How do I query for the next three dates using EntityFieldQuery or Views? (7)
The query you've got in your question would be the equivalent of this EntityFieldQuery:

$query = new EntityFieldQuery;
$query-&gt;entityCondition('entity_type', 'node')
  -&gt;entityCondition('bundle', 'event')
  -&gt;fieldConditon('field_start_test_date', 'value', REQUEST_TIME, '&gt;')
  -&gt;fieldOrderBy('field_start_test_date')
  -&gt;range(0, 3);

$results = $query-&gt;execute();
if (!empty($results['node'])) {
  $nodes = node_load_multiple(array_keys($results['node']));
}


I've assumed that date_field was supposed to be field_start_test_date and that the date column is a UNIX timestamp type. You'll need to make a couple of slight changes if those assumptions aren't right.