Looking at the code again, I noticed you had (comments removed):

my $q = new CGI;

my $action       = $q->param('action');

my $month = param('month');
my $date = param('date');
my $year = param('year');
my $title = param('title');
my $message = param('message');

my $placement = param('placement');
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I believe the issue is that you're retrieving them as my $variable = param('key'); when you should have it (I believe) as my $variable = $q->param('key'); for those lines. Try that, and see if it might take care of the issue for you. Just a thought.

Update (19 Oct 2002): In attempting to run the script from the command-line to figure out what else might be wrong, I received an error message about $placement not being defined, using the code you posted above. Did you leave out the code that set the value for that? Testing from the command line (-debug option required for this in the use statement for some versions of CGI.pm), when action was passed as 'add_event', what was written to the file was what I handed it for all of the other values. Are you seeing any error messages in your logs?

Update (19 Oct 2002): Something else I'm goig to ask just to ask, but I didn't see the elements you were passing in the form in the posting. Did you remove the <input> tags from the sample form? Those tags would have to appear between the <form></form> elements... Just thought I would ask...