Event Calendar ec3 and Custom Post Templates

I am attempting to use ec3 with wp3.0 and a theme with a custom post template. Everything works just as expected. I use a single category for events to separate events from normal posts and calendar and posts work fine.
There is a custom post template used for editing posts which is cleaner than the dashboard editor for the casual user but the date pickers are not shown on the template post. Does anyone know what the hooks are to add the same date pickers used on the dashboard ec3 plugin to a custom theme post template?

Or maybe a better plugin with the same functionality.

Thanks in advance.