You can spend a million dollars on event Wi-Fi, replace every router in the building, and still watch an entire room of laptops suddenly decide they live in Germany. Because apparently, even the most sophisticated event technology is only one mysterious firmware update away from complete mayhem.

Jen Santos sits down with Josh Shepherd, VP of AI Solutions at Amego, to talk about the event technology failures that make planners twitch. Things like unreliable internet, overcrowded expo floors, broken badge printers, and integrations that become useless the moment Wi-Fi disappears.

What starts as a story about taking over a venue's entire internet infrastructure turns into a practical conversation about offline-first technology, backup systems, attendee experience, and knowing when the best solution is simply to let everyone into the keynote, badge or no badge.

Josh and Jen are quick to agree blame is useless during an event crisis, calm problem-solving earns client trust, and nobody—regardless of title—is ever too important to carry a box.

Top Takeaways from Josh & Jen's convo:

• Plan for the internet to fail. Offline apps, locally stored scan data, backup routers, and digital badges are not overkill. They are Tuesday.
• Solve the attendee's problem first. The broken printer is your emergency. Missing the keynote is theirs.
• Nobody's too good to carry a box. Great event teams skip the blame game, grab the box of lanyards, and fix what needs fixing.

Links:

amego.com

@jtshepherd on LinkedIn

@heyamego on LinkedIn

This episode was produced by Audiotocracy Podcast Production.

One attendee. One last-minute halal request. And one chef who turned a potential food-and-beverage scramble into the best hotel meal the guest had ever eaten. Because apparently feeding people at events requires more than ordering 400 identical boxed lunches and hoping for the best.

Jen Santos sits down with Tracy Stuckrath, founder and Chief Connecting Officer of Thrive Meetings and Events, to talk about the mayhem hiding inside event menus. What starts as a three-days-before-show dietary request becomes a much bigger conversation about food allergies, inclusive menu planning, surprise catering costs, wasted ketchup, lonely vegan appetizers, and why "they can just find something nearby" is not an actual event strategy.

Tracy shares how asking better registration questions, calling attendees directly, and designing menus around common dietary needs can improve the guest experience while reducing special meals, food waste, and unexpected expenses.

Top Takeaways from Tracy & Jen's convo:

• Design for inclusion early. A thoughtfully planned menu costs less than 200 emergency meals and the apology tour that follows.
• Pick up the phone. "White bread and pork" may sound like a catering riddle, but a quick conversation can reveal what an attendee actually needs.
• Stop feeding the trash. Smaller condiment bowls, smarter attendance estimates, and flexible ingredients can save money without turning lunch into a sad apple and crunchy water situation.

Links:

thrivemeetings.com eatingatameeting.com @tracystuckrath on LinkedIn @eatingatameeting on Instagram @thrivemeetingsevents on Facebook @eatingatameeting on Facebook @eatingatameeting on YouTube

This episode was produced by Audiotocracy Podcast Production.

What happens when the event app crashes, the Wi-Fi disappears, and the entire schedule lives inside the technology that just stopped working? Apparently, "blame the vendor" is not a contingency plan. Rude.

Jen Santos, host of Mayhem & Method, sits down with Vinnu Deshetty, founder of Event ROI Coach, to talk about event technology, data, and the very human chaos behind both. What starts as a conversation about a failed mobile app quickly becomes a deeper look at planning for tech outages, understanding how attendees actually behave, and choosing tools based on real needs instead of shiny features.

They talk about offline access, attendee communications, survey data, AI-assisted analysis, and why event tech needs a dedicated advocate before everyone arrives onsite and starts frantically refreshing.

Top Takeaways from Vinnu & Jen's convo:

• Plan for the app to fail: Offline access, backup schedules, and clear attendee instructions beat panicked printing every time.

• Use the tech you can actually support: More features do not automatically mean a better event. Sometimes gamification is just an expensive button nobody had time to configure.

• Collect data with a purpose: Digital surveys, paper forms, onsite conversations—use whatever works for the audience, then make sure the results do not quietly die in a spreadsheet.

Links:

@event-roi-coach on LinkedIn

@EventROICoach on YouTube

This episode was produced by Audiotocracy Podcast Production.

What do you do when the AV truck shows up… and half the gear is missing? Then the second truck shows up with the wrong cables. This is just one of the ways event production keeps everyone humble

In this episode of Mayhem and Method, Jen sits down with Elias Puurunen, founder of Tractus Events, to talk about the beautiful disaster zone where hybrid event production, in-house AV, missing equipment, fire alarms, and client expectations all collide. What starts as a fairly straightforward three-day conference with breakout rooms, cameras, confidence monitors, and streaming quickly turns into a lesson in why "preferred AV provider" does not always mean "show-ready."

Elias walks through how his team stayed focused, used the delay to troubleshoot what they could control, kept the client insulated from the chaos, and still pulled off a smooth show once the doors opened.

Top Takeaways from Elias & Jen's convo:

• Trust your AV Spidey Sense. If the boardroom quote makes no sense, the rest of the gear list probably deserves a very suspicious eyebrow raise.
• Control what you can, fix what you find. Waiting on missing equipment? Great. Time to test cues, signal paths, streams, and all the tiny gremlins hiding in the setup.
• Emergency plans are not optional decor. Even in the case of fire alarms, evacuations, VIP security, and internet outages, event pros don't panic. They plan, radio, reroute, and maybe emotionally recover later.

Links:

tractusevents.com

@eliaspuurunen on LinkedIn

This episode was produced by Audiotocracy Podcast Production.

You know your event app is having a moment when adoption drops from "everyone's using it!" to "does anyone have a paper guide?"

In this episode of Mayhem & Method, we get into what happens when a shiny new messaging feature becomes a sponsor spam cannon. Fun for literally no one.

Host Jen Santos is joined by Josh Vande Krol and Marty Choate, co-founders of Intrivium, for a story that starts with great app engagement and quickly turns into attendee mutiny. When sponsors and exhibitors discovered they could message and request meetings with basically everyone, they did exactly what event pros fear they'll do: they messaged basically everyone.

What follows is a very event-tech-flavored disaster involving overloaded calendars, abandoned apps, furious executives, 5:00 AM fixes, and the hard-earned realization that "engagement" is only good when it's not making people want to throw their phones into the nearest ballroom trash can.

Top Takeaways from Jen's convo with Josh and Marty:

• Uncontrolled features become chaos features. Messaging, meeting requests, notifications, networking tools—great in theory, disaster in bulk-send reality.
• Bad attendee experiences have a long memory. Even after the fix, people may not come back unless you communicate clearly, rebuild trust, and maybe give the app a fresh coat of "this is totally different now" paint.
• Mayhem makes the method. Rate limits, permissions, ticketing systems, sponsor controls, and better comms usually exist because something went sideways first. As is tradition.

Links:

www.intrivium.com

@JoshVandeKrol on LinkedIn

@MartyChoate on LinkedIn

This episode was produced by Audiotocracy Podcast Production.

A 10-foot-by-20-foot seating chart, a 400-person gala, and a client casually adding guests up to the last minute. What could possibly go wrong? Plenty.

In this episode of Mayhem & Method, Jen Santos talks with Andrew Roby of Andrew Roby Events about a multi-day conference that turned into a master class in why "just a few more people" is never just a few more people.

What starts as a tightly planned awards gala — with assigned seating, sponsor tables, QR-code check-in, place cards, meal counts, and a massive printed seating chart — quickly spirals when the client starts handing over revised guest lists an hour before doors open. Then came the screenshots, the surprise attendees, the dietary restrictions, the sponsor table shuffle, and, because apparently the universe was not done, the wrong script in the teleprompter.

Andrew walks through how his team kept guests feeling respected, worked with catering to salvage the meal situation, called an emergency intermission to fix the program, and later made the hard but necessary call to walk away from a client.

Top Takeaways from Drew & Jen's convo:

• A plan only works if people follow it. Revolutionary, we know. But no seating chart, BEO, or run of show can save you from a client freelancing at the eleventh hour.
• Last-minute guests are not just "extra chairs." They are meals, linens, dietary needs, sponsor relationships, floor plans, staffing shifts, and one very tired planner doing emotional damage control in dress shoes.
• Post-event debriefs matter, especially when things go sideways. Andrew's process of gathering feedback from vendors, venues, AV, and the planning team shows the difference between blaming and actually learning. One is useful. The other gets you fired as a client.

Links:

andrewrobyevents.com

IG @andrewrobyevents | Facebook @AndrewRobyEvents | LinkedIn @andrewrobyeventplanner

This episode was produced by Audiotocracy Podcast Production.

What happens when 3,000 attendees get off a cruise ship, the event app loses its superpower, and one person decides Nassau is apparently a choose-your-own-adventure? This went from "fun port stop" to "please tell me Bob is back on the ship" real fast.

Host Jen Santos chats with Kelly Burhop, senior lead event technologist at Sound Planning Meeting and Events, on this episode of Mayhem & Method. Kelly is here to share the very specific chaos of running a large employee event across two cruise ships.

What starts as a smart, cost-saving, cohort-based event format quickly reveals one tiny problem: push notifications do not work when your attendees are off the ship, away from Wi-Fi, and wandering around Nassau like they missed the memo.

What follows is a very event-pro blend of mobile app logistics, group scheduling gymnastics, maritime check-ins, security team heroics, and the classic post-event realization that yes, you now need a contingency plan for "what if no one receives the message?"

Top Takeaways from Kelly & Jen's convo:

• Wi-Fi is not a communication plan. It is a communication hope with a login screen.
• If attendees can wander, one of them absolutely will. Build the plan for Bob.
• A cruise ship event can be surprisingly efficient… right up until your app, your cohorts, and international port logistics all decide to test your blood pressure.

Links:

theburhopper.substack.com

Connect on LinkedIn @kellyburhop

This episode was produced by Audiotocracy Podcast Production.

What do you do when your event is staring down half a million dollars in hotel penalties… and everyone in the room is ready for a fight? You take a breath, say "we blew it," and start figuring out how to make it right.

In Episode 2 of Mayhem & Method, host Jen Santos is joined by Therese Jardine, founder and CEO of Strategic Event Procurement, for a behind-the-scenes look at a contract gone sideways in a very big way. What started as a large-scale event strategy turned into a perfect storm of shifting goals, misunderstood contract language, and a massive room block that didn't fill.

Instead of digging in, Therese made a bold call. She owned the mistake, reset the room, and got to work.

What follows is a masterclass in relationships, quick thinking, and literally moving people to fix a very expensive problem.

Top Takeaways from Therese & Jen's convo:

• Sometimes the smartest move is saying "we blew it" and shifting from defense to solution
• Contracts matter, but how you navigate them in real life matters more
• When things go sideways, relationships, creativity, and a very long night with a spreadsheet can save you (a lot of) money

Links:

strategiceventprocurement.com

@theresejardine on LinkedIn

@strategiceventprocurement on IG

This episode was produced by Audiotocracy Podcast Production.

What happens when 1,200 people want ice cream… and the ice cream isn't frozen, the staff isn't staffed, and the vendor is panicking? Welcome to event planning, where even dessert can go completely off the rails, but a great event magically still gets served.

In this very first episode of Mayhem & Method, host Jen Santos welcomes award-winning event planner and founder of Beyond the BEO Shanondoah Nicholson for the "scoop" of an ice cream activation that went… let's call it "soft."

What starts as a simple employee appreciation treat quickly spirals into melting logistics, missing communication, and a crash course in "everyone grab a scoop and go." This episode is a behind-the-scenes example of why, and how, even experienced teams can find themselves in sticky situations.

Top Takeaways from Shanandoah & Jen's convo:

• Event pros don't panic—they pivot (and sometimes scoop ice cream for four hours straight)
• Vendor communication is everything… until it somehow isn't
• When things go sideways, it's less about blame and more about fixing the process (and maybe rinsing off your arms later)

Mayhem & Method: Untangling the people, politics, and platforms that shape modern events

"If we do our jobs right, our work should be invisible."

Millions of people move through events every year — session to session, show floor to keynote — without a second thought. But somewhere behind the seamless experience is the invisible team that brought the thousands of pieces together. The team that knows exactly how close it came to going sideways.

Jen Santos has spent 15 years producing corporate events at every scale — from CES' city-wide takeovers to multi-city roadshows that are their own special kind of chaos. She knows where the bodies are buried — and that most of them were buried long before load-in.

Join Jen and expert guests as they go behind the scenes of event planning, event management, and event production to explore what goes wrong, what holds, and what the industry can do better.