Call _#EVENTNAME on non-event page (front-page)

Feel free to link me to an already solved related question. I’ve been Googling this for hours because I know I can’t be the only person that wants to do this.

On my front page, I basically want to copy the function of the “Upcoming Events” widget into a non-widgetized area. My front page is not an Events Page, so I need to call EM, which I know I’m kind of doing because my fallbacks seem to know if there is an event or not. I’ve read this article a few times: http://wp-events-plugin.com/tutorials/create-custom-event-information-pages/ as well as the em_content documentation, but I’m not able to echo the title, date, location of the next upcoming event.

Test Project link: http://nca.glidecreative.us/

I have a few fallbacks for the content (this is a mash-up in the Responsive WP theme). I’ve copied what I think is relevant code below.

<?php
$events_count = EM_Events::count( apply_filters('em_content_events_args', $args) );
//$EM_Location = get_em_location();  http://wordpress.org/support/topic/single-location-page-title-name-town?replies=4
get_header(); ?>

<div id="content-full" class="grid col-940">
<div class="grid col-460">

            <?php $options = get_option('responsive_theme_options');
			// First let's check if headline was set
			    if ($options['home_headline']) {
                    echo '<h1 class="featured-title">';
				    echo $options['home_headline'];
				    echo '</h1>';
			// but if we have an upcoming event we'll display the upcoming event name
				} elseif ($events_count > 0) {
					echo '<h1 class="featured-title">';
					echo '_#EVENTNAME'; //doesn\'t work because not an event page
					echo '</h1>';
			// If not display default headline
			      } else {
			        echo '<h1 class="featured-title">';
				    echo __('Title Lipsum','responsive');
				    echo '</h1>';
				  }
			?>

            <?php $options = get_option('responsive_theme_options');
			// First let's check if headline was set
			    if ($options['home_subheadline']) {
                    echo '<h2 class="featured-subtitle">';
				    echo $options['home_subheadline'];
				    echo '</h2>'; 

			// but if we have an upcoming event, we'll display the upcoming event date
				} elseif ($events_count > 0) {
					echo '<h2 class="featured-subtitle">';
					echo '#_EVENTDATES'; //doesn\'t work because not an event page
					echo '</h2>';
			// If not display default tagline
			      } else {
			        echo '<h2 class="featured-subtitle">';
				    echo __('subtitle lipsum','responsive');
				    echo '</h2>';
				  }
			?>

            <?php $options = get_option('responsive_theme_options');
			// First let's check if content is in place
			    if (!empty($options['home_content_area'])) {
                    echo '<p id="cta-p">';
					echo do_shortcode($options['home_content_area']);
				    echo '</p>';
			// but if there is an upcoming event, we show the event location.
			      } elseif ($events_count > 0) {
			        echo '<p id="cta-p">';
				    echo '#_LOCATIONTOWN, #_LOCATIONSTATE'; //doesn\'t work because not an event page
				    echo '</p>';

			// If not let's show NCA blurb.
			      } else {
			        echo '<p id="cta-p">';
				    echo __('lipsum','responsive');
				    echo '</p>';
				  }
			?>

        </div><!-- end of .col-460 -->
</div><!-- end of .col-940 -->
<!--there is more to this page, but left out for this wp support question.-->
?>

Thank you for your help. Sorry if this is a dumb question.

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/events-manager/