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Calendar Events

Calendar Events are created and managed in Planning Center Calendar and synced into GatherCMS for display on your church's website. All event data is read-only in GatherCMS — to make any changes, update the event in Planning Center and the sync will reflect them automatically.

Understanding the Event List​

  • Navigate to Calendar > Events in the Staff Portal to view your event list.
  • The list shows only events with a future next start time. Events with no upcoming instances are not shown.
  • Each row displays the event Name and its Starts At date — the date and time of its next upcoming occurrence, formatted as "March 21, 2026 at 2:00 PM."
  • The list is sorted by Starts At, ascending, so the soonest upcoming event appears first.
  • Use the search bar to find events by name.
  • Click the Name column header to sort alphabetically instead.

Filtering Events​

Three filters are available to narrow the event list:

  • Published Events — shows only events that are publicly visible on your website. Useful for verifying what your visitors can currently see.
  • Featured Events — shows only events that have been marked as featured. See Featured Events for more information.
  • Trashed — reveals events that have been removed from Planning Center and are no longer active. These events do not appear on your website but remain in the system for reference.

Filters can be combined. For example, you can view only Published events that are also Featured.

Viewing Event Details​

  • Click any event row to open its detail view.
  • The detail view shows the event Name, Starts At date, and Description.
  • Below the event details, the Upcoming Event Instances table lists each future occurrence of the event with its individual start date and time.
  • From the detail view, you can also mark the event as Featured or Unfeatured. See Featured Events.

How Events Are Managed​

All event management happens in Planning Center Calendar. When integrated with Planning Center, GatherCMS does not allow creating, editing, or deleting events directly. This is because the Planning Center Calendar API is read-only.

  • To create a new event, add it in Planning Center Calendar. It will appear in GatherCMS within a few minutes.
  • To change an event's name, date, description, or visibility, update it in Planning Center. The next sync will bring those changes into GatherCMS.
  • To remove an event from your website, either delete it or mark it as private in Planning Center. Deleted events move to the Trashed state in GatherCMS.

Understanding Event Visibility​

For an event to appear on your public website, two conditions must both be true:

  • The event is marked as public in Planning Center Calendar.
  • The event has at least one public tag assigned to it in Planning Center Calendar.

Events that do not meet both conditions will appear in the Staff Portal but not on your public website. See Tags and Tag Groups for more about how tags control visibility.

Frequently Asked Questions​

An event I created in Planning Center is not showing in GatherCMS. When will it appear?

Events sync periodically — typically within a few minutes. If the event is still missing after 15 minutes, verify it is saved and active (not in draft status) in Planning Center.

An event is showing in the Staff Portal but not on our website. Why?

Two conditions must be met: the event must be public and must have at least one public tag. Check both in Planning Center Calendar. The event may also still be within its publication delay window if one is configured — see Calendar Settings.

Can I edit an event directly in GatherCMS?

No. All event data is managed in Planning Center Calendar. Changes sync into GatherCMS automatically.

Why don't past events appear in the list?

The event list shows only events with a future start time. Once all instances of an event have passed, it no longer appears in the default list view. You can view recently ended events on your website until their final instance has fully concluded.