is there a way to customize event dates to omit some days?

[Gwen]

I run an arts blog, New York Irish Arts. I would like to be able to submit, and allow users to submit, events that have longer runs like plays, but that do not play on some days of the week. It would also be great to be able to put in matinees.

[Barry]

Hi Gwen,

I’m not 100% sure I understand – do you mean you want customers to be able to submit recurring events (something that takes place every second Saturday for 5 weeks, for example)?

If so that’s completely possible, but you do need Events Calendar PRO to be installed since that is what provides recurring event support.

[Barry]

Hi Gwen – I guess you don’t need any further help on this one so I’ll close this thread.

[Barry]

Hi! I’m re-opening per your email – if you can provide a little more detail we’d be happy to help out here 🙂

[Gwen]

OK, the problem I am having is that there IS a way to customize… don’t know why nobody told me, but some theatres figured it out. They set it to recur weekly, put an end date, and clicked which days.
The problem is that it would NOT end on the day they put in. So for example a theatre put in a show to end on June 30, showing Wed, Thurs, Fri. The calendar had it going continuously until the end of time, and not only that, it replicated it so it would show up 10-12 times per day. Right now the only fix is to NOT do the custom recur and just have it daily with people having to check the link to see what the days are (i.e., open the event), which means it’s showing up on days it’s not actually running. Not only that, of course, skilled marketers are putting it in the way it ought to work, which it isn’t, and I have to spend time going in to clean it up. the site is newyorkirisharts.com. And while it might be good to have solutions posted here I would really appreciate someone looking at my site (and I don’t want to post password here) because this is quite obviously a bug.

[Gwen]

and yes, I have PRO.

[Barry]

OK – so I want to make sure I’m fully understanding the problem first of all.

Is this the sort of recurring event pattern that you/the people submitting events are setting up? If so it seems to work for me, with the correct days being populated in June and nothing past that – July was completely clear for example.

So in your case is the recurring event pattern of the same type (if so can you provide a screenshot just so I can double check) and can you also link to an example where the events continue on until the end of time?

Thanks!

[Gwen]

This reply is private.

[Gwen]

since i just posted that The WEir has gone viral on my site. Now it’s showing about 20 times each day, and pushed everything else off. Please look at this asap because I have to stop the recurrence ASAP or the calendar willb e useless. Again, originally,. there were THREE entries, not hundreds. There should NEVER be more than two shows in a day and she correctly set them to recur. And it’s crashing my site.

[Barry]

OK, so one thing I note is that the event itself is set to span a very long period and that, in combination with the recurring event pattern, is at the heart of this.

Note also that it doesn’t in fact go on until the end of time – if you skip forward to January 2014 for example you will find the calendar is clear.

So let’s break this down and look at the first instance of the event you referenced above:

– It begins on May 15 and ends on July 7
– That’s a span of around 56 days
– It also recurs each week (I’m guessing on 3 days each week?)
– That means for every day of the week it recurs we’re going to add a further set of 56 event entries to each day on month view, hence the apparently huge number of events

Really I think The Events Calendar is just doing what you are telling it to, though … and probably the issue is how you have set up those events.

Can you look back at my example settings? Note that the start and end date are the same, only the time is different, and that is probably what you need to do here.

To attach screenshots (or share code etc) please use an external service such as droplr.com and paste the link back in to the forum.

[Gwen]

I just sent you a screenshot of my calendar. It is showing more than 10 events of The Weir per day! This is NOT what it is meant to do! it should show one show of The Weir on certain evenings and two on matinee days. Becasue you don’t have a way to set it up in one event to do matinees and skip days, the organizer set it up three times. And why is it going until January when it was told to stop in July? How can you say this is what we told it to do? If she couldn’t figure it out and I couldn’t this is a bug in your software. Please tell me exactly how we’re meant to enter something that recurs weekly for six weeks (not an extraordinarily long time if you’re going to have recurrence at all) and skips some days. If you can’t set something to happen every week for six weeks without it breaking down, then you really don’t offer weekly recurrences, do you? Why is it oging until January? In the way she did it the start and end date are ALSO the same and the time is different. NOTHING we’ve done should have it populate like this. You need to tell me how we should do it so I can tell organizers, or it makes a mockery of the whole idea of a community calendar.

[Gwen]

by the way, the organizer who posted this has posted on other sites successfully. So if it is the way we are entering it somehow that’s making it go six months past when it’s supposed to stop, and repopulating so that instead of at most two shows per day it’s showing dozens, then it’s the way you explain it. If this can’t be fixed, I’ll have to find another calendar. There are other services that work.

[Gwen]

Finally, if we’re on Month view, it’s showing one month. Why should Monday show 56 events? Your explanation doesn’t make sense to me., It’s not a generic month, but a specific month. The Weir isn’t showing 56 times on any one day.

[Gwen]

I expect an answer as soon as possible. merely telling me it’s somehow my fault is not acceptable.

[Gwen]

I just looked at your link. So if there’s a recurrence, it has to end on the same day initially? Is that what makes it work? That is very confusing. But I will try that. I need to figure out some way to tell people to do it that way though because two smart publicists got it wrong.

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