Theme for Listing events

Dear All,
I am new in WP and webdesign, and learning it day by day.

I want to make a website which will list events. There is NO booking feature, so its just listing. In total 3 panels for the website, and one a panel exclusively for extensive search/filter criteria (Eg: Categories, geographical region, cost of event ( like a sliding bar), options to search for tags etc). On the top of the website I would like to show some featured events ( one after another). Second panel is for showing the list of events with basic info of each, preferably with a thumbnail. And once you click on the event then user will be able to see more details about it. Third panel is for advertisement.

The key feature of the website apart from its search/filter, is to subscribe for newsletter where user can make his/her own filter criteria.

I saw many nice WP free themes, but so far from my searches (mainly free), I couldn’t find one theme which fits my need. This might be my lack of expertise to see the possibilities with themes. Also I have a hard time to understand which features I can get from plugins.

I would greatly appreciate, if you could suggest some themes or themes+plugins for the same.
Thank you in advance,