Jeremy,
a couple of issues with your approach:
1)[Jeremy Ulrich] “i rendered it as a mpeg1 and the file size is 2.09 gb”
MPEG-1 is VCD quality, so you would normally not want to use it. Also, it explains why DVD-A expands your file to 9 GB, as DVDs use MPEG-2. You could try to make a VCD, but the video quality is very bad.
2)[Jeremy Ulrich] “the playing time is 2:34:20 and im wondering if there is a way to get it all onto 1 dvd without comprimising the dvd quality much”
The only way to get 2 hrs (not even 2 1/2 hrs) in any decent quality is to use DVD-/+DL (Dual layer DVDs). However, 2 1/2 hours of an event is a lot to watch, so unless you are making a record of everything at the event, you may prefer to edit out even more of the video to get either 1 hr (single layer DVD) or 2 hrs (DVD DL). Alternaively, you could redited your files into 3 seperate sections, 1 each on a DVD