PHP: Doing while loop if "if" statement is true - php

Question

I am trying to show only those events, which are in current date or in future. To show events I have such code:
<?php
$wp_query = new WP_Query();
global $more;
// set $more to 0 in order to only get the first part of the post
$more = 0;
$wp_query->query( array( 'post_type' => 'events', 'posts_per_page' => 7, 'paged' => $paged, 'orderby' => 'menu_order', 'order' => 'ASC') );
while ( ($wp_query->have_posts()) ): $wp_query->the_post();
get_template_part( 'content', 'event' );
endwhile;
?>
I tried to add "IF statement" to compare event start date with current date, but it doesn't seem to work. I have tried a lots of versions, but this one I think should work:
$wp_query->query( array( 'post_type' => 'events', 'posts_per_page' => 7, 'paged' => $paged, 'orderby' => 'menu_order', 'order' => 'ASC') );
$OstartDate = get_post_meta($post->ID, '_event_start', TRUE);
$today = date('d.m.Y');
while ( ($wp_query->have_posts()) && ($OstarDate < $today) ):
$wp_query->the_post();

Answer 1

From the second one you should try,
$OstartDate=get_post_meta($post->ID,'_event_start',TRUE);//check it will return a number
if(time() > $OstartDate)
{
while ($wp_query->have_posts()):
$wp_query->the_post();
.....
}
a7-simple-events may help you.

Answer 2

You can compare the posts with postmeta using meta_query
$today = date('d.m.Y');
$args=array( 'post_type' => 'events', 'posts_per_page' => 7, 'paged' => $paged, 'orderby' => 'menu_order', 'order' => 'ASC', 'meta_query' => array(
array(
'key' => '_event_start',
'value' => $today,
'type' => 'date',
'compare' => '<'
)
)) ;
$wp_query = new WP_Query( $args );
while ( ($wp_query->have_posts()) ):
$wp_query->the_post();
endwhile;