There are a number of ways that you can display events, with or without a plugin.
Event management generally requires some advanced features to do the heavy lifting, which are not built into WordPress.
A plugin can help here, as can using an external service like EventBrite.
At the moment VS Event List looks like the next best thing to using native WordPress functionality. It is advanced, but not bloated with features like The Events Calendar, which just about works without paying the pricey subscription, but is otherwise heavyweight solution.
