For event listings, when there are no events in content/events/upcoming, it requires a manual step to set the metadata 'events.upcoming'.
Extract from yaml front matter in content/events/index.qmd:
---
events:
# Set meta events.upcoming to true/false according to whether there are any events to display
upcoming: false
---
It would be preferable to find a way to automate this from the data and avoid the manual step which it is easy to forget.