Linking/Redirecting to the Next Upcoming Event in a Recurring Series

[Steve Froehlich]

Hello,

I’m working on my church’s website. We’d like to avoid having to update the same information in multiple places, so I’m trying to find a way to link directly to one instance of a recurring event, but I’d like that instance to always be the next upcoming one. Is this possible?

Rather than creating static pages, which might be hard to keep updated since we rely on volunteers, we’d like to be able to link directly to the events for the Sunday service and a few other regular meetings to provide info and directions.

If not a link, is it possible to create a menu item that redirects to the next upcoming event in a series?

Is the only other option to link to the /all page of that recurring event?

I’d share my URL, but it’s currently set up to be a landing page unless logged in. If necessary, I can disable that.

Thank you so much,
Melody

[Geoff]

That’s a good question!

The only link that will give you something close to what you’re looking for is the link to all recurring instances in that series. So, for example, if you have a recurring event, you could get that link by following this pattern:

[your-site]/event/[event-slug]/all

That will display all events in the series including, unfortunately, past events as well.

Another option might be to categorize that event and provide a link to that specific category instead, which will only include the upcoming instances of the event:

[your-site]/events/category/[category-slug]

Let me know if that will work for you and I’d be happy to answer any follow-up questions as well. 🙂

Cheers!
Geoff

[Steve Froehlich]

Hi Geoff,

Thank you! I think the category idea might work for some of the regular events! Actually, I think I might use tags that way (like [my-site]/events/tag/home-fellowship-group/).

A static page is better for the Sunday service info though, but it would be nice for it to look like other events. So one last idea…any chance it’s possible to create an event without a date, just a time?

So the title could be “Sunday Service”
And instead of saying, “July 12, 9:30am—11:00am”
It would just say, “9:30am—11:00am”

Then I could use a direct URL to a single event like [my-site]/event/sunday-service/

Just a thought…it didn’t seem to work.

Thanks so much,
Melody

[Steve Froehlich]

ooo…I just noticed a problem when I do the tags though. I can open a new thread if this is another topic. The tag page lists the next upcoming event with that tag (so July 12), which is great! However, when I click “find out more” under the event, it takes me to an event in March of 2016! I just checked, and the exact same thing happens in the main calendar too!

[Geoff]

Oh good, I’m glad the Category/Tags options will do the trick! I wish that it was possible to publish an event without a date, but sadly the date is required and even pre-fills for you with the current date when first opening a new post.

The issue with the link is definitely worth opening another thread for — thanks for offering to do that, by the way! Please do go ahead and do that. In the meantime, here are a few things you can check/try:

• Try flushing your site’s permalinks. You can do this by going to Settings > Permalinks from the WordPress dashboard and simply clicking the save changes button.
• Check if you have any caching plugins installed. If so, try emptying the site’s cache and check again (might be worth clearing your own browser’s cache as well). Sometimes hosts add caching to sites, so you may want to check on that end as well.
• This one is not my favorite, but try deleting the event and publishing a new one to see if the issue goes away.
• Lastly, be sure to try these troubleshooting steps — I know that anyone on our team who fields your thread will certainly appreciate that you’ve done so in advance of opening it. 🙂

Are you all good on the original question about linking to the next upcoming event of a recurring series? I’d be happy to answer any other questions you have around that.

Cheers!
Geoff

[Steve Froehlich]

Yes, thank you so much! I will try some of those things before posting a new thread.

Thanks again,
Melody

[Geoff]

Awesome and my pleasure! Thanks again for reaching out and we’ll see you in the next thread. 🙂

Cheers,
Geoff

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