Is wordpress the right platform for this?

[scoops]

Wow, I didn't realize so many people loved WP for creating sites.
I have a question do you think wordpress is the best place to do the following?? If not ideas/thoughts?? We are on a limited budget (of course) and I have no coding experience, I can hire this out to someone but the more tools I can provide the better (I think).

Here's what we are trying to accomplish :
A county wide calendar of events site for all 'events' in our county, sorted by 'theme' (ex. arts & culture, boating & fishing..etc).
Each 'theme' would have a calender of its own but if a viewer clicked on a specific date it would pull from all calenders to let them know what was happening county wide.
People could post events but they would come to me to approve and actually enter.
We would like to have some 'advertising' on the side column for local businesses (of course we want to make some $$ ).
Please give me your input comments or direction..it would be very much appreciated!!!
Sincerely
Scoops