Hi Peter,
I’ve got good news for you. I think you might be able to get by with our The Events Calendar plugin which is free over at http://wordpress.org/plugins/the-events-calendar/. You can certainly show a list of upcoming events and limit how many are displayed on the page.
Since you can easily download it and try it out, why don’t you give it a good test to see if it works for you. You can also see it in action (along with the premium Events Calendar PRO plugin) over at http://wpshindig.com/events/
If you have any additional questions, please just ask!
— Julie