Hi Jay,
Given what you’ve described, I’m not sure we’re a good fit for you. We do have a list view that shows upcoming events, and of course monthly and week views as well. We don’t currently have a way to limit it by category, but we are working on developing a filter bar that could do something similar. The other views you are looking for might be possible with customization, but that’s not something we can help with.
We do have a way that users can submit events, however. That would be our Community Events add on. And to pay for events, you’d want to look at one of our ticketing options. The payment gateways are dependent on which option you choose and not something we control.
If you’d like to see our plugins in action, you can check them out at http://wpshindig.com/events/
— Julie