I'm currently adding an events calender to my sites.

The radcontrols eventcalender seems versatile and customisable, although I don't know about your design. http://demos.telerik.com/aspnet-ajax/calendar/examples/functionality/specialdays/defaultcs.aspx
The radcontrols are supposed to be included in DNN, although in th community edition you are not (no longer?) allowed to use them 'without a wrapper'. I guess this means e developer who build a module with the control, only has to pay for his development license and doesn't need to pay for a distribution liscense when using it in a dnn module. Or something.

Try google image search on 'timeline calender', you might spot something nice.
this maybe? http://codecanyon.net/item/simple-events-calendar-js/full_screen_preview/462149?ref=themespotters

I've looked at the events module briefly, but was scared away by the mess it produces by default. (was this built for IE4 and never updated or something?) Seems like html code used over a decade ago (when we didn't seperate content and design) where a lot was done to get a specific layout working. Not only do you need to get your own design implemented, you also have to compensate for the trickery they did to get their design working.