Get Most Recently Published Event

// We don't want Tribe working its query magic on this occasion
remove_action('parse_query', array('TribeEventsQuery', 'setupQuery'), 0);

// Create our query
$query = new WP_Query(array(
    'showposts' => 1,
    'post_type' => TribeEvents::POSTTYPE
));

// Show the results
while ($query->have_posts()) {
    $query->the_post();
    echo '<li>'.get_the_title().'</li>';
}

// Cleanup
add_action('parse_query', array('TribeEventsQuery', 'setupQuery'), 0);
wp_reset_query();