Episode 10 | He Checked In. Then He Stole the Laptop.

Kate: It was like a whole criminal investigation. I never want to have to go through that again, but it was pretty fascinating to get to see.

Jen: 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. Hi everyone, welcome back to another episode of Mayhem and Method. I am here today with a longtime friend and colleague, Kate Zurlo-Cuva. And Kate, I am so happy to have you here with me today. Thank you for joining me.

Kate: Happy to be here.

Jen: Kate, what is one of your favorite venues to work in and why?

Kate: Oh, well, I don't know if anybody would agree with me, but my, my favorite is the Las Vegas Sands because they're competent. You know what you're going to get. You know what that catering is going to be. You know where you're going to sleep and it's going to be a decent bed. As long as it's not the Luxor, I'm all Vegas all the time.

Jen: Okay. Okay.

Kate: Controversial opinions.

Jen: I have never been to The Sands, actually. So I think I got lucky because I've always been at the Venetian.

Kate: And yeah. There you go. Yeah.

Jen: It does not suck. It does not suck.

Kate: It does not suck.

Jen: Yeah.

Kate: Controversial. Works.

Jen: Kate, I would love to have you tell our listeners today a mayhem story. So something that happened on site. And as we always know for on site, whatever happens on site is usually a function of things like 18 things ago that happened to lead to the on-site chaos. So give my guests a little bit of preview as to what the on-site story was, and then we'll talk about what happened before what happened happened.

Kate: Absolutely. Yeah. So I wasn't— I was, I was a few years into my event technology career, so I wasn't perfectly new. Like, I knew better than what I was doing when this all happens. But I was, I was managing a reg desk. It was 7— reg opened at 7:30 in the morning, and it was before 7. I was there just getting my bearings. It was in another country, so I was a little off time zone and I was up. And so I was just getting ready and somebody came in early and they wanted to check in. And that's a no-no. But it was everybody— it was the second day of the event. Everybody was pretty contained. I was like, this won't, this won't be a problem. Not a big deal. I let it happen. They came up to the desk. They were chit-chatting with me like this. We were having a nice conversation and, you know, like everything was set up with the self-serve kiosks in the front and whatever. And we had a really nice conversation. We talked about our kids and then we moved on. And about a good 10 minutes go by and I realized that he, in the process of folding his hands, had, had folded over the laptop on the desk and walked off with it. Oh my gosh. Oh no. Into the event.

Jen: Oh my God.

Kate: Yeah. And because, you know, we have the registration database, we did figure out what this person's name was. And so then over the course of the rest of the morning, for hours, we tracked this person. You know, it's day 2. All of us reg people, we don't have a lot to do other than our regular jobs at this point. So we were curious enough to try to track what was going on, and there was session scanning at the event. And so we were watching them boop their badge into sessions and just acting like this was perfectly normal.

Jen: Oh, wow.

Kate: Got security involved. And then by about midday, we actually cornered this person, but we had to do it in this circumspect way. It turned hilarious, really, honestly.

Jen: Oh my God.

Kate: I didn't want anything to do with it at this point because I felt so embarrassed that I had let this happen. But they— security got involved. Security loves a caper. Right?

Jen: Exactly. Well, what else are they there for, honestly? I know.

Kate: Nothing ever happens. So they tracked down who this person was. We got them. And they had swapped their badge. Oh my God.

Jen: It wasn't them. You were tracking the wrong person.

Kate: And that whole— yep. So I don't know when they had swapped their badge. But we went up to this person. And the person looked nothing like them. And we were like, we're looking at the badge and we're looking at the person and this person has no idea what's going on. They had just been— they said, yeah, oh yeah, somebody just handed me this badge and here I am, I'm going to these sessions.

Jen: Oh.

Kate: Oh, okay. So then it continued and I ended up in one of those command stations that I didn't realize every venue has. Now I understand that there's eyes on everything.

Jen: On everything.

Kate: At the venue. And I— so I go into, you know, like 3 buildings over and go into this building where there's floor-to-ceiling monitor. You know, there's one of these in every venue.

Jen: Yeah.

Kate: And so this is my first chance to see that there was somebody like eyes on the ceiling, you know? And they were like, okay, we've narrowed it in on the period of time when they came and did this. And so now I'm looking at these pictures like it's the FBI.

Jen: Right.

Kate: To try to see if we can find this person, also that we can get their laptop back. But really, it's actually about the IP on that laptop.

Jen: Yeah.

Kate: Of course, it's not— yeah, obviously the hardware isn't the issue. And so they had, they had me track down this person and then follow them and make sure that I could identify who they were. And I had to compare them against people. It was like a whole criminal investigation. I never want to have to go through that again, but it was pretty fascinating to get to see. And now, now when I go to events and I see how security is operating, I always thought that they were just casually chit-chatting with me. And now I know just how much goes into what security is actually looking out for when they're thinking about getting their sense of the land and where the exits are and what is printed on the badge and all of these things. I have a much different perspective on what their job actually is. I just— that one was an eye-opener for me.

Jen: Right? Oh my gosh. Seriously. So it was day 2, and there was really nobody checking in anymore. It sounds like so. It's like, but the, but the reg stations were still left up, or was it because it was before hours? It was before hours. And so you hadn't set everything up yet? Oh, that's what it was.

Kate: Yep, they knew what they were doing.

Jen: Yeah, this was not their first rodeo, most likely. Did they manage to check in? No, they did, right? Because you said they have a badge and they swapped out. Oh wow.

Kate: Yep. Yeah, because at most events, all you have to do is be registered. This was a free event.

Jen: Yeah.

Kate: All you have to do is be registered and then show an ID that shows that name.

Jen: Right.

Kate: So I validated that.

Jen: Yeah.

Kate: Then they were on their way.

Jen: Interesting, yeah. I work on an event series now. Granted, this sounds like this happened probably several years ago, but you know, I've seen more and more events are starting to require photos on badges. Like for example, I work on CES, 140,000 people, whatever like that.

Kate: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jen: Right?

Kate: You have to have photos because otherwise people are just swapping badges all day long, right? Yeah.

Jen: But even like some of these smaller, smaller relatively speaking, shows, they're starting to put photos on badges because, not necessarily for stealing check-in kiosks certainly, but because it is, you know, 'cause really like all you need to do once you have that badge, that badge is a golden ticket.

Kate: Yeah.

Jen: And this client in particular that I'm thinking of, they were having a problem where they would have attendees come up and say, oh, I left my badge in my hotel room, or, oh, I lost it.

Kate: Yeah.

Jen: And then they'd reprint it, right?

Kate: Yeah.

Jen: And so now, so what the client, the client has slowly been over time, like coming up with more and more like measures. So first it's like, okay, well we're gonna deactivate your old one and we'll give you this new one. And then you kind of see them going, deactivate? No, no, no, you can't deactivate it because I just gave it to my buddy, right? You can like see the wheels spinning in their head, right? And now it's kind of like, nope, it's photos. Like you have to have photos 'cause that's just people.

Kate: Yeah.

Jen: People are weird. And people are lovely and people can also be awful.

Kate: Yeah, well, when you get that many people, CES is gigantic. And, um, we had the same when I did registration for AWS re:Invent. That's that one, one of the years that I did it, it was as big as 65,000. And I don't know where it's at now. It might even be bigger. It took up most of the properties on the Strip. And, um, it was the same, had to have a photo and it was very small, but it was, It was that, that you can't, you can't be swapping them out. They also talked about holographic images or an imprint on there to verify. Does CES do that too?

Jen: Yeah, so on the, for the regular attendee badges, no. But then like I get a staff badge. This is my first year having a staff badge, which is really cool. And, um, but it has a holographic image on it. And like actually if you wanna get lunch, like a crew lunch, then you have to have the hologram like on your badge.

Kate: Oh, so do you wear it for the specials? Oh, that's interesting.

Jen: Yeah.

Kate: Okay.

Jen: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Kate: That makes sense.

Jen: So, so yeah, I got my own special little badge. It's all laminated and stuff. I think I'm super cool now.

Kate: That makes sense with CES because you're really, everybody is everywhere. So you're not, when you think about, now I think about this from a security perspective of what are you actually protecting at this event? The reality is it's really a big expo. So you want people to be going everywhere.

Jen: Yes.

Kate: There's just certain areas that you need to restrict. That makes sense.

Jen: Yeah, certain areas you need to restrict. And then also, Like at CES, like everybody, I mean, so many events these days, right? You're having to go and put your backpack on the, on the, like the TSA scanner. You're getting scanned and everything. You're getting wanded down and all that stuff. And the nice thing is, is when I have the staff badge at CES, I can actually just bypass all of that.

Kate: Oh.

Jen: Which is nice. It's like, okay, like, you know, like you're, you're in the trusted, right? Like I'm a pre-approved traveler at this point, right? It's almost like I got my Global Entry pass.

Kate: PreCheck.

Jen: Yeah.

Kate: Yeah.

Jen: So I don't have to go and stand in line with the commoners because I would never want to do that. Yeah.

Kate: Yeah, that's great. Yeah, that's great. That makes total sense.

Jen: Yeah. So how— like, this is like one of those things, as I said at the beginning, like there's always 18 things ahead of time that makes these things happen. Obviously, this is sort of one of those things. I'm not going to say you can't plan for it, but like, what do you do differently now? And what did you see that client doing differently in the future if you continue to work with them? to like avoid this happening?

Kate: Yeah, that's a great question. This was 10 years ago, so just like you are— just like you're speaking to, we have moved light years ahead in terms of how we handle security at this point. Um, I don't do anything alone anymore. Um, so, you know, if I'm going to be at registration, I'll just make sure that there's that there's multiple people there. Not actually, I mean, not particularly from a safety perspective, although that's not— that's wise, but more so just because I think that less things happen when it looks like you've got, you know, a professional space that's there. Definitely always follow the exact agenda as it's intended to be. That's, you know, that was really the note that I gave to myself is like, there's no exceptions really at registration. If it's printed that this is the schedule, then we're going to follow it and we're going to follow every single rule and never say anything that is not— that we don't know to be absolutely true when we're at the registration desk. And, and that's sort of critical. This person was a professional, so I didn't really want to beat myself up over the fact that, like, I don't really want to actually be the kind of person that's watching people, you know, to see like what they're going to be doing.

Jen: Yeah.

Kate: So I, You know, like, I didn't give myself that note over it, and nobody else did either, to be honest. When we talked with security, they just said, like, yeah, these, like, people are constantly, like, going to push for the next professional piece. So really, it's just about, like, hold your line, protect yourself, and, you know, like, that's— we're all there to keep the event secure. It's not just one single person. point of failure.

Jen: Yeah, that's really, really cool. Yeah, and I mean, in talking to— speaking about that, like, why were the front doors even open, right? Because there's usually like—

Kate: Yeah, this was only a 1,000-person event. It was a rather big venue, but this was only a small part with one door open to it. So yeah, it exactly— um, like, we— when I go about doing this stuff, especially for these smaller events, I am— I always have eyes out for like, is the team ready for this? And if not, then like, let's just make sure that we are prepared and we are, we are there. Otherwise, we should not have doors open. We should, in every, in every sense of it, like we should be securing the perimeter. So yeah, yeah, it's a balance of not feeling paranoid, but—

Jen: Right.

Kate: But also, I mean, this is our job to keep everybody safe and to protect this company's personally identifiable information. So it is pretty serious when you get down to it.

Jen: Yeah.

Kate: That one, my heart was just absolutely beating out of its chest. But it's funny because I'm not going to name this person's name, but you know them, was the business owner at this company. And he had been doing this for 30 years and he was just like, ooh, this is fun. You know, what's going to happen next?

Jen: Yeah.

Kate: You know?

Jen: Yep.

Kate: He was going with me to the control room and everything like that. So. You know, yeah, it's serious. But it was also kind of like, we do this so much that—

Jen: right.

Kate: And we do it so well so often too, that we don't really think about it until something goes wrong. And then it's almost like, oh, okay, well, now we have something to do today. Yeah, exactly.

Jen: So, I mean, event security, that's like a real thing that a lot of people don't really spend a lot of time thinking about. Not only are you— because like registration, the first line of defense for badges, obviously, and badge printing, but it's also just like overall event safety. And so since I know you've done a lot of events and you've done like a lot of events all over the globe, do you have any other stories you maybe want to share?

Kate: Yes, uh, I do. Um, yeah, that— the, uh, the, the story of having to end up in the control room felt like a very like, okay, now I'm a grown-up event person kind of— that was a— that was That one was a bit of an initiation that was more serious and enlightening. But it was probably only maybe a year later or so in that same series of events around the world. We were in Paris and I didn't know it and I didn't take it seriously at the time. But I was told that Paris is known for its pickpocketers and I was just like, I don't know. I mean, I'm American. I'm not really that worried about it. But, um, and I wasn't worried about it, and I'm still not worried about it. But at the events, uh, I guess a relatively notorious pickpocketer checked into the events, and the security, uh, who, you know, like, they're all in Paris especially, they're all very nicely dressed in their beautiful black French suits. Of course they are. So yeah, they looked phenomenal, and they recognized this guy. But before they recognized him, the pickpocketer that got into the event, it was like an initi— like, he got Like he got himself like in, and then once he was in, he called all of his buddies. And so all of a sudden, randoms start coming through the door registering and checking into the event, and they're just like bombing the catering and they're eating all of the snacks and going through the expo and taking all of the little trinkets and freebies and, you know, and swag and whatever. And I, you know, what are we gonna do? I'm not gonna enforce anything. But the security knew them. Like they caught on.

Jen: Sure.

Kate: After about 45 minutes of this, they caught on and all of a sudden they got on their, you know, They got on their headsets and they start just running these people down through the hallways and like ushering them out of the venue. I know it was like they were like yelling their names and stuff. Like, I didn't— I don't speak French, but I was definitely not— I was understanding what was going on.

Jen: Right.

Kate: As they were like, you're getting out of here. Yeah, it was funny because they were like, they're in these beautiful suits, they're being professional, but they were also like dead serious, get out of the venue. And we were just like, oh my gosh. It was like TV. Oh wow.

Jen: Well, I mean, and I know like in these event series, right, like you'll— we'll let people like check in, register until like the very end of the show. And we don't really— yeah, we don't check like really like, do you even know who client X is? It's like, I don't know, is there free stuff? Right? Like, I know people have walked up 10 minutes before the end of the event and they're like, can I get that shirt? And like, well, yeah. And they'll register, they'll fill out a survey for something they didn't even take part in.

Kate: And it's kind of like, we're like, yep.

Jen: gonna let you take the shirt.

Kate: Yeah, I mean, I'm committed to being an inclusive person, you know? Like, if you're meant to be there, you're meant to be there. And if there's capacity in the venue, it's supposed to be a prospective customer event. They're free. So yeah, you know, yeah, we can't, we can't control every aspect of it. But the pickpocketers was pretty funny because they, they said that it was a thing and I was like, ah, yeah, what can it, what can happen?

Jen: Right. Wow. Yeah, I had, um, an event last year, again, another European city. Um, and actually I had 2 that were like back to back, like literally a week apart. One was the event venue ended up being so far over capacity because again, it was a prospective customer event, right? A one-day thing. And they never stopped registrations. A fire marshal actually had to shut the venue down.

Kate: Oh.

Jen: Because they just didn't stop taking registrations. And then they got mad at us in corp. I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, this is not us problem, right?

Kate: Yeah.

Jen: And then the other one was in a, um, it was in like a football stadium, like a soccer stadium, I guess what we'd call a soccer stadium.

Kate: Yeah.

Jen: And, and the keynote, from what I understand, I was not there, although I wish I was because it sounded like such complete mayhem. Like, first the fire marshal shut the door, and that was one thing. So again, 2 cities, fire marshals. And the other thing that happened is that after the keynote, because it ran over, It was— everybody was supposed to go to the expo. Because it ran over, the people that were supposed to be working in the expo weren't there on time. And so they went and they ran across the football pitch, which you're not allowed to do. Like, they were supposed to go around, but these people decided to shortcut it, and they got lifetime bans at that stadium.

Kate: Hardcore.

Jen: I know, I know, right? Yeah.

Kate: Yes, I know. Follow the rules, man.

Jen: Yes, yes. And then on a slightly more serious note, one year I was at a flagship event in the States, and all of a sudden my client leans over to me. He's like, not that— not for nothing, but we had a bomb threat, and that's why the dogs are walking around.

Kate: So they didn't tell anybody?

Jen: No.

Kate: So they don't tell people because they don't want people to freak out?

Jen: Yeah, yeah.

Kate: So somebody calls in a threat, and then they just send the dogs? That's what they do?

Jen: Apparently, at least in this city at this venue.

Kate: Um, oh my gosh.

Jen: Yeah.

Kate: Why did they tell you? Oh, I just wouldn't even know.

Jen: Right. But I— and the, the wild part to me is that my client was actually pretty chill about it. And so my thought was, okay, like, this isn't the first time that this has happened and he just chose this time to tell me. Um, so I was like, you know, because they did— the dogs came through and I'm guessing You know, 'cause like when you talk about like these global companies, like their security divisions are nothing to be trifled with.

Kate: Big deal.

Jen: Like they hire, like they hire like ex-hostage negotiators from the FBI. I mean, these people are not fooling around with their security. And so my assumption is kind of like when people used to call in a fire drill when I was in grade school, right? It's just somebody that didn't wanna take a test. It was just somebody that was sort of making a nonsense threat. And like on a scale of like 1 to 10, they're like, yeah, this is a 1 and we just sort of need to do it. it because we need to do it. Um, but yeah, but I was like, I'm like, okay, like, I'm like, I'm staying calm, it's gonna be okay, but I really want to understand more.

Kate: Yeah, can you tell me more so I don't pee my pants?

Jen: Yeah, I'm like, what am I doing?

Kate: Should I breathe?

Jen: Yeah.

Kate: Did you like look at the exits? Did you like make a plan for yourself?

Jen: Oh, I totally made a plan. No, I totally made a plan. So fortunately where we were staffed, it was like, okay, it was like on the perimeter of the building and we were upstairs. And I'm like, okay, I'm like, so there—

Kate: So you know what you can do. There's a back staircase, there.

Jen: And I have no idea where the back staircase would have landed me, but my presumption is because it had a big exit sign that it would have been to the exterior somehow. But I also figured, like, if there was a bomb, it was probably all over for me anyhow. Um, you know, the venue was not that big. So, uh, life of an event planner.

Kate: So seriously, gosh, the cortisol levels are high. Yeah, it's always something. My goodness. I can't believe we do what we do, honestly.

Jen: I know. It's kind of— and I love it. That's the pro— I mean, that's sort of really the problem, right?

Kate: Yeah. That's the way to say it. I can't believe we love this. I know.

Jen: Yes.

Kate: Crazy.

Jen: Says a lot about us, who we are as people. Yes. So, okay. Well, Kate, this has been an utter blast talking about security mayhem in a really weird sort of way.

Kate: Yes.

Jen: If you would like to take a moment and tell my audience where they can connect with you, learn more about you, anything that you want to share, I hand it over to you. Yeah.

Kate: Yeah. So I am a BW Events contractor. I am embedded at Workday where I've been for about 3 and a half years. I'm definitely on LinkedIn. Kate Zurlo-Cuva. Love to connect. I live in Wisconsin, so anybody in the Midwest, let me know and we'll get a beer.

Jen: Yeah, I'm gonna see you at Christmas.

Kate: So awesome.

Jen: Awesome. Thank you so much, Kate.

Kate: Oh, such a pleasure. Thanks, Jen.

Jen: Thanks for listening in to another roller coaster 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.

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