Episode 1 | 1,200 People. Melting Ice Cream. Zero Chill.

And the craziest thing he said to me was when I said, "Okay, well, you need to help us scoop the ice cream because you didn't bring enough staff to scoop this ice cream." He's like, "Well, I guess I can try and figure it out." Sir, how hard can ice cream be for 1,200 people? Also, we learn how to scoop ice cream when you're like five.

Hey everyone, I'm Jen Santos. And this is Mayhem and Method, where event pros tell the real story of what happened and what it reveals about how events actually work.

So I want to ask you, what are your favorite shoes for onsite?

I recently bought On Clouds and they have changed my life.

Really? What makes them so amazing? Because I'm kind of a Skechers gal myself.

The support — they have like really foamy soles with air bubbles. I'm sure some of it is just marketing, but I won't lie, they are the most expensive shoes I've ever bought. And I will buy them over and over and over again. Now that I've done events in them, I find that usually when I'm onsite, by lunchtime I'm like, "My feet are killing me." And my feet are sore after 12 or 15 hours on concrete, but it's nothing like it has been. They're just so good.

Wow. Yeah, because you're a logistics person, right? I'm event tech. So I stay seated most of the day, but you're up and about all day long.

Okay. So, I'd like to introduce our guest today. We have with us Shanondoah Nicholson. She is an award-winning event planner who makes magic happen with her agency, Beyond the BEO. Thank you so much for being here today. I am super excited to have you on the show.

I'm excited to be here.

So I just want to dive right in. As you know, the way the show works is we talk about something that went sideways at an event — usually onsite — and then we unpack it to figure out how the heck did we get here. So Shanondoah, tell me — out of the millions of moments you've had, which one do you want to share with us today?

I think my favorite is the ice cream gone wrong story. I actually use it in interviews. No one thinks ice cream is going to be that stressful.

So this was years ago — a lot of years ago. I worked on a team at a large insurance company and we were responsible for a lot of employee programming. Employee appreciation days, a series called Days of Summer where we'd have different treat days — thousands of people that we had to do this for.

One of the days was ice cream. And every year they had ice cream. One year they went and got fancy ice cream, and people were not happy. They wanted their basic flavors — chocolate, mint chocolate chip. They did not want artisan ice cream. Do not mess with people's ice cream.

So we have this event, we bring in a vendor that you would think has done it before. I won't name them, but they're a very well-known ice cream brand. And somehow, they did not set it up so that the freezers were on.

The vendor came in and they were plugged in — these big rolling chest freezers — and I assumed they had been plugged in and working because I am not an ice cream expert. Honestly, I hate eating it.

And for one, the vendor didn't seem to realize how many people we were serving, even though we told him. And he brought enough cups and spoons for the count, but then said, "Well, we don't have enough staff to do that." And then: "This hasn't been frozen overnight." I'm like, "But it's your ice cream."

Okay, so there's a lot going on here. Let's back up. This was not the artisan ice cream vendor — we scrapped that because it was too fancy. Nobody wanted balsamic on their ice cream. So this year we went with a fan favorite. A brand that literally everyone has had. Hard ice cream, not soft serve. And it was the local franchise owner.

We told him: 1,200 people, 700 on one floor and 500 on another. And then panic ensued. His panic ensued.

So did he get called at the last minute? This wasn't a surprise to him?

No, this was not a surprise. And then he showed up and — I don't know if the equipment was actually freezers or just coolers, but they were plugged in. They had been there since hours before, because we were serving in the afternoon. I went upstairs to get signage and everything set up, and it was all plugged in. And I'm pretty sure they had used this vendor before — like years before — to serve ice cream.

So by the time the afternoon came around, it wasn't completely frozen?

It was starting to soften. Some were fine, some not so fine. And that got worse as the day went on, because it takes a few hours to serve 1,200 people ice cream.

Okay. So who actually contracted with this vendor?

Again, this was years ago. We were on two floors of the building, and I think the person on the other floor had contracted them — she had used them before, for about a 500-person event. And I think that's where some of the confusion came in. She had contracted them once before for 500 people. He brought cups and spoons for 1,200, so he had the count — but I think he didn't realize we'd be on two floors, that his staff would have to be divided, that the ice cream would have to be divided. He thought we were all going to be in the same place.

That's where the panic over staffing came in.

So logistics isn't really my side of the house. What would the prep typically look like for a vendor like this when things go well? Because there was clearly a gap — nobody communicated "hey, we're on two floors, we're going to need staffing for each."

When it goes well, it's: here's the number we're serving, here are the hours we have to serve them. I did my CMP years ago — there's a calculation for bartenders, right? If you have more than 75 people, you need two bartenders. There's a whole formula. And it's kind of the same for any catering. As the planner, I'm relying on the vendor to tell me, "It takes us 30 seconds to scoop. You want to do it in four hours. So we're going to need X number of people."

And I think it's finding that partner. Sometimes you contract with a head office and then they send someone onsite who's like, "Well, this isn't what I thought we were doing." I had that recently with a band — I told my contact, the salesperson, I want this many sets, no vocals, there's a speech at this time. And when they were setting up, I'm like, "Why are you setting up a microphone?" They said, "For the singer." I said, "There's no singer."

So I think it's that rechecking when they arrive onsite — "All this information has gone down the line. Are we still on the same page? Has anything changed?"

Right. And things do change. Someone's flight moved, half the office is out, or everyone found out there was ice cream and suddenly you have more people than expected.

Exactly. You tell your vendor what you're looking to do, you trust that they can do it — sometimes based on past experience, sometimes on reputation, sometimes on a wing and a prayer. And then it's keeping that communication going the whole time. Checking in onsite. "Okay, this isn't what you thought — but this is the reality. So now we execute on that reality."

Is there usually a final check-in in the days leading up, or does that vary?

It really depends on what it is and who the vendor is. You're usually working off your BEO or your contract as the guide. But you might show up and something has changed — a venue escalator is down, a room has shifted. Normally you're relying on your BEO, your contract, whatever your last communication was. I always like to have a call and then put it in writing so there's something to refer back to.

But the more people involved, the more complex things are, the easier it is for things to get missed or confused. And sometimes people are just living in their own world. Like — what? That's not what we talked about at all.

With the musician, likely the person who contracted them copied and pasted something, or the musician assumed, "Oh, every time we do this, we sing." And I said, "We don't need you to sing." And he said, "Oh, okay." Fine.

People are doing so many things all the time. It's easy for details to blur — "Wait, was that the one that didn't want the singer, or was this the one that needed the singer?"

Right. When I'm doing a roadshow, I'm like, which city had which thing? You just lose track. So real quick — for me and maybe others listening — what does BEO stand for?

Banquet Event Order. You wouldn't really have it with a regular vendor, but if you're contracting a hotel or convention center, it's basically what everybody works off of. It's usually compiled by the venue from all your communications — what time AV arrives, when doors open, when security is onsite, when breakfast is set up, special meals, service times. It's literally all of it.

And it's not the run of show. It's not what your team operates on during the event. It's really your contract with the venue — yes, we will pay for 500 breakfasts, this is what time we're expecting them. The venue distributes it to their team so banquet knows what's happening, the front desk knows 300 people are checking in around the same window, and so on. It's your guide for the event with the venue.

So I think of it as half statement of work, half run of show for the venue.

Kind of, yeah. And if it's a bigger program, you're doing a pre-con meeting with your venue — literally sitting down with it printed in front of you, going through it step by step. That's where you flag things: that VIP moved their flight, we need two extra kosher meals, are we all on the same page?

And how it syncs up with your vendors really depends on the size of the program. On a big event, you have that formal check. You sign the BEO, and that's what they go on. Things still change after that — you're running late, they want lunch a half hour early — but it's as close as you're going to get before doors open to "okay, are we all aligned?" AV is here, security is here, banquet is here, parking knows whether 300 cars are arriving all at once or spread throughout the day.

We have a running joke in event tech that scope doesn't lock until the event is over.

Right. That's just the reality.

So — back to the ice cream. How did your client react when they found out the vendor wasn't staffed and the ice cream was melting?

I was in-house at the time. I was the client. So it became a conversation with the events team: okay, who's ready to scoop ice cream? We were a team of three, plus some admins in the company who helped manage things. One person went downstairs and two of us stayed upstairs at the bigger station and scooped ice cream. I scooped ice cream for four hours. I was covered in ice cream — head to toe. I don't even know how that's possible.

And the vendor — he was very upset, and kind of mean to his staff. I'm like, we just don't need this energy here. We're going to figure it out. Lives are not on the line. We are serving ice cream. Let's take a breath and reframe.

So it was just executing and setting expectations. We ran out of some flavors early because they melted, and for people near the end of the line: "I'm so sorry, I can't give you an extra scoop." Just trying to make it fun — "Oh, that flavor was so popular." Not telling people the ice cream had melted. Well — a lot of it.

After it was over, I went back to my desk and my coworker across the aisle — she was on the marketing team, not an event planner — looked at me and said, "Have you sat down? Are you okay?" I had to sneak into the office gym to rinse off my arms. So much ice cream.

Did he ever explain why the freezers didn't actually freeze anything?

No. Nothing.

Okay.

Honestly, he was in such a panic that at a certain point it was like — you're not helping. You're making things worse. So I said, very politely, "No problem, we have it handled, our team can step in." His team was actually doing fine. It was really just him.

And I don't know if they ever followed up with him after — and then COVID hit, and that event never happened again, at least not with me there. So I don't know if they went back to that vendor. But at a certain point it's just: you're clearly not equipped to handle this, please step away.

I think about this a lot — some people just don't have what I'd call event planner energy. They don't know how to react when things go wrong. And in that case, you're right — it's better to just remove them from the situation and handle it.

Exactly. This is a lousy situation. Here's how we're going to make it the best we possibly can so it looks as good as possible to our attendees.

And I have to assume that vendor was never contracted again.

Probably not. Although — by the time COVID lifted, most of the team had changed. And I can see someone finding an old invoice and going, "Oh, we used them before." Because I've had that happen too. We hired a photographer we'd used six years prior, got onsite, and they were terrible. Cranky, bad photos. And that's what happens when you don't have the institutional knowledge — just the documents that say "we used this photographer."

Event amnesia is real. We actually talked about this on your podcast not long ago. And you brought up an interesting point about institutional knowledge and vendors — like, how useful would it be if agencies and organizations kept honest notes on vendors? Not naming and shaming, but: this worked well, this didn't, if it's a specific person because people leave — note that. Highly confidential, but really useful.

Right. And sometimes it's the person — I know planners who have switched vendors entirely because the person they worked with left for somewhere else. The relationship was with that person, not the company. And that's just as real.

I think the industry is getting better at being more open about this — there are private Slack channels, conversations happening. But you still have to have discretion and be respectful. You can say, "Here was my experience, maybe it was an off day, here's my feedback." You don't need to be slamming people publicly on LinkedIn.

And since 2020, there's been a lot of turnover. It's not common for people to stay in the same place for more than two or three years. So institutional knowledge is fragile. Which is why documenting things quickly matters — even onsite, just a note on your phone while you're still annoyed, because the annoyance passes and then you don't remember.

I do this every event now. It took me a while to figure it out — fifteen years in — but about a day and a half before the event wraps, I open my debrief document and start making notes. Then once I have a first pass, I break it up by work stream and send it to my core team: okay, here are my notes, let's be honest, no naming and shaming, what went right, what went wrong, where do we need to connect earlier next time? Because a week out, I have no idea what happened. Especially in peak season when the next thing is already on fire.

My husband always quotes his old boss: "Blame the process, not the person." And I think that's right. There might be specific people you decide not to work with again. But if it's your internal team, it's usually a process issue — we needed to communicate earlier, more, or differently. Not "they just weren't listening."

Well — why weren't they listening? Because the information wasn't coming to them in a way that fit their workflow.

I love that. And as you know, that's my philosophy for events and event systems — they are systems. Getting them to work well is the whole game.

Okay — I'm going to let the artisan ice cream go for another day. Shanondoah, this was a really great conversation. Can you let listeners know where they can find you and connect with you?

For sure. I spend a lot of time — probably too much time — on LinkedIn. I think I'm the only Shanondoah Nicholson on there, so I'm pretty easy to find. And you can follow Beyond the BEO on Instagram, where I post event tips and sometimes painfully relatable event memes.

That's actually where I found you — Instagram — and then I stalked you over to LinkedIn, and here we are however many years later. Thank you so much for being here.

Thanks for having me.

Thanks for listening in to another rollercoaster someone else rode so you don't have to. If you enjoyed this conversation, please take a moment to rate, review, subscribe, and share so other event pros can find the show. Until next time, tame the mayhem.