get_pages fails with Pods installed

I’m using two Custom Post Types (Event and Event Item). An Event can have multiple Event Items. Before discovering Pods I was using the post_parent in the Event Item CPT for the many-to-one relationship. get_children() and wp_get_post_parent_id() fetched the relevant CPTs to display in the Theme.

I establish the Event CPT’s ID in Event ID, I used the following:

add_action('add_meta_boxes', function() {
    add_meta_box('event', '<h1 style="color:red;">Choose An Event For This Item</h1>', 'event_meta_box', 'event_item', 'side', 'high');
});

function  event_meta_box($post) {
        $pages = wp_dropdown_pages(array('post_type' => 'event',
                                        'selected' => $post->post_parent,
                                        'name' => 'parent_id',
                                        'show_option_none' => __('SELECT EVENT'),
                                        'sort_column'=> 'post_title',
                                        'echo' => 0));
        if ( ! empty($pages) ) {
            echo $pages;
        }

This creates a metabox in the Event Item with a dropdown of the Events.

However, this previously-working code stopped working with Pods installed. The metabox appears in the Admin UI but the dropbox with Events does not. I added this:

        // test get_pages
        $checkpages = get_pages (array('post_type' => 'event')); 

With Pods installed wp_dropdown_pages returns a empty string and get_pages returns false. It works as soon as Pods is uninstalled.

Yes, I know the Pods Way is to use a Relationship field (podsrel table) and that’s what I’ll do. I’m just curious why this stops working.