The Events Calendar shortcodes, and a free alternative.
The Events Calendar’s [tribe_events] shortcode only works with Events Calendar Pro, its documentation says, so on a site without Pro it won’t show a calendar. Calendar²’s shortcodes are free: [calendar2] puts a calendar on any page and [calendar2_upcoming] lists what’s next. Below is every attribute they take, with examples to copy.
The Events Calendar’s free plugin shows your calendar on its own events page. To put that calendar inside another page or post, its documentation (updated 21 October 2026, checked 25 October 2026) says the [tribe_events] shortcode “is only available with Events Calendar Pro”, and that Pro must be active for it to work. That applies to the month, list and day views too. Pro is sold in the Pro plan at $399 a year (Liquid Web’s plan page, checked 25 October 2026).
So if [tribe_events] isn’t working, check that Events Calendar Pro is installed and active first. We didn’t find a shortcode for the free version documented on that page.
Calendar²’s shortcodes are in the free plugin, with no licence key. If you’re moving from The Events Calendar, the switching guide covers the move, and further down we cover the [tribe_events] shortcodes already in your pages.
[calendar2] shows the same month, list or day view as your /events/ page, inside any page or post. Moving between months or days happens in place, without changing the page’s address. Every attribute is optional.
[calendar2]
view- Which view to show. Left out, it uses the Default view in Calendar²’s settings (month unless you’ve changed it). Anything else falls back to month.
date- Where the view starts. Month takes a month (
2026-12); day and list take a day (2026-12-05). The list runs from that day to the end of the planning window. Left out, it’s today. A date in the wrong shape for the view, such as a full date on month, makes the shortcode print nothing. search- Only events whose title or content contains these words. Trimmed to 100 characters.
category- Only events in this Calendar² category, including its child categories. A category that doesn’t exist shows no events.
condense- In list and day views, show each repeating event once, at its next date, with “+N more dates”. Overrides the site setting either way; it has no effect on month view. See repeating events.
Examples
A list of events in the “workshops” category:
[calendar2 view="list" category="workshops"]
December 2026 as a month grid:
[calendar2 view="month" date="2026-12"]
One day, for a festival programme:
[calendar2 view="day" date="2026-12-05"]
A list with each repeating event shown once:
[calendar2 view="list" condense="yes"]
Events that mention “quiz”:
[calendar2 view="list" search="quiz"]
[calendar2_upcoming] lists the next few event dates: each one’s title, linked to the event, and its date and time, with a “View all events” link to your list view. Events already under way are included. Each date of a repeating event is its own line. It suits a sidebar, a footer or a home page.
[calendar2_upcoming]
limit- How many dates to list. Numbers outside 1 to 50 are brought inside it.
category- Only events in this category, including its child categories.
featured- Only events marked as featured.
Examples
The next ten dates:
[calendar2_upcoming limit="10"]
The next three featured events in “talks”:
[calendar2_upcoming limit="3" category="talks" featured="yes"]
To change its markup, copy templates/parts/upcoming.php from the plugin to your-theme/calendar2/parts/upcoming.php and edit the copy. Events marked hidden are left out of both shortcodes, as they are of every listing.
Once you’ve switched and The Events Calendar is no longer active, [tribe_events] shows the Calendar² calendar, so pages you built with it keep a calendar on them. Calendar² reads these attributes and ignores the rest:
view- Kept as it is. Photo, week, summary and map become the list view, because Calendar² doesn’t have those views.
category / cat- Becomes category. From a comma list, only the first category is used.
date- Kept, and reshaped to suit the view (a month for month view, a day for the others).
keyword / tribe-bar-search- Becomes search.
Other attributes, such as featured, past, tag, venue or exclude-category, are dropped without a warning, so a page that relied on one may show more events than before. It’s worth replacing those with [calendar2] when you have a moment.
The other tribe shortcodes show nothing
These have no Calendar² equivalent. Rather than print the raw shortcode on your page, Calendar² renders each as nothing. The dry run lists the pages that use them, so you can replace them before you switch.
[tribe_events_list][tribe_event_inline][tribe_mini_calendar][tribe_this_week][tribe_featured_venue][tribe_event_countdown][tribe_events_venue][tribe_events_organizer][tribe-user-event-confirmations][tribe_community_events]
While The Events Calendar is still active, all of these belong to it and Calendar² leaves them alone.
- Check the date matches the view. Month needs
2026-12; list and day need2026-12-05. A mismatch prints nothing. - Check the category slug under Calendar² → Categories. A category that doesn’t exist shows an empty calendar.
- If the shortcode shows as plain text, Calendar² isn’t active on that site.
[calendar2_submit]is the public submission form from Calendar² Pro. Without Pro, visitors see nothing and people who can edit the page see a short note.- If you’ve just added events and a page cache is on, clear it.
Calendar² 1.1.0 has no blocks of its own. In the block editor, add WordPress’s Shortcode block and paste the shortcode in; in the classic editor or a widget, paste it straight in.
For the rest of the plugin, see Calendar², and for how repeating dates work, the repeating events guide.
- Calendar² 1.1.0: the shortcodes, attributes and behaviour above are read from the plugin’s code, 25 October 2026.
- The Events Calendar shortcodes: calendar embed shortcodes documentation, updated 21 October 2026, checked 25 October 2026.
- The Events Calendar plans: Liquid Web, checked 25 October 2026.
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