From my experience Amazingsusan the events display by the time of the event as well as the date
so in order they would be
sat 1 feb 9:00am
sat 1 feb 10:30am
sat 1 feb 12:00pm
and so on
Are you sure they aren't being ordered by time . Just something to check
after re-ordering in the backend are you saving the order?
(clicking on the floppy disc in the top of the column)
Doesn't seem right unless it is something to do with an event config
or a global config