ACF - WP_Query - Order Results by value, then by a different one

Question

I have the following:

$args = array(
    'post_type' => 'events',
    'posts_per_page'=> 6,
    'post_status'=> 'publish',          
        'meta_query' => array(
            'relation'   => 'OR',
            'event_passport' => array(
                'key'  => 'event_product',
                'value' => 'featured',
                'compare' => '=',
            ),
            'event_dates'  => array(
                'key'  => 'event_dates',
                'type' => 'DATETIME',
            )
        ),
        'orderby'    => array(
            'event_passport'  => 'DESC',
            'event_dates' => 'DESC',                    
        ),
);

Say for example I have 3 events where the event_product is featured.

What I want to do is display these 3 featured events first, then show the rest of the events.

At the moment this is not working and I'm not sure what I need to do to achieve this.

Any help is much appreciated, thank you!

Answer 1

You have to get both posts list separately and merge them into one array and use that loop for display post in frontend.

// Featured posts query
$args_featured = array(
    'post_type' => 'events',
    'posts_per_page' => 6,
    'meta_query' => array(
        array(
            'key' => 'event_product',
            'compare' => '=',
            'value' => 'featured'
        )
    )
);
$featured_query = new WP_Query($args_featured);

$featured_count = $featured_query->post_count;

if ($featured_count < $posts_to_show) {
  
    // non-featured posts query
    $args_notfeatured = array(
        'post_type' => 'my_cpt',
        'posts_per_page' => $posts_to_show - $featured_count,
        'meta_query' => array(
            'meta_query' => array(
                'relation' => 'OR',
                array(
                    'key'     => 'event_product',
                    'value'   => 'featured',
                    'compare' => '='
                ),
                array(
                    'key'     => 'event_product',
                    'compare' => 'NOT EXISTS'
                )
            )
        )
    );
    $notfeatured_query = new WP_Query($args_notfeatured);
    
    $full_query = new WP_Query();
    $full_query->posts = array_merge( $featured_query->posts, $notfeatured_query->posts );
    $full_query->post_count = count( $full_query->posts );
    
} else {
  
    $full_query = $featured_query;
  
}


if ( $full_query->have_posts() ) {
    while ( $full_query->have_posts() ) {
        $full_query->the_post();
        // Output your post HTML
    }
}
wp_reset_postdata();