It’s with great pride that we release v1.0.0 of our latest plugin, Past Events Extension.

Past Events Extension is the ideal addition to your event or conference website if it’s powered by the excellent Tyler Events WordPress theme.

And whilst you might think you’re site is running just fine, what if you’re event is in its second or third year? Shouldn’t you be making the most of previous sessions?

Videos and photos of past events are key assets when tempting future sponsors

These past events and sessions can provide valuable content for your site. Perhaps you have links to the presentations on slideshare, photos of the speakers in actions or the sponsorship booths, or even video or audio recordings of the sessions themselves. These assets can serve several key purposes, if you allow them;

• Useful content for attendees who were unable to attend.
• A resource for the speakers to link back to.
• A sponsorship sales aid, showing potential sponsors what they’re gaining from being a part of your next event

This is where Past Events Extension comes in. It adds an extra status to your sessions, allowing them to be saved as a “Past Session”. This means that they remain an post on your site, but will not appear within Tyler’s built in schedule listings.

With the free version of the plugin these past sessions can be listed in a predefined page, with no coding required. It’s that simple.

This can be enhanced further with the Pro version. With extra meta boxes on the single session edit screen you can add session assets – video/audio links and links to slides. These assets are then automatically included within each single session page.

The Pro version also includes a WordPress shortcode that can be used to list sessions. Being a shortcode this means it can be included in any WordPress post or page, giving rise to the option to say, for example, having WordPress pages covering a past event each. Each of these pages could list a recap of the event, maybe a video montage, and then a listing of the sessions from that time (through the configurable Past Events Extension shortcode) followed by a closing section with that year’s sponsors logos.

It’s easy to see how an event site can take on a whole new life when previous events and sessions are able to be re-used. And if you’re running a not-for-profit community event then please get in touch, as there’s a 50% yearly discount available for application.

Of course if you’re unfamiliar with the Tyler WordPress theme, then we very much recommend checking it out.