When you are setting nextEvent, you can limit only events that are upcoming and only output the first result you get back like so:

.startDate('>= ' ~ now).first()

So you can take that and update your code like so:

{% set nextEvent = craft.entries.section('events').order('startDate').startDate('>= ' ~ now).first() %}

{% for entry in nextEvent %}
    foo
{% endfor %}

I have assumed you have a section called 'Event's until we get some clarification as to what craft.events.events is.

When you are setting nextEvent, you can limit only events that are upcoming and only output the first result you get back like so:

.startDate('>= ' ~ now).first()

So you can take that and update your code like so:

{% set nextEvent = craft.entries.section('events').order('startDate').startDate('>= ' ~ now).first() %}

{% if nextEvent %}
    foo
{% endif %}

I have assumed you have a section called 'Event's until we get some clarification as to what craft.events.events is.

When you are setting nextEvent, you can limit only events that are after today like so. This also limits the output to being the first result:

.startDate('>= ' ~ now).limit(1)

So the full code would be along the lines of:

{% set nextEvent = craft.entries.section('events').order('startDate').startDate('>= ' ~ now).limit(1) %}

{% for entry in nextEvent %}
    foo
{% endfor %}

I have assumed you have a section called 'Event's until we get some clarification as to what craft.events.events is.

When you are setting nextEvent, you can limit only events that are upcoming and only output the first result you get back like so:

.startDate('>= ' ~ now).first()

So you can take that and update your code like so:

{% set nextEvent = craft.entries.section('events').order('startDate').startDate('>= ' ~ now).first() %}

{% for entry in nextEvent %}
    foo
{% endfor %}

I have assumed you have a section called 'Event's until we get some clarification as to what craft.events.events is.