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.