Sideways Rain

J.R. Spiess and Kris McNeil

Storms don't only come straight at you. Sometimes they blow in from the side. Season two of Sideways Rain is a full slate of those stories, told by the people who build meetings, events, and experiences for a living. Hosts J.R. Spiess and Kris McNeil sit down with founders, planners, and production pros and walk through the same three beats: the storm, when things went sideways; the umbrella, how they adapted in the moment; and clear skies, what they changed and where they landed.

  1. 16 ago

    21. Turn Left at the Wall

    Some guests survive a storm. Liz Lathan walked straight into one with her eyes wide open. Years into building her career in the association world, Liz had earned her director title and hit the ceiling of a four-person shop. Then another executive director dangled the thing every ambitious person wants: come here, and I'll groom you to run the place. She said yes — and showed up to find the "grooming" was answering the phone by the third ring and having the mail on the boss's desk by 1 p.m., under a leader who was fifteen years from retiring. Most people would call that a wasted year. Liz turned it into new skills, a free education, a coerced-resignation fight she refused to lose, and an accidentally-doubled paycheck that launched a Fortune 50 career across Dell and IBM. In this episode she gets honest about the stuff we don't say out loud: title-chasing, toxic bosses, the nights she cried, the therapy, the imposter voice that whispers you were never as good as you thought — and why she's living proof it's lying. She shares the questions she wishes she'd asked, why you learn more from bad bosses than good ones, how to build a network that actually shows up for you, and the wellness truth nobody wants to admit (spoiler: it might be a glass of wine with friends, not a 5 a.m. cold plunge). Plus a lightning round, state-fair food debates, and the advice her dad gave her that still holds: trust, but verify. Her rule for the hard days? "You just keep going until you hit a wall — and then turn left." Connect with Liz LathanLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lizlathan/Club Ichi: https://www.clubichi.com/

  2. 19 jul

    20. Strength by a Thousand Paper Cuts with Alyssa Frank

    Most guests bring us one storm. Alyssa Frank brought a thousand paper cuts. Alyssa is a CMP with 15 years in meetings, events, and incentive travel, and the founder of Covalent Events and Travel. She slid into the industry from a front desk in college, got handed events, and learned the job on the job. No single catastrophe defines her career. Instead there were a lot of small cuts that felt like gashes at the time and turned into a kind of strength. In this one she walks us through the moments that stuck: a dessert that showed up as jiggling jelly at a black tie gala, a public callout on Facebook that got answered by an executive, a venue contract she inherited before the run of show existed, and a Minneapolis site visit she scheduled at the wrong time of day. Along the way she shares the habits she built from all of it. Take live notes on your watch. Cap food and beverage increases in the contract. Ask for a first right of refusal before you sign. Walk the venue at the same day and time you will actually use it. Run a 15 minute team huddle at the start of each show day. We also get into the parts nobody prices in: the time, the pre-work, the reconciliation, and the value conversation that comes with running your own shop. Alyssa makes the case for education and community as the habit that changed her career, and for the high touch work smaller agencies can do that the behemoths cannot. Covalent is a chemistry reference. A covalent bond is atoms sharing a hold. Her philosophy: the event is the vehicle, the bond is the point. Find Alyssa Frank and Covalent Events and Travel on LinkedIn. Links in the description. Storm. Umbrella. Clear skies. Here comes the rain. Covalent Events: https://covalentevents.com/ Alyssa on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alyssa-frank-cmp-7753a451/

  3. 30 jun

    19. Four Times the Floor Dropped with Kevin White

    Most people in events have one storm they'd like to forget. Kevin White has four. Across 30 years in experiential design, Kevin watched his whole industry go under four separate times: the dot-com bust, 9/11, the 2008 crash, and the Covid shutdown. Not rough patches. The floor gone, no lifeboat in sight. This week he walks us through how he survived all four, and why that last one turned into his best revenue year ever. We get into why we keep getting blindsided (the short version: success floods your brain and you forget the last crash), why the calm stretches are when you should be making your biggest calls, and what he means by finding yourself in the being instead of the doing. Kevin is founder and chief strategist at XPL, an international president of ILEA, and the guy who teaches this stuff at NYU and the Event Leadership Institute. Storm, umbrella, clear skies. Kevin brought all three.

  4. 7 jun

    18. Stay Curious, Stay Bold: Andrew Roby on Building the Business Behind the Events

    Most people get into events because they love the energy. The problem is loving events and knowing how to run an event business are two completely different things. Andrew Roby, founder of Andrew Roby Events, learned that the hard way. Coming out of the Army in 2005 after serving at the Old Guard and navigating multiple deployments that took a real toll on his mental health, he was nearly homeless when he launched his firm. He knew how to execute events with military precision. He had no idea how to run a business. On this episode, Andrew breaks down the real gap in our industry education, why selling logistics is a losing game, how he restructured his entire operation to stop working in the business and start working on it, and what it actually means to price your value correctly. He also gets into mental health, the discipline of disconnecting, why he thinks industry conferences are overrated, and why your social media might be talking to the wrong people entirely. Quick hits from the episode: Andrew Roby EventsFollow Andrew on LinkedInBook recommendation: The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der KolkAndrew's Hotel Guest Experience AuditIf this one hits home, send it to someone in your network. That is what we are here for.

  5. 4 may

    17. Six Storms Nobody Wants to Say Out Loud

    The industry treats the last 48 hours before an event like a war story. The 3 a.m. rebuild. The no-sleep show day. The save. We've all got those stories, and we need to stop telling them like they're flexes. If you're in survival mode the week of show, something already broke six months ago. This week, no guest. Just JR and Kris, no filter, putting six things the events industry doesn't talk about straight on the table: The last-minute chaos myth, and why "two weeks out" should be the line every team holds. What clients are actually paying for (hint: it's not the gear, it's the person picking up the phone). The planner with no power. Positional authority, show-week changes, and the cost when nobody backs them up. Vendor red flags, the "hard no" that kills relationships, and the trick of pricing yourself out instead of saying it. AI in events. Where it's actually useful, where it's just an LLM in a dress, and why we're in a "lazy AI era" right now. The room that looked right on paper, and why JR says 75% of events get sourced wrong before the contract is even signed. Plus a lightning round on what the production industry needs to stop doing, the most underrated event city in America, and one piece of advice each for anyone early in their career. If you're a first-year planner who made it to the end of this episode, JR's giving you a year of WIFT for free. Send him a DM. New episodes weekly. Hit follow, share with somebody who needs to hear it, and we'll see you next week.

  6. 20 abr

    16. When the Vendor Vanished with Evan Babins

    What happens when an AV vendor cancels 72 hours before a half-million-dollar international event and the audience never knows? In this episode of Sideways Rain, JR sits down with Toronto-based event leader Evan Babins to unpack one of the wildest behind-the-scenes storms you’ll hear in the meetings and events world. Evan shares how a last-minute vendor collapse over the Atlantic forced him into instant problem-solving, why relationships saved the show, and what that experience taught him about due diligence, calm under pressure, and the long game in business. The conversation also goes beyond the story itself into what it really means to elevate the craft in this industry. JR and Evan get into personal brand, collaboration versus gatekeeping, talent versus technology, and where AI is actually useful for event professionals right now. It’s a conversation about the hidden work below the surface, the value of real networks, and why the best operators make chaos look seamless. Evan on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/evanbabins/

  7. 1 mar

    15. Keep Your Bag Packed with Shanondoah Nicholson

    In this episode of Sideways Rain, JR and Kris sit down with Shanondoah Nicholson, a corporate event planner turned full time freelancer and the host of Beyond the BEO. Together, they tackle the “capacity lie,” why hotel capacity numbers often collapse the moment you add real world productionneeds, and how planners can get to a faster yes or no before they sign. Shanondoah also drops a career resiliency mindset that every event pro needs: keep your bag packed, keep your network active, and make it easy for people to help you when the wind shifts. You will also hear her lightning round picks, including two must read books for event professionals: The Art of Gathering and Unreasonable Hospitality. Links and referencesShanondoah’s podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/0l3OjPoH7xMGc3GRiPfoav?si=43785f9408f444adShanondoah on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shanondoahnicholson/Book mentioned: The Art of Gathering by Priya Parker: https://www.amazon.com/Art-Gathering-How-Meet-Matters/dp/1594634939/Book mentioned: Unreasonable Hospitality: https://www.amazon.com/Unreasonable-Hospitality-Remarkable-Giving-People/dp/0593418573/

  8. 16 feb

    14. The Capacity Lie: Why Event Tech Fails

    In this JR and Kris episode of Sideways Rain, we open with a scar we have seen for 20 years. Teams contract space based on a capacity number, then production shows up and the room is suddenly too small once you account for stage, screens, FOH, camera lanes, backstage, ADA, and real egress. No one is trying to mess it up, but the math is wrong, the data gets repeated like truth, and planners get stuck holding the bag. We get opinionated about why most event tech fails. Suite bloat turns tools into admin jobs. Training becomes a tax on bad design. Workflows still depend on waiting days for PDFs and humans to confirm what should be obvious. Then we talk about why Cvent has such a massive foothold and why dominance does not equal good enough when the real job is confidence, not complexity. Finally, we lay out the clear skies. WIFT is not a platform to manage. It is a Yes or No engine. A production aware fit check that gives you an answer in about five seconds, with a layout you can share immediately, with zero training. If you are a corporate planner, hotel CSM, or sourcing manager, this one is for you. Subscribe for updates at wift.ai and get the behind the scenes series on how to stop guessing and start making space decisions with certainty.

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Storms don't only come straight at you. Sometimes they blow in from the side. Season two of Sideways Rain is a full slate of those stories, told by the people who build meetings, events, and experiences for a living. Hosts J.R. Spiess and Kris McNeil sit down with founders, planners, and production pros and walk through the same three beats: the storm, when things went sideways; the umbrella, how they adapted in the moment; and clear skies, what they changed and where they landed.

Información

  • Creador
    J.R. Spiess and Kris McNeil
  • Años de actividad
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodios
    37
  • Clasificación
    Explícito
  • Copyright
    © J.R. Spiess and Kris McNeil
  • Mostrar sitio web
    Sideways Rain