.htaccess rewrite rule giving 404 not found on live server

Hi,
I've created my first .htaccess file to create a folder from the query string e.g. -
'event-service-listings.php?category=events' gets changed to -
'event-service-listings/events/'
It works perfectly on my localhost, but when I uploaded it to the dedicated server using a temp url - Corporate Event Services (click on one of the search by category headers) I get a 404 page not found error!

the code used in .htaccess (uploaded to public_html) -

Code:

Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^(.*)$
RewriteRule ^event-service-listings/(.*)/$ event-service-listings.php?category=$1&%1

I've got no experience using mod_rewrite and don't know where to start looking to fix the issue.
Any ideas.
Many thanks

 

I've just read this at docs.cpanel.net -
"Sites that use mod_rewrite and other directives in their .htaccess files will not work as expected when viewed using mod_userdir URLs. "

Do you think this is the cause of my problem, the URL with the issue is - 79.170.43.172/~cesco

thanks