MultiStage Event Planner – Multi-Track Conference & Congress Schedule

MultiStage Event Planner turns your WordPress site into the program page of a professional conference, congress or trade fair. It renders a multi-track schedule grid — stages side by side, time on the left, every session exactly where it belongs — the format attendees expect from a serious event program. Generic event calendars list one thing after another. Multi-track programs don't work that way: your visitors need to see what runs where, at the same time. That is what this plugin does, natively in WordPress — no external platform, no per-attendee fees, no iframe embeds. MultiStage Event Planner powers the congress program of BIM World MUNICH, an industry congress with multiple parallel stages. The multi-track schedule grid

• Parallel stages/tracks displayed side by side in one timetable — as many as your program needs
• Day tabs — one labeled, localized tab per event day, so multi-day programs are one tap apart
• Sticky toolbar — date, day tabs, search and filters stay visible while visitors scroll long programs
• Color-coded session types (keynote, panel, workshop, …) your attendees learn in seconds
• Session details in a modal: times, description, stage, tags and linked speakers
• Responsive — on phones the grid scrolls horizontally with an always-visible scroll bar; single-stage days automatically use the full width

Speaker profiles Every session links its speakers. One click opens the profile: square-cropped photo, role and company, bio, and every session the speaker appears in. Speakers are a custom post type — maintained like any other WordPress content. Search & filters Let visitors search across session titles, descriptions, speakers and tags, and filter the grid by tag — the schedule updates in place. Session videos (Gold) Attach a YouTube, Vimeo or HTML5 video to a session. Visitors see a play icon in the grid and watch the recording directly in the session modal — ideal for hybrid events and post-event content. Built for

• Congress and conference programs with parallel tracks
• Trade fair stage programs and side events
• Summits, expos, corporate events and festivals
• Agencies building event sites for clients

How it works Create your fair, stages, session types and sessions in wp-admin, then place the schedule anywhere with a shortcode: [msepStages fair="123" display_search="true" display_filter="true" hide_empty_stages="true"]

• hide_empty_stages — show only stages that have sessions on the selected day
• display_search / display_filter — toggle the search box and tag filter
• display_video / display_print — video icons and print view (Gold)

Privacy The schedule renders entirely from your WordPress database. The plugin sends no attendee data to external services. Website & demo: multistage-event-planner.com

1. In wp-admin go to Plugins → Add New, search for MultiStage Event Planner, install and activate it.
2. Create a Fair (your event) with its date range.
3. Create Stages and Event Types (session categories with colors).
4. Add Events (sessions) with times, a stage, a type and optional speakers.
5. Place the schedule on any page with [msepStages fair="YOUR_FAIR_ID"].

Requires WordPress 5.6+ and PHP 8.0+.

1.4.3

• New display_day_nav="false" shortcode attribute (and "Display day navigation arrows" block option) removes the prev/next arrows from the calendar toolbar — with day tabs they are redundant, and the filter button moves to the right edge
• The "Event Video" meta box never appeared on the event edit screen (Gold): it was hooked to the wrong post type name, so the video URL field was impossible to find
• Settings page shortcode examples showed display-search/display-filter/display-video with hyphens; the shortcode only reads the underscore variants (display_search etc.)

1.4.2

• Removing all presenters from an event and saving now clears them; previously the removed presenters stayed in the database and reappeared

1.4.1

• Session video icon in the schedule returned HTTP 401 for logged-out visitors (the /video endpoint required an editor capability); it now uses the same same-origin check as the event modal, so public visitors can play videos

1.4.0

• Day tabs above the calendar: one labeled, localized tab per event day (weekday + date) — switching days no longer hides behind the arrows
• Sticky calendar header: date, search, filter, arrows, day tabs and scroll bar stay visible while scrolling through long programs
• Horizontal scroll bar above the schedule grid, always visible and synced both ways with the table — scroll right from anywhere
• New hide_empty_stages="true" shortcode attribute: show only stages that have events on the selected day
• Video play icon on schedule events with a video URL (Gold, display_video="true" shortcode attribute)
• Video from the event's video-URL field now embeds in the event detail modal (Gold)
• The "Load Video" button on single event pages is now functional (Gold)
• Square presenter photo size (400×400, cropped from the top so heads stay visible) used in the presenter modal — regenerate thumbnails for existing uploads
• Video/audio no longer keeps playing in the background after closing a modal (Vimeo, YouTube, HTML5)
• Filter tags are sorted alphabetically regardless of the database collation
• Search now also matches tag names, the event details text and the short title, and no longer breaks on presenters without a last name
• Presenter photos in the modal no longer crop half the head off on landscape uploads
• Tested up to WordPress 7.0
• Developer tooling: wp-env dev environment, consolidated CI (Pint, Jest, Playwright), release pipeline to Freemius + wordpress.org, one-time Pint format pass

1.3.4

• Translation loading now uses the WordPress-native mechanism (no explicit text domain loading)

1.3.3

• Removed explicit text domain loading to address wordpress.org review feedback

1.3.2

• Declared Freemius org-compliant mode for the wordpress.org build

1.3.1

• Added German translation (de_DE)
• Fixed text domain loading
• Presenter backend improvements Full changelog: https://github.com/plattenbrand/pb-event-calendar/blob/master/CHANGELOG.md