need to manually replace the Events List block with the Event Query Loop block

Because the Event Query Loop block has all the features of the Events List block, we’ll be removing the Events List block in later versions of EventKoi.

There will be a one version overlap between the two blocks to give you time to replace the Events List block with the new Event Query block.

To learn more about this, read this post:

Event Data Block

I’ve already talked about the Event Data block within the context of the Event Query Loop block, but I think it deserves its own section too.

While the Event Data block is the most important piece that makes up the Event Query Loop block, it also works by itself.

You can insert the Event Data block to any template, post, page or custom post type and select which event source you want it to pull the data from.

So if you wanted to build your own event page or create a post mentioning multiple events, you can now do it with the Event Data block.

You can also do it with our shortcodes and meta keys, but this gives you a third way to add event data into your site. Choose the one you like best!

Learn more about the Event Data block in our documentation:

Event Series page for recurring events

Previously, recurring events only had pages for each individual instance. There was no page for the overall event. Now, we’ve built the Event Series page, which is an overarching page for your recurring event.

Here are some ways you can think of it:

For concerts: Th Event Series page would be the main page for the overall concert, which talks about what the concert is about, the artist and more. While the individual recurring instances would talk about the date, time and location of the individual performance.

For a children’s camp: The Event Series page would talk about the overall camp. While the individual recurring instances might talk about the program for each day.

For yoga classes: The Event Series page would share the overall difficulty level of the class, what type of yoga is being taught, and the bio of the instructor. While the individual recurring instances would share the time, date and location of each class (while also repeating the difficulty level, yoga type, and instructor bio).

Here’s how the Event Series page looks like out of the box using the Twenty Twenty-Five theme:

Check out this doc to learn more about the Event Series page and how to customise the Event Series template:

What’s next?

EventKoi is still new and we have lots more building to do. We’ve done a lot of research and heard feedback from many of you (thank you so much for sharing). Here’s what we’re focusing on next:

Onboarding wizard

As the plugin gets bigger and more complex, we need to make it easier for new users to quickly get their bearings.

This is where the onboarding wizard comes in. We’ve already started building this. Here’s a sneak peek 👀

Page builder integrations

We’ve already started work on an Elementor integration. So far we’ve built the ability to add event data into Elementor pages via dynamic tags. And we’re in the process of building calendar and event data widgets.

This should be in the upcoming release.

In the future, we plan on integrating with Elementor forms so that you can build event submission forms in your page builder and turn those into events.

Custom fields

This will be our next big feature, which will take awhile to build.

Everyone’s event is different. A Summer Camp might want a custom “Packing List” field, while a bar might want a custom field to highlight which events have age restrictions.

To handle this, we want to make it easy for you to add your own custom fields to your events.

And of course, the custom fields can be displayed on the frontend using shortcodes, meta keys, the Event Data block, and even our page builder integrations like Elementor.

That’s it for the November wrap-up

I hope you’re as excited as we are for the future of EventKoi.

If you think we’ve missed the mark anywhere or have an idea for a feature, please don’t hesitate to get in touch. We’d love to hear from you.