From the link you have specified, I can see the only difference is that you missed to save your cycle object return value in variable, like:
var $container = $('#container').cycle({
fx: 'scrollHorz',
speed: 300,
timeout: 0
});
Your code should be:
var $container = $("#front_events").cycle({
fx: 'scrollHorz',
next: '.next',
prev: '.prev',
speed:500,
timeout: 0,
......