How to add a custom date to each post…

I am feeding posts to the home page … they are event posts so they need to display the date of the event rather than the time the post was made. Besides the date there is the post text, event title and an image that I add to the excerpt field. Nothing but hacks.

The Event plug-ins I’ve seen are for 2.71 and lower. Am I missing something?

How’s the easiest way I can have them add a date to a post while keeping the real post date silent in the background? Custom field?

Thank you