WordPress plugin for trade fairs, events & festivals
One program. On the website, on the phone, at every hall door.
Convention Schedule & Program Planner turns hundreds of program items on many stages into one plan that visitors understand at a glance: as tiles, a list, a timetable grid, a live ticker and, with the add-on, as a door sign outside every room. Everything is maintained in one place.
All demos on this page are the real plugin: original scripts and stylesheets with a fictional event. At the top you choose the moment from which the demo clock runs.
[event_monitor venue="Main Hall"] · Add-on
LiveWhat’s on now and what’s next, with a countdown and no page reload
CancelledCancelled items stay visible and clearly marked, so nobody ends up in front of an empty hall
0accounts needed. Favorites live in the browser and move to the phone by QR code
Door signWith the add-on, every hall shows what’s on and what’s next, even if the Wi-Fi fails
Front end · Visitors
What your visitors see
Each view is a shortcode you place on any page. Try the filters, search, favorites and the pop-up with hall plan and related sessions.
The BASIC and PRO tags show the plan a feature starts in. Without a tag, it is included in every plan.Compare plans
Favorites without an account
Tap the heart, done. The selection stays in the browser, moves to the phone by QR code and stays in sync across all views.
BASIC
Color by venue or category
Every room gets a color and an image. Colors are inherited from the parent term, and the text color adapts automatically.
Search & filters
Live search across all days, multi-select for venues and categories, “Upcoming only”. Three filter layouts and a floating search bar for phones.
Detail page or pop-up
Image, time, venue, language, price, ticket, several contributors with role and links. You choose whether a page of its own or a pop-up opens.
BASIC
Related sessions
The plugin finds repeats, book signings and workshops by the same person on its own. Past sessions are hidden while the event is running.
BASIC
iCal with reminder
Single sessions or the whole favorites list as one file, with an advance alarm and a QR code to jump to the smartphone.
BASIC
Hall plan
With the exhibitor plugin, the detail view opens a zoomable SVG plan with the room highlighted in color. In the demo, use the map button in the pop-up.
BASIC
Two widgets
Highlight card and mini ticker for sidebar and footer. Both load their own files, even on pages without a calendar.
PRO
Full screen & app
Program, live ticker and speakers open as their own full-screen pages. On smartphones and tablets the app mode shows a bar at the bottom: program, speakers, map, exhibitors. A custom info page can serve as the start page. You set logo, colours and labels – together with the exhibitor plugin.
BASIC
Timetable grid
All program items of a day in a grid by room and time, with filters and a jump to the details.
BASIC
Live ticker
What’s on now and next: it updates itself, also as a full-screen page for info screens and phones.
BASIC
Speaker directory
Search, role filter, grid or list – automatically a list on phones. Optionally grouped by role, which then disappears from the cards.
Add-on · Digital Signage
Room Monitor & Kiosk Hub
Every TV, tablet or TV stick becomes a door sign: the current program item large, the next ones below. Images, colors and texts come from the calendar, so nothing is maintained twice.
Layout
Shortcode
Tip: “Cancellations” at “Sat 13:40” shows both cases side by side. Hall B: an editing clinic replaces the cancelled audiobook production; it is shown large and the cancellation stays in the list as a notice. Studio: the workshop is cancelled without a replacement, so the monitor shows “Cancelled” large.
On the minute
The timing follows the system clock. Two screens side by side never switch seconds apart.
Works offline
All sessions in the preload window are kept in the browser. If the network fails or a page cache freezes, the display still switches on time.
Split screen
Several rooms on one display. Each panel is drawn like a full monitor and scaled down, so nothing overflows.
Kiosk-ready
Full screen with wake lock; mouse pointer and buttons hide themselves. Also runs as an installed web app.
[event_monitor_hub]
One start screen for all devices
Nobody types long addresses into a TV browser on site. The hub shows one tile per location. Tap “Set as default” once and the device starts its display by itself after every restart.
Create one WordPress page with [event_monitor] per display.
Enter the locations in the settings, one line per location.
Start the browser in kiosk mode with the hub page as start page.
Choose location and display, tap “Set as default”.
After a power cut, the display starts after a 5-second countdown.
With a saved default, the countdown starts after the restart.
Together with the exhibitors
Program and exhibitors know each other
With the “Event Exhibitor Manager” plugin, both sides connect: program items show their exhibitor, speakers their booths, and every room finds its hall plan. Without the exhibitor plugin the calendar runs on its own as usual, and the fields for it don’t appear at all.
PRO
Exhibitor on the program item
The detail view shows the linked exhibitor as a card of its own with logo, type and country. One click opens the exhibitor pop-up right from the program.
PRO
Booths on the speaker page
Anyone who speaks and exhibits has both on their page: sessions and exhibitor booths, split into upcoming and past, even across several years.
PRO
Company logo for speakers
Speaker tiles can show the linked exhibitor’s logo instead of the company name, and the detail view adds it next to the name. Without a logo, the name stays.
PRO
Hall plan for the room
The calendar takes the plan from the exhibitor plugin and highlights the room in color, zoomable in the detail view and in the timetable. On this page, use the map button in the pop-up. The other way round, a click on the room in the hall plan shows that room’s program.
PRO
Link by search
In the edit screen of program item and speaker, you search for the exhibitor by name or ID. For the speaker, it then appears as the company, maintained in one place only.
There, both plugins work together in a live demo with the same Seitenwind Convention.
Admin · Editorial team
What your team gets
This is the plugin’s WordPress admin with the same sample data. You can navigate, edit and save. Saved changes appear immediately in the front-end demos above.
Master Editor: change a start time, “Save all changes”, then look at the timetable above
Settings: set the color source to “Category” and save
Text & Labels: rename “LIVE”
Dashboard: “Check now” opens the error list
API: “Send request”, then send “as an external application” without a key to see the 401 response, then create a key and use it
The edit screen is shown here in the classic view. In the block editor, the same fields appear as a meta box below the content.
Roles and permissions Authors maintain their entries, the event team runs the program, administrators the design.
Area
Author
Editor
Administrator
Create program items, edit your own
Yes
Yes
Yes
Manage and delete others’ program items
No
Yes
Yes
Manage venues, categories and roles
Yes
Yes
Yes
Dashboard and data quality
No
Yes
Yes
Master Editor (bulk editing)
No
Yes
Yes
CSV import and full export
No
Yes
Yes
Help and shortcode generator
Yes
Yes
Yes
Design, colors and texts
No
No
Yes
Live ticker, security and public API
No
No
Yes
Technology
Cleanly built, open to extensions
Loads only what the page needs. Styles and scripts are split into modules. A monitor page doesn’t load a calendar script.
Cache-proof. Time-critical displays calculate in the browser and sync in the background, every 15 minutes by default.
No “phone home”. No external trackers, no visitor accounts. Favorite clicks are counted anonymously with spam protection.
Secure. Escaping, prepared queries, nonces and permission checks on every action that changes data.
Translatable..po/.mo included, German and English supplied. Every term can also be renamed in the admin.
Open interface. A public REST API delivers the program to apps, partner websites and info screens: read-only, with an API key per partner, rate limiting, ETag and an OpenAPI description. The data format is only ever extended, never rebuilt.
Your data stays. Uninstalling only deletes data if you explicitly switch that on.
// Override the detail page in your theme
your-theme/convention-schedule-planner/single-event.php
// Override the add-on’s monitor template
your-theme/convention-schedule-room-monitor/monitor-view.php
// Extension points for your own add-ons
ec_settings_design_cards
ec_settings_design_save
ec_label_structure
ec_help_tab_sections
ec_shortcode_generator_types
ec_settings_backup_excluded_keys
// Public API for third-party applications
GET /wp-json/convention-schedule-planner/public/v1/events?parent=1000
X-EC-API-Key: ecpk_…
// Requirements
WordPress 6.1+ tested up to 7.1
PHP 7.4+
Full screen & app mode
Your event in app style on the smartphone
On smartphones, the full-screen view behaves like an app: a navigation bar at the bottom leads through program, speakers, map and exhibitors, and your own start page welcomes your guests. It remains a web page in the browser, with no app store download needed.
No App Store RequiredWorks immediately in the browser of any mobile device, without download or installation. The full-screen view handles just like an app.
Shared Settings Across Both PluginsColors, bottom bar and landing page are configured centrally and synchronize automatically between Calendar and Exhibitor Manager.
QR Codes for Booklets & Roll-upsThe integrated shortcode generator creates print-ready QR codes that direct attendees straight to the mobile app.
Optional PWA with Home Screen IconWith a few files on your server, the full-screen view becomes a PWA: visitors add it to their home screen with its own icon.Guide in the help →
Packages
Two plugins, one data set
The calendar works on its own. The add-on requires it and plugs into its settings, texts, help, shortcode generator and backup.
Main plugin · Version 2.0.0
Convention Schedule & Program Planner
The program for your website, from the tile overview to the live ticker, with all the tools for the editorial team.
Calendar with tiles and list, timetable grid, compact card
Live ticker with full screen, wake lock and zoom control
Speaker directory with its own detail view
Favorites with QR transfer, iCal export
Master Editor, dashboard, CSV import and export
Text and label manager, shortcode generator, settings backup
Public REST API with API keys, tester and OpenAPI description
Two sidebar widgets
WordPress 6.1 or newer · PHP 7.4 or newer
Add-on · Version 1.0.0
Room Monitor & Kiosk Hub
Digital signage from your program, for every screen on site.
Room monitor per room, as a split screen or overview
Offline operation with switching on the minute
Full screen, wake lock, mouse pointer hides itself
Kiosk hub with default display and autostart countdown
Its own settings card, text group and help in the calendar
Its own delete option that never touches the calendar
Requires Convention Schedule & Program Planner 2.0.0 or newer
Frequently asked questions
Do visitors need an account for favorites?
No. The favorites list lives in the visitor’s browser. Anyone planning on a computer transfers it to the phone by QR code. No personal data is created.
Does it work with caching plugins?
Yes. Ticker and monitors calculate the time in the browser and switch on time, even if a page cache has frozen the page. Syncing with the server runs separately.
What happens if the Wi-Fi fails on site?
The room monitor keeps all sessions in the preload window in the browser, 14 days by default. It keeps switching on the minute and fetches new data as soon as the connection is back.
How do hundreds of program items get into the system?
By CSV. Columns are recognized by name, regardless of upper or lower case. The import recognizes existing entries by their event ID and updates them, and it copies images from external addresses into the media library.
Can an app or a partner website take over the program?
Yes, through the public REST API. It delivers sessions, venues, categories and speakers in a fixed format, read-only. You create one API key per partner, see who retrieves data how often, and revoke individual keys without affecting the others.
Can I change terms such as “Speaker” or “Venue”?
Yes, under Settings → Text & Labels, without code. Empty fields fall back to the supplied translation.
Is my data kept if I remove the plugin?
Yes, as long as you don’t explicitly switch on deletion. Calendar and add-on have separate switches, and neither deletes the other’s data.
Is the demo on this page real?
Yes. Calendar, timetable, ticker, monitor, hub, Master Editor and Shortcode Generator run with the plugin's original scripts and stylesheets. Only the WordPress server is simulated; the data is fictional.
Documentation & Support
Do you have further questions or need technical details?