Creating event lists using nodequeue, static pages and dynamic dates

Question

I'm new to Drupal, with some familiarity in other CMSes. I'm currently attempting to create a series of event lists, and have met up with a few issues. The number of modules available for the system are confusing my Googling, as terminology isn't uniform across the web and I'm picking up information for everything but what I want. From reading in StackOverflow, I gather it's a common problem with Drupal. I'm looking for recommended resources or perhaps more direct help - advice on whether to learn the system fully despite this being such a simple/small job would be useful as well.

In summary:

Need an online system to create itineraries, lists of events containing location information and dates that are specific to unique clients/users. Employees access the backend, assemble an itinerary and provide a link to customers with an appropriately formatted, final page/document. Drupal is a CMS that is potentially going to be used for a future website, and "location information" would be a duplication of web content - this system would make for a neat way of populating the website with content whilst the main frontend is being developed.

What I need

• locations are created as static nodes (pages)
• access the backend with an interface that allows for the selection of these location nodes and compiles them into an ordered list
• each node, despite being static, is associated with a date field (start and end) specific to each ordered list
• lists are unique and independent, using the same static content to fill description fields but able to be linked with specific date information

Where I'm currently at

• locations are created as static nodes (pages)
• the itinerary is a nodequeue, where an employee creates a new one, adds location nodes and can control the order without technical know-how
• display using Views, using unique URL per list
• trying to find a way to relate the unique nodequeue with a pair of dates for each location
• been playing around with custom content types/custom fields, but don't know how to define the relationship between the static/dynamic content
• using Date API for javascript calendar pop-up in these custom fields

Any help would be much appreciated! I've tried to word the concept clearly here, and am looking for a friendly pointer in the right direction. Even so much as the appropriate keywords so I can find tutorials would help - been a few long hours of head scratching.

Thanks in advance for any help!

Answer 1

Yup, adding my solution for the collective knowledge!

• Created each location as an individual page (appropriately classified by taxonomy/etc. for site navigation)
• Assigned the desired custom fields, most ended being display hidden
• Created new content type, "itinerary-location-reference", using module "Reference" (for D7)
• Within this content type, assigned custom fields for dates/visitor name/etc.
• One of the custom fields needs to be a node reference
• Referenced the location

This creates two nodes that are linked...one is the static location content, the other a node containing date/personal information. I then added this overall reference node to my nodequeues. Done.

I can see a few issues down the road regarding number of entries into the database, but apparently Drupal's good for a few million, so fingers crossed!