diff --git a/go/cmd/dolt/commands/engine/sqlengine.go b/go/cmd/dolt/commands/engine/sqlengine.go
index 57fb2a7cd4..706c152f73 100644
--- a/go/cmd/dolt/commands/engine/sqlengine.go
+++ b/go/cmd/dolt/commands/engine/sqlengine.go
@@ -16,8 +16,10 @@ package engine
 
 import (
 	"context"
+	"github.com/sirupsen/logrus"
 	"os"
 	"runtime"
+	"strconv"
 	"strings"
 
 	gms "github.com/dolthub/go-mysql-server"
@@ -354,7 +356,21 @@ func configureEventScheduler(config *SqlEngineConfig, engine *gms.Engine, sessFa
 		}, nil
 	}
 
-	return engine.InitializeEventScheduler(getCtxFunc, config.EventSchedulerStatus)
+	// A hidden env var allows overriding the event scheduler period for testing. This option is not
+	// exposed via configuration because we do not want to encourage customers to use it. If the value
+	// is equal to or less than 0, then the period is ignored and the default period, 30s, is used.
+	eventSchedulerPeriod := 0
+	eventSchedulerPeriodEnvVar := "DOLT_EVENT_SCHEDULER_PERIOD"
+	if s, ok := os.LookupEnv(eventSchedulerPeriodEnvVar); ok {
+		i, err := strconv.Atoi(s)
+		if err != nil {
+			logrus.Warnf("unable to parse value '%s' from env var '%s' as an integer", s, eventSchedulerPeriodEnvVar)
+		} else {
+			logrus.Warnf("overriding Dolt event scheduler period to %d seconds", i)
+			eventSchedulerPeriod = i
+		}
+	}
+	return engine.InitializeEventScheduler(getCtxFunc, config.EventSchedulerStatus, eventSchedulerPeriod)
 }
 
 // sqlContextFactory returns a contextFactory that creates a new sql.Context with the initial database provided
diff --git a/integration-tests/bats/events.bats b/integration-tests/bats/events.bats
index dfb7f61fa6..57e6a130b9 100644
--- a/integration-tests/bats/events.bats
+++ b/integration-tests/bats/events.bats
@@ -6,7 +6,12 @@ make_test_repo_and_start_server() {
   rm -rf ./"$1"
   mkdir "$1"
   cd "$1"
+
+  # Override the default event scheduler period (30s) and set it to 1s so that we can run
+  # tests faster, without having to wait for the default 30s period to elapse several times.
+  export DOLT_EVENT_SCHEDULER_PERIOD=1
   start_sql_server
+
   dolt sql-client -P $PORT -u dolt --use-db information_schema -q "CREATE DATABASE repo1;"
   dolt sql-client -P $PORT -u dolt --use-db repo1 -q "CREATE TABLE totals (id int PRIMARY KEY AUTO_INCREMENT, int_col int);"
   dolt sql-client -P $PORT -u dolt --use-db repo1 -q "call dolt_commit('-Am', 'creating table');"