Select2 Default values for multiple select and allowed tags

Answer 1

Doing a little digging, I can see this issue raised on GitHub.

One option is to check to see if the value exists, and append it if it doesn't.

var s2 = $("#selectEvents").select2({
    placeholder: "Choose event type",
    tags: true
});

var vals = ["Trade Fair", "CA", "Party"];

vals.forEach(function(e){
if(!s2.find('option:contains(' + e + ')').length) 
  s2.append($('').text(e));
});

s2.val(vals).trigger("change");