Does It Matter Which WordPress Theme I Use for my Events Site?
A carefully-chosen theme is super important when creating an events site. Not only should your theme be visually appealing to display your events, but it also needs extensive functionality and flexibility.
Choosing a theme also depends on your skill and coding level. For example, are you looking for a page builder or something easily customizable?
There can be an overwhelming amount of choices when it comes to WordPress themes. Before jumping into rounds of trial and error with dozens of themes, you should use a set list of criteria to examine themes before applying them to an events website.
Here are some questions to consider when choosing a WordPress theme for your events site.
How to Pick Your WordPress Theme
How dependable is the theme author?
Take a peek at who created the theme. How long has the author been established? How many ratings does the theme have? And how often is the theme updated? Some independent theme authors will not maintain their theme for long past the initial release date. This means that the theme will likely break when the WordPress ecosystem evolves. Avoid this hassle by doing a bit of up-front research about the theme author to make sure it’ll keep being updated after installation.
How easy is it to customize?
Next, think about what you’d like to customize and how easy it might be to make those changes. For example, will you need to know coding languages such as CSS to make the styling changes you’re after? Is the chosen theme compatible with the “must-have” plugins or page builders from the WordPress ecosystem (such as WooCommerce?) Does the theme have Gutenberg support for block editing? Look for a theme that’s flexible enough to support your customization goals and lets you reposition elements to support the design you have in mind.
Is it compliant and accessible?
A big question to ask when looking at themes is if they’ll match up with compliance and accessibility standards for websites. First, make sure the theme is GDPR-ready. The GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) is the privacy law your website needs to follow to protect personal data of European Union residents. Check out this handy checklist when looking for GDPR compliance in a theme.
Next, review WordPress’ Accessibility Coding Standards. These standards expect that every plugin and theme created for WordPress meet accessibility compliance. However, not every theme meets that standard. For instance, themes marked as “Accessibility Ready” mean that the theme hits the minimum standards and may need additional plugins to meet every accessibility standard.
Does it have multilingual support?
A good multilingual theme should be what’s called “translation-ready.” This means that the texts used in the theme haven’t been hard-coded and can be interchanged based on the contents of a translation file. Themes that are translation-ready display all their strings via WordPress’ gettext functions, which fetch the output from the current translation file that’s in use.
Also check that the theme has RTL (right to left) support. This feature is needed if your events site needs to be translated into Arabic, Aramaic, Urdu, Hebrew or other languages that use right-to-left scripts. The presence of RTL support is a good sign that the WordPress theme you’re considering does take multilingual content seriously.
Finally, check that the chosen theme will work with a multilingual plugin, such as WPML, Polylang, or Weglot.
How does it perform?
Is your chosen theme lightweight and performance-oriented? A “heavy” theme adds weight through extra code or unnecessary features and slows your site. Quick load times can improve the user experience and boost your visibility in search engines.
Next, check how mobile-friendly your theme is. With over 60% of Google searches happening on a mobile device, mobile performance is an important factor. If your site reads well on mobile devices, it’s going to perform better in search results. These days, it’s probably rarer for a theme not to be mobile-friendly, but, double-check that it displays well on any screen size.
In addition, see how SEO-friendly your theme is. If organic traffic is important for helping folks find your events, then look for a WordPress theme that’s better for SEO. Plenty of themes, like Kadence and Astra, are built specifically to help elevate SEO.
What’s the support like?
Finally, make sure the theme is well-supported. Active support, as well as documented user guides, should come standard. Take a look at support forums, if available, and see what’s being discussed there. Make sure you feel comfortable with the level of support and upkeep of your chosen theme. Also, review the pricing policy. Is there a one-time fee or a yearly subscription? Keep in mind that ongoing, premium support can make a yearly paid theme worth it.
Build an Events Website with Kadence + The Events Calendar
A theme we love that meets all the above criteria is Kadence. They integrate easily with The Events Calendar and feature lots of WordPress Customizer options and easy-to-build custom layouts.
Want to see it in action? Check out how an events website hosted on Kadence looks and performs on a demo site. Or, request a backend demo and add your own theme to test how an events website using The Events Calendar works with your chosen theme. Happy theme searching!