Posts query according to meta box date

Question

I'm struggling to get a working solution with wp_query for Event management, Currently post order by event start date & time work well. Now I want some custom settings.

Have two meta boxes working with meta_key=> start_datetime and meta_key=> end_datetime

1- key=> end_datetime is a date and time for the post to end (no longer display in the results)

2- Additionally print some text in posts as two hours remain to start event. e.g <p>LIVE</p>

How to hide post when date&time end, and add some text as remain 2 hours to start?

$today = date("Y/m/j");
$args (array(
  'post_type' => 'event',
  'posts_per_page' => 10,
  'meta_key' => 'start_datetime',
  'orderby' => 'meta_value',
  'order' => 'ASC',
  'meta_query' => array(
    array(
      'key' => 'start_datetime',
      'value' => $today,
      'compare' => '>=',
      'type' => 'CHAR'
    )
   ),
  'tax_query' => array(
  'relation' => 'AND',
  array(
    'key' => 'end_datetime',
    'meta-value' => $value,
    'compare' => '=<'
  )
 )
));
$query = new WP_Query( $args );
  if ( $query->have_posts() ) {
  while( $query->have_posts() ) {
    $query->the_post();
    the_title();
  }
}

Answer 1

I checked your query and there's a lot of junk in there. You define meta keys 2x. Once as meta_key and once as meta_query. Only keep the query, it has more options.

Second, the tax query is all wrong. The parameters for a tax query are not the same as a meta query. You need taxonomy, field, terms and possible compare. I don't see a reason to use a tax query, based on your info, so I removed it in my example.

I am a fan of storing dates/times as a unix timestamp. Is a lot easier to compare and order than a date string. By looking at your today string, I assume the rest is in that format as well, so I will use that for the example.

I wrote the code below by heart since I had no events to work with (with that meta key), but I think you'll get most of the desired result and if not, maybe tweak it a little.

$today = date( 'Y/m/d' );

$args = array(
    'post_type'      => 'event',
    'posts_per_page' => 10,
    'order'          => 'ASC',
    'meta_query'     => array(
        // get posts which have an end_datetime which is bigger than or equal to $today (and thus hide the ones which have ended before today)
        'end_clause' => array(
            'key'     => 'end_datetime',
            'value'   => $today,
            'compare' => '>=',
            'type'    => 'DATE'
        )
    ),
    'orderby'        => array( 'end_clause' => 'DESC' ),
);
$query = new WP_Query( $args );
if ( $query->have_posts() ) {
    while( $query->have_posts() ) {
        $query->the_post();

        the_title();

        // check if start_datetime is not empty
        if ( ! empty( get_post_meta( get_the_ID(), 'start_datetime', 1 ) ) ) {
            // make unix timestamp of start_datetime
            $start_datetime = strtotime( date( 'U', get_post_meta( get_the_ID(), 'start_datetime', 1 ) ) );
            // make unix timestamp of now
            $now            = date( 'U', current_time( 'timestamp' ) );
            // if (start_time - now) is smaller than 7200 seconds
            if ( ( $start_datetime - $now ) < 2 * HOUR_IN_SECONDS ) {
                echo '<p>LIVE</p>';
            }
        }
    }
}

Let me know if this helps.