Ordering (Sorting) Custom Queries II don’t show events form the past

$today = date('Ymd');
$homepageEvents = new WP_Query(array(
  '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'
    )
  )
));