You cannot use IF control block OUTSIDE of functions. So that affects both of your queries.
Turn the EXISTS clause into a subquery instead within an IF function
SELECT IF( EXISTS(
SELECT *
FROM gdata_calendars
WHERE `group` = ? AND id = ?), 1, 0)
In fact, booleans are returned as 1 or 0
SELECT EXISTS(
SELECT *
FROM gdata_calendars
WHERE `group` = ? AND id = ?)