Apollo client is giving me an error of 'store already contains an id' - what does that mean?

You have to add id also to the creator field:

query getEvent($eventId: ID!) {
    Event(id:$eventId) {
      id
      headline
      photo
      location
      startTime
      creator {
        id
        username
        photo
      }
    }
  }

In general, make sure to add id to all subselections of your queries.