In about a quarter of an hour from installation to your first published exhibitor directory. Keep to the order – anyone creating exhibitors first and locations afterwards has to touch every entry twice.
The roadmap in six steps
- 1Activate the plugin
See Installation – including saving the permalinks once.
- 2Create the framework
Under Exhibitors → Locations every hall and room, under Types the kinds (dealer, artist, club …) with an accent color, under Categories the topics. Names are enough to start with.
- 3Create the event
Exhibitors → Add New, enter the fair’s name as the title, e.g. “Comic Con 2026”. Leave the “Event” field on “– Select Event –” – exactly that makes the entry an event. Publish.
- 4Enter the first exhibitor
Add New again: title, the fair you just created in the “Event” field, booth IDs (e.g.
A12, A13), hall / room, type and categories, a featured image as logo on the right. Publish. From about 30 exhibitors on, the import pays off. - 5Publish the directory
New page, “Shortcode” block, containing
[event_exhibitor_list parent_id="12"]with your event’s ID. The ID is in the “ID” column under Exhibitors → Exhibitors; a click copies it. - 6Check the dashboard
The dashboard shows what is still missing. Red tiles first.
Without parent_id the page only shows the notice “Please provide a parent_id.” – for both directory and hall plan.
The Shortcode Generator under Settings → Shortcode Generator assembles it from select fields and fills in the ID itself.
Which shortcode goes on which page?
| Shortcode | Result |
|---|---|
[event_exhibitor_list parent_id="12"] | The directory with search, filters, favorites and pagination. |
[event_hall_plan parent_id="12"] | The interactive plan as a block of its own. |
[event_hall_plan parent_id="12" hall="Hall 01"] | The plan, opened directly on a specific hall. |
Directory and hall plan may sit on the same page – even several times. [event_map], [eem_map] and [event_exhibitor_map] are equivalent spellings for the hall plan.
Your final check
- The “Exhibitors” menu is visible; there is at least one location, one type and one category.
- An event is created and published; every exhibitor is assigned to it.
- Every exhibitor has a booth ID and a location.
- The page with
[event_exhibitor_list]shows entries, the dashboard no more red tiles.
Almost always one of two things is missing: the right parent_id in the shortcode or the exhibitors’ assignment to the event. The dashboard finds the latter under “Unassigned Event”.