Past Events and Pagination

<?php 

$today = date('Ymd');
$pastEvents = new WP_Query(array(
  'paged' => get_query_var('paged', 1),
  //'posts_per_page' => -1,//-1 will show all items
  'posts_per_page' => 1,
  //Get the new post_type here
  //This has been registered on wp-content/mu-plugins new folder
  'post_type' => 'event',
  //Default 'post_date" is.
  //'orderby' => 'post_date',
  //'orderby' => 'title',
  //'orderby' => 'rand',
  'meta_key' => 'event_date',
  'orderby' => 'meta_value',
  'order' => 'ASC',
  'meta_query' => array(
    array(
      'key' => 'event_date',
      'compare' => '<',
      'value' => $today,
      'type' => 'numeric'
    )
  )
));

while($pastEvents->have_posts()) {

    $pastEvents->the_post(); ?>

        <div class="event-summary">
            <a class="event-summary__date t-center" href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>">
                <span class="event-summary__month">
                    <?php $eventDate = new DateTime(get_field('event_date'));
                        echo $eventDate->format('M')
                    ?>
                    </span>
                    <span class="event-summary__day">
                    <?php 
                    echo $eventDate->format('d') 
                    ?>
                </span>
            </a>
            <div class="event-summary__content">
            <h5 class="event-summary__title headline headline--tiny"><a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a></h5>
            <p><?php echo wp_trim_words(get_the_content(), 10) ?> <a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>" class="nu gray">Read more</a></p>
            </div>
        </div>
        
<?php }

    //Adding Pagination Here
    //This will not work cause it wants to paginate core elements
    //echo paginate_links();
    echo paginate_links(array(

        'total' => $pastEvents->max_num_pages

    ));

?>