Hi Peter. Thanks for your question about our Filter Bar plugin.
1)
Since there’s a pre-defined number of islands, it sounds like Event Categories or Event Tags would be a great way to leverage Filter Bar for your events.
Or you could use Custom Fields added by our PRO add-on if you really don’t want to use Categories or Tags.
2)
You said:
When I attempt to use “Find Events:Near” I get no results.
That functionality is added to the “Tribe Bar” by our PRO add-on, for which I don’t see a purchase in the account you posted from. If you did purchase it, please make sure you’re using the latest version and then post a new thread from the account with the current license for PRO.
Please let me know if I can be of further assistance on this thread.