use strict;
use warnings;
use XML::Simple;
use Data::Dumper;

my $string = do { local $/; <DATA>};
my $ref = XMLin($string);
print Dumper $ref;

my $num_events = @{$ref->{EVENT}};
print "There are $num_events events listed\n";
__DATA__
<ROOT>
<EVENT>
 <NAME>test2</NAME>
 <LOCATION>iwu</LOCATION>
 <TIME>now</TIME>
 <DATE>today</DATE>
 <PRIORITY>interest</PRIORITY>
 <ATTENDEES>a lot</ATTENDEES>
 <DESCRIPTION> descrip</DESCRIPTION>
</EVENT>
<EVENT>
 <NAME>test3</NAME>
 <LOCATION>hi</LOCATION>
 <TIME>joe</TIME>
 <DATE>how</DATE>
 <PRIORITY>interest</PRIORITY>
 <ATTENDEES>are</ATTENDEES>
 <DESCRIPTION> </DESCRIPTION>
</EVENT>
</ROOT>

##</code><code>##

my @events;
while ($page_body =~ /<EVENT>(.*?)<\/EVENT>/sg){
 push @events, $1 #note $1 might have zero length.  
}