TEC Data Generator

A standalone QA tool that generates bulk test data — Events, Venues, Organizers, and legacy V1 RSVP tickets with attendees — so migrations like rsvp-to-tc in Event Tickets can be stress-tested at scale (thousands of records at once) before shipping broadly.

This is not part of Event Tickets. It's a separate, throwaway plugin meant to be shared with QA, run once (or a few times) against a disposable test site, and removed.

TL;DR

# Drop this folder into wp-content/plugins/, activate it, then:
wp tec-data-generator scenario --type=usual     # realistic day-to-day QA data, some orphaned
wp tec-data-generator scenario --type=edge      # the edge case: much larger, some orphaned
wp tec-data-generator migrate                   # migrate it to Tickets Commerce (runs in the background)
wp tec-data-generator revert                    # ...or put it back to V1 to migrate again
wp tec-data-generator cleanup                   # remove everything this tool created

No setup beyond having Event Tickets + The Events Calendar active — no Composer, no build step, no manual config. See "Recommended first run" below before scaling up to thousands of tickets. Every command below is documented in full under Commands.

Requirements

• WordPress with Event Tickets and The Events Calendar active (both are read directly — no version checks beyond class/function existence).
• Nothing else. No Composer install, no build step — just drop the folder into wp-content/plugins/ and activate it like any other plugin. Background scenario runs use Action Scheduler, which Event Tickets already bundles — there's nothing extra to install for that either.

What it generates

For each unit:

1. One post — an Event (tribe_events, created via The Events Calendar's own repository so it has valid dates), a Page, or a Post — round-robined so the total splits evenly across all three types.
2. One or more legacy RSVP tickets (tribe_rsvp_tickets) on that post (generate always creates exactly 1; scenario creates a random number per unit within its preset range), each created through the same production code path (Tribe__Tickets__RSVP::ticket_add()) a real user going through the classic editor metabox would hit — not a raw wp_insert_post(). Capacity is randomized (20–200).
3. A random number of attendees (tribe_rsvp_attendees) per ticket within the configured min/max range, capped at the ticket's capacity, spread across a random number of _tribe_rsvp_order groups — so a single ticket can produce several distinct "orders" once migrated, not just one. ~90% are marked "going".

Everything created is tagged with _tec_data_generator_generated = 1 (plus a run ID). Nothing untagged is ever touched — cleanup only ever deletes what this tool created.

Orphaned RSVPs (the edge case)

scenario also force-deletes a random percentage of the generated container posts (Events/Pages/Posts) after generation, while leaving their RSVP ticket(s) and attendees in place — this is the "event was deleted but its RSVP data wasn't" edge case, the main reason this tool exists. The orphaned tickets/attendees stay tagged, so cleanup still finds and removes them afterward even though their parent post is gone.

It also filters tribe_tickets_post_types at runtime so RSVP tickets can attach to Events, Pages, and Posts (the Event Tickets default only enables Events + Pages). This filter goes away the moment the plugin is deactivated — it doesn't rewrite the site's stored option. Note: the runtime filter only covers generated data and backend checks — the block editor reads the stored ticket-enabled post types directly, so to add tickets manually to a Post (or a Page, if disabled) in the editor, enable that post type under Event Tickets > Settings > Ticket-enabled post types first.

Realistic Events, Venues, and Organizers (optional)

Pass --with-venues/--with-organizers to generate or scenario (or check the matching boxes on the admin page) to attach a randomly-picked, freshly generated Venue/Organizer to each Event unit, and to use varied, realistic-looking titles/descriptions instead of "Loadgen Event {n}". Ported from tribe-ext-test-data-generator, rewritten against this plugin's own built-in name/content pools instead of that repo's Faker dependency.

Event date range (optional)

Every command that creates Event containers (generate, generate-events, generate-tickets for new containers, generate-series, scenario) picks each event's start date/time at random from a configurable range via --start-date/--end-date (any strtotime()-parsable value, e.g. 2026-10-01 or 2026-10-01 09:00:00). Leave either unset and it defaults to now through two weeks out — the same as before this option existed. The admin page exposes the same range as a "From"/"To" date pair on each matching section.

wp tec-data-generator generate --count=50 --start-date=2026-11-01 --end-date=2026-12-01

Commands

WP-CLI is recommended for anything beyond a few hundred tickets — it has no request-timeout ceiling, unlike the chunked admin page (see Usage: Admin page below).

generate

Creates containers (Events/Pages/Posts, round-robined across all three) with tickets and attendees attached, in one pass — the original all-in-one command.

wp tec-data-generator generate --count=5000                              # the default count
wp tec-data-generator generate --count=200 --min-attendees=5 --max-attendees=50

Flags: --count (default 5000), --min-attendees (default 1), --max-attendees (default 20), --batch-size (default 100 — how many units are generated per internal progress tick; does not change the total, just how often it logs), --start-date/--end-date (see Event date range above; default now through +2 weeks).

Event types and ticket types

generate accepts two extra opt-in flags (defaults preserve the old behavior exactly):

# Only single events with RSVP tickets (the default — same as omitting both flags)
wp tec-data-generator generate --count=100 --event-types=single --ticket-type=rsvp

# Mixed single + recurring events, no tickets at all
wp tec-data-generator generate --count=100 --event-types=single,recurring --ticket-type=none

# Virtual events with paid tickets (via the event's configured provider)
wp tec-data-generator generate --count=50 --event-types=virtual --ticket-type=paid

• --event-types: comma-separated list of single, recurring, virtual (default single). Applies to Event units only — Page/Post units are unaffected. Event units cycle deterministically through the listed types, so chunked runs keep a stable distribution. Every Event is tagged with _tec_data_generator_event_type (single/recurring/virtual) alongside the usual generated marker.
• --ticket-type: rsvp (default), paid, or none. paid reuses the add-tickets path (whatever provider the event uses); none skips ticket creation entirely (and min/max-attendees are then ignored).

Plugin requirements (validated before anything is created — a bad combination errors out with no partial data left behind):

Option	Requires
--event-types=recurring	Events Pro or ECP
--event-types=virtual	ECP (Events Calendar Pro)
--ticket-type=rsvp / --ticket-type=paid	Event Tickets

The admin page's Generate form exposes the same two options (checkboxes + radio buttons); unavailable options are disabled with a note naming the missing plugin.

scenario

Pre-defined QA scenarios — the tool's main purpose. Both include a percentage of orphaned RSVPs (see Orphaned RSVPs above), and both resolve a concrete unit count/orphan rate via wp_rand() within the preset range, printed before generation starts — every run of the same --type produces a different concrete size, by design.

wp tec-data-generator scenario --type=usual
wp tec-data-generator scenario --type=edge

Flags: --type (required, usual or edge), plus the same --min-attendees/--max-attendees (defaults 1/20), --batch-size (default 100), and --start-date/--end-date (default now through +2 weeks) as generate. Presets (includes/class-data.php):

type	units	RSVP tickets/unit	orphan rate
usual	25–250	1–3	5%–20%
edge	7,000–11,000	1–9	5%–20%

generate-events

Creates Event containers only, with no tickets attached. Use this when generate's coupling of containers + tickets isn't what you want.

wp tec-data-generator generate-events --count=50 --editor=block  # block-editor markup
wp tec-data-generator generate-events --count=20                 # classic editor (default)

Flags: --count (default 100), --editor (see Container editor below), --event-types (see above), --batch-size (default 100), --with-venues/--with-organizers, --start-date/--end-date (default now through +2 weeks). Always creates containers with ticket_type=none.

generate-tickets

Creates tickets only — either on fresh containers, or attached to an event/page that already exists.

# Fresh containers: 10 events, 1-3 RSVP tickets each
wp tec-data-generator generate-tickets --count=10 --container=event --min-tickets=1 --max-tickets=3

# Attach to an existing event/page instead of creating containers
wp tec-data-generator generate-tickets --event-id=123 --quantity=5 --ticket-type=rsvp

Flags: without --event-id, creates --count fresh containers (default 10, --container/--editor/ --event-types as above) with --min-tickets/--max-tickets per container (defaults 1/1), --min-attendees/--max-attendees per ticket (defaults 1/20), and --start-date/--end-date (default now through +2 weeks, ignored with --event-id); with --event-id, attaches --quantity tickets (default 5) to that existing post instead. --ticket-type is rsvp (default) or paid.

generate-series

Creates event series: groups of related events (with different venues, organizers, details) linked together. Each event in the series can have tickets and attendees. This is useful for testing series functionality or creating complex multi-venue event scenarios.

wp tec-data-generator generate-series --count=5 --events-per-series=5
wp tec-data-generator generate-series --count=10 --events-per-series=3 --with-venues --with-organizers
wp tec-data-generator generate-series --count=3 --events-per-series=2 --ticket-type=paid

Flags: --count (default 5 — how many series to create), --events-per-series (default 5 — events per series), --with-venues (attach a different random venue to each event), --with-organizers (attach a different random organizer to each event), --ticket-type (rsvp (default), paid, or none), --min-attendees (default 1), --max-attendees (default 20), --batch-size (default 5), --start-date/--end-date (default now through +2 weeks).

Each event in a series is created as a regular Event and linked to the series via the tec_series_relationships table. All events are tagged with the usual generated marker and run ID, so cleanup removes the entire series (including all events and their tickets/attendees) in one pass.

Container editor (classic / block)

generate-events, generate-tickets (new containers only), and the matching admin sections all expose an editor radio. classic (default) writes plain post_content exactly as before; block wraps the same words in real Gutenberg paragraph/heading markup so the container opens in the block editor. Every container is tagged with _tec_data_generator_editor (classic/block) alongside the usual generated marker, and cleanup finds both. Ticket creation is unaffected — tickets always go through the production ticket_add() path regardless of editor.

add-rsvp, add-tickets, add-attendees

Ported from tec-ext-et-data-generator. Unlike generate/scenario/generate-tickets, these target an event/ticket that already exists on the site — generated by this tool or not:

wp tec-data-generator add-rsvp <event_id> --quantity=5
wp tec-data-generator add-tickets <event_id> --quantity=5      # paid tickets, via whatever provider the event uses
wp tec-data-generator add-attendees <ticket_id> --quantity=10

add-tickets creates paid tickets (Tickets Commerce/PayPal/etc.), not RSVP — this is the one place in this plugin that isn't V1-RSVP-shaped, by design. It returns "0 tickets added" if the event's provider is RSVP (paid tickets don't apply there).

cleanup

Deletes everything this tool has ever generated (or just one run), leaf-to-root (attendees → tickets → container posts), force-deleted rather than trashed.

wp tec-data-generator cleanup                                        # everything, every run
wp tec-data-generator cleanup --run=run_20260715_153000_ab12cd       # just one run

Flags: --run (optional, scopes cleanup to one run — see the run_... ID logged at the start of generate/scenario), --batch-size (default 200).