Episode 11 | What Could Possibly Go Wrong in Tokyo?

David: Who knew in our lifetime that we were going to have to double-check an Epstein list that your speakers are not on it?

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, and welcome back for another episode of Mayhem and Method. Today I am here with David Moore of Moore Style Events. our Director of Fun at Moore Style Events. David, thank you so much for being here today.

David: Oh my gosh, it's an honor. Thank you for inviting me.

Jen: Yeah, I've been— we've been chatting for a very long time on LinkedIn, and I love following your travel adventures and learning about United Polaris Class. And so today I'm just excited to have you kind of share some of your, let's call them stories from the road or mayhem from the road.

David: Oh my God, I love that. Little stories from the road. There's many, there's many, many. I like, I like this. I can share.

Jen: So what is one of your favorite venues to work and why?

David: Oh my gosh. So in general, I love APAC. And when I say APAC, favorite city, Tokyo, I would say in APAC. I love— Japanese are just so incredibly detail-oriented. They, you know, they, they don't overpromise. They deliver what they say. Um, the energy is amazing, the animations, and, um, you know, just the way the Japanese— my husband's birthday, we had this awesome, uh, birthday cake, and I ordered it ahead of time. Um, not only did they wrap the cake, you know, like they put the cake in a box like they would do in the United States, but then they put outside of that, they wrapped it, and then they put it in another package inside of a, you know, paper sack, and then they put a little cozy over the top. And it was just the details to make it— each one was branded beautifully and perfectly folded. And it was just, um, maybe not the best for the environment, if you will. But one of the things I think that's so cool about Japan is that they just put so much care and love into what they do.

Jen: Yeah.

David: It's amazing. It's amazing. I wish that, um, you know, maybe in the US that we had that kind of love for You know, little details.

Jen: Yeah. Oh, I love that story. I did not know that. I've never been to Japan and I did not know that. But I work with— I'm working on an event for Tokyo right now. And I will say like that field team, they are just so delightful to work with. They're so polite, so much attention to detail. The language— because I'm doing site translations— the language obviously is a complete bear, but they have endless amounts of patience. And I just, I can't, even though I'm updating stuff like 500 times because I can't tell one character from another, to be perfectly honest. And so, but they just have patience like, no, Jen, please update this with this. And I'm like, I would be happy to, right? You just can't be upset with them. David, now I'd like to ask you about one of the mayhem stories and something that happened to you and your team on site. And just take a couple of minutes, tell my audience, and then what we're gonna do from there is we're gonna talk about what happened before what happened happened, because we all know that the things that manifest on site actually had some sort of precursor that happened like 18 steps before that. And we'll dig into all of that.

David: So we did a huge event for about 150 doctors in Tokyo, and it's in a large ballroom in the Shangri-La, I believe it was, or Mandarin Oriental. I'm not sure which one. I can't remember off the top of my head. But so my goal was lunchtime. Let's get everybody, you know, some food and let's keep the schedule. You know, we do this all the time as event planners and producers. Like, let's keep this on schedule. Oh my goodness. So first, doctors won't— in Japan, it's cultural. Doctors will not— the younger doctors refuse to, out of respect, sit with the older, more experienced doctors. So here I am trying to get everyone to just eat and stick with our time schedule, and they're like, oh no, no, no, no, that table up there with just 2 doctors at it, they're super senior. We can't sit with them. And I'm like, oh crap, like, how do I make this work? You can't bring in more tables. This was in rounds and crescent rounds so everybody could see the front and what you name it. But okay, so, and mind you, I have no clue who's senior, who's junior. I'm just like, okay, gotta solve this problem. Mayhem. They also didn't want to eat with the doctors until the senior doctors had gone through the line first. Oh, my goodness gracious. So I don't have any hair to pull out, honey. So I did my best. But what we did very quickly was we reached out to the hotel team, the 2 interpreters that were there to help us. We said, please kind of help us guide these folks in a very kind way to say, hey, senior folks, you know, without saying that. Um, please, you know, come up and, you know, have some, you know, lunch, if you will. And then we sort of— and the other thing that was tough was they're standing in the back waiting.

Jen: Right.

David: And we were like, okay, there's these seats. Please just take a seat. And they're like, no, no, no, it's not respectful for us to take a seat. It was such a learning lesson for us. And we're small. There's only 20 of us. And so for us, that was like, you know, how do we get them to kind of jive, stay in the time schedule?

Jen: Yeah.

David: And then it's also followed up through the entire event with questions. But we managed to make it work. We— and that we do these in series of 3s. So the following 2 after, we knew to make room. And to your point about how this could have been in the planning previous, we worked with the DMC and they did kind of give us a little warning.

Jen: Mm-hmm.

David: But that's not something— the lady that puts this on for the younger audience, she's a hippie. That sort of doesn't translate to young kids these days. I'm an old, old queen, so we look at it a little differently. But she's kind of a hippie, like an equal setting at the table, if you will. Everybody deserves an equal, you know, women and men table should be complete. That's not necessarily the way things pan out in Japan.

Jen: So the first thing that popped in my head is like, how did you not know? Right? Because I know that you are an amazing event planner. You travel all around the world. And like, how did that— this not come up in a pre-brief? And it sounds like it did, but the person that was kind of wrangling the mayhem— well, pre-mayhem— she was somebody that just— that is not a cultural norm for her and has kind of a different, a different POV, if you will, right? So it wasn't something that she even thought to ask about. Oh, that is really, really unfortunate. But it sounds like you guys were able to make the make the most of that situation. So, well, like, what did the client say afterwards?

David: Oh my God, the client was very supportive actually. We were really grateful, um, because she actually, you know, is that equal seat at the table kind of person. And I think the thing that was interesting, they didn't really ever warn us about this in the previous. It was more of a, uh, sort of like something that you don't realize until you've actually done it. So, um, we did something in Buenos Aires similar. Um, we scheduled a dinner at 7 PM, and I did not realize it's custom there to eat much, much later. We knew, but it was like significantly later. Folks started showing up at 9:45, and we were like, oh dear. And we had— we had polled them on the time, and they said 7 PM was fine.

Jen: Mm-hmm.

David: It's hot. It's a cultural thing. So learning those little challenges has been good, but it's actually been really wonderful. When we left the Japanese, um, uh, event, and to your point, what did the client feel? They were thrilled. Um, they— we just did the last follow-up for this particular series.

Jen: Mm-hmm.

David: Every single doctor sent us a personal note, myself, as the planner, every single one of these 100 and about 150 people, I don't think there was any that didn't and thanked us. Pretty amazing. Wow.

Jen: Wow. That is really, really cool. Yeah. Speaking of Buenos Aires, I know— so I work on a lot of field marketing series now, right? And it's so interesting, like something that you have to kind of learn again the hard way is that people have very different definitions of early and late. Like, I was just on a call for a field marketing event coming up here in São Paulo. Well, I'm not in São Paulo, but Brazil, here in São Paulo. And they were like, well, can you just do lunch at 11:30? And she's like, yeah, no, that's never gonna work, right? Like, the city lead's like, we cannot put lunch at 11:30 because nobody's gonna go to lunch at 11:30, right? Like, so we, you know, so we end up having to do kind of like early schedules and late schedules. And then corp was kind of like, what do you mean you're not gonna start until 10? It's like, well, we can start at 9, but But the CEO isn't gonna arrive to do the keynote, so good luck with that. You know, it's just like, and to understand all these like little subtleties is a really, really big deal. Like here in Brazil, the lunch is like the main meal here, right? Like everybody stops, they take— you can't do anything from 12 to 2 here. You just can't. Like I can't go to the dentist, I can't go to the doctor, I can't do anything from 12 to 2. I don't even try. I don't even message anybody 'cause nobody's gonna return my call.

David: Right.

Jen: 'Cause that's what everybody does. They stop and they take a break and they drink a beer, which I find weird. But again, it's just the way things are here. And then dinner is, you know, somewhere in the 7 to 9-ish range, usually on the later end. And it's a snack, like it's like bread and coffee. And I'm like, for somebody who's American, right? Like, we're like, dinner— like, I grew up with like, dinner is my big meal. And oh, by the way, dinner is like 6, 6:30 at the absolute latest.

David: I can so relate to that. In Spain, I don't know if it's called siesta.

Jen: Mm-hmm.

David: In Brazil, but Spain, siesta. And, and, you know, you're— you struggle a little bit because in the smaller towns, we did something in Sitges, which is kind of just sort of southwest, I guess, of Barcelona. And siesta from like, I think it's like 1 to maybe 2:30 or 3:30, something like that. Um, same thing. There's no stores open if you need something. Everything kind of stops during that time. So I get it. I get it. But it's kind of awesome that, um, you know, you can have a culture where they stop in the middle and take a break. I mean, I wish— I think as Americans we need to learn that, you know, that maybe we don't work around the clock, you know?

Jen: Yeah.

David: Like, it's like London. Everybody in London is out at 5 o'clock and has a cocktail, like what you said. Um, very, very, um, specific. And then they might pick back up in the evening, but, you know, at 5 o'clock, that's a hard stop, if you will.

Jen: Yeah. I mean, that's one of the reasons, honestly, I live here, because it's much more of a work-to-live scenario, right? You kind of make enough, it's like, hey, great, I have 20 hay eyes for a beer today. That's all I need to make. Now, do I think this is probably good long-term planning? Not so much. But I appreciate the fact that now that I'm here, it's kind of like, Like once this ends, this is gonna be like late afternoon for me. I'm like, I'm scooting out here and I'm taking a walk because I can do that, right? And then you know what? I'm gonna come back, I'm gonna have my little snacky snack, and then I'm gonna come back, I'm gonna work a couple more hours. But I love the fact that there's just a different rhythm of life here that actually gives me a higher quality of life. And I get, do I get my work done? Yes. But do I feel a lot better doing it? Also yes.

David: Well then I think you're gonna, I honestly think that you're gonna live a little longer if you take a break and you, decompress. I mean, everybody's jobs are so busy. So when you do a little siesta, or when, like you, when you do your walk, it's really good for us. I think Americans could really learn from that. Um, I love America, don't get me wrong. I'm just saying, gosh, we could, you know, be a little more focused on, on our own wellness.

Jen: You know, I totally— yeah, I agree. I mean, every country has things that they could be doing better. Every person has things that they could be doing better. Not a criticism on anybody. So backing up to Tokyo, how did you— like, how did you end up resolving the meal thing, right? Like, you had the hot— you had the hotel staff, they were able to kind of like encourage the more senior doctors to go first, who presumably just self-identified through some magical method that you don't understand. And then did you manage to also corral them all to the same table so that the other tables were available for the younger audience? Like, how— walk me through that.

David: Okay, couple things. So, um, I'm like the crazy queen of texting. So as soon as I realized that we were having challenges, I'm like, okay, I live on my phone. I'm like, hey hotel folks, we need, uh, to shift this a little bit. Um, hey hotel, you know, hotel team for redoing tables, we need a couple extra tables. Hey my team, We're going to need to alert the CEO and the speaker that are coming on at 1 o'clock that we might run just a little bit late. Hey, you know, whoever, you know, the different series of people that you need to kind of adjust the schedule a little bit. We recovered and we did it great. It was, it was maybe 15 minutes late. I think we might have had to pay just a small overage for something, but it was minimal. And we actually were able to shift the agenda a little bit. I think that when you're more senior, you leave a little buffer in there and you can— and it's not to say that the junior people are not fantastic. They are. They haven't been thrown as many curveballs. And so they don't have that experience to sort of, hey, pick it up and run with it.

Jen: Yeah. No, I mean, I was just interviewing Chris Dunn from Blue Hive Exhibits, and we were talking about the same thing about how while the successes are great, where we really tend to learn is from our failures. And I think it's really important. You have to fall down so many times before you realize, oh, I need to plan A, B, C, and D now.

David: Yes. Yes. Well, and sometimes you have to go all the way to Z, honey. You're like, what?

Jen: Indeed.

David: Well, so we hosted an event for a client in London, and one of the folks that was doing a speaking part or talk was on the Epstein Files. So we had to pull them at the last minute. And that had— that was another crazy story that, you know, we'll go into another time. But oh my goodness, who knew in our lifetime— sorry to shake the camera— who knew in our lifetime, um, that we were going to have to double-check an Epstein list that your speakers are not on it? You're like, I never would have dreamed of this 20 years ago when I started.

Jen: Yeah.

David: in this world. Now that's an everyday thing. You're like, hey, double-check that this person is not on a list, uh, you know, double-check that this— you know, it's crazy time in our world. Crazy, crazy time.

Jen: Yeah, yeah. This is one of those ways that AI could actually be really helpful, right? You could be like, hey, you know, run kind of like— run a background check on these people. What can you find? And that's actually also like something really great for cultural stuff as well. Like when I teach event pros how to do— how to use AI copywriting, marketing copy, whatever— A, it's not very good. B, that's like barely tip the tip of the iceberg about what you can do. But I love when you go into like other cities, other cultures. Like I give it like a really extensive prompt where I try to understand everything about the food and the timing and like cultural norms and like are they expecting presents and stuff. And like I did one actually for An example I gave was for Singapore in one of the classes that I taught, because Singapore is this really interesting, like, East meets West sort of culture, and they have a very different set of expectations than other places. And so I think, anyway, random AI thought in the middle of all this.

David: I believe, like, AI is sort of like the invention of the internet or the invention of computers or whatever, and I'm an old enough fart to remember those days, so You know, like, I think it's a tool that's definitely going to change things, but not drastically in a high-touch world of hospitality where people matter.

Jen: Yeah.

David: It's not going to— you can have a robot that delivers your towels to your room, sure. And you can have a robot like we do. We have these wonderful autonomous cars in San Francisco. They're fabulous. And, and, you know, if you study the statistics, my husband's in tech. If you study the statistics, it's not— they don't have as many problems as just a regular driver would have. So I'm like, run with it. I mean, if you— if it's less than a regular driver, how could you fight it? Do you know what I mean?

Jen: Right.

David: But to your point of AI, we are so lucky right now if you can embrace it. And I'm talking everybody, hotels across the board. It's going to make things better for all of us.

Jen: Yeah.

David: When somebody forgets to turn on tracks and changes in Word and they send you something, you're like, oh my God, you want me to read both of these? Now throw this into AI and you're like, tell me what's different.

Jen: Mm-hmm.

David: 2 seconds later, after you went to the bathroom and you got another cup of coffee or tea or whatever, you come back and it's like, here's the differences. And you're like, thank God, done. And that's stupid little things that, like, you and I are like, normally you would send it back to whoever and you would say, hey, I don't want to reread this 17-page, you know, contract. Could you maybe turn on tracks and changes and tell me what you did different? Because otherwise you're like, it's a waste of your time, their time, you know what I mean? Yeah, very animated.

Jen: Yeah. Well, and I was just watching, kind of talking about robotics, I was just watching a video of a robot and how Boston Robotics was kind of like, oh, that's cute, it can sort of dance, right? And now we've moved so far beyond that. And I was watching like this robot and it was like actually like going through like a rocky stream just fine and climbing a cliff just fine. Was it AI generated? Very possibly. I have to admit I did not verify that. But I was also thinking, I'm like, okay, it's just a matter of time. Like I'm thinking housekeeping, I'm like, and—

David: And?

Jen: Like hotel housekeeping. And when do you get to have that conversation then with the housekeeper where you get to ask them, where was your favorite place to go do this? Can you recommend a dive place? Can you recommend your favorite hole in the wall? Right? Like when I stayed at the Venetian in January, I had, I had like this whole like working relationship with my housekeeper where we were talking about all these things because through dumb luck I ended up seeing her basically every day. And just getting to know her and finding out more about Vegas and like all those things disappear. You don't get to ask the taxi driver anymore about his favorite sushi place. Like, where does that learning happen then? And where do those relationships happen?

David: Well, and, and the thing that I think is really interesting about the folks that really worry about AI, right, is that they think that this is going to take their job. Well, just ask your favorite AI, Claude, OpenAI, pick a color. I mean, you know, there's, a million of them.

Jen: Yeah.

David: Ask it to do something super complicated that you and I would normally do. There's mistakes. And these are not mistakes. These are not minor little mistakes. These are like major mistakes. And you're like— and then when you say, hey, wait a minute, that's not right, it will then say, oh yeah, you're right. Thanks for calling me out on that. And I'm like, oh my God, you know, I'm relying on you to help me. You know, like, it's amazing. You know, we're just— work with this. It's a new tool and you're gonna love it.

Jen: Yeah.

David: Yeah.

Jen: Okay, last question before we wrap up today. What is one of the most difficult places you have ever worked, either a venue or like from a cultural standpoint or whatever? Difficult, you can interpret that how you wish.

David: So I would say one of my biggest challenges, to your point in your question, We were in a hotel in, in a, uh, I'll say Italy. I won't go any further with where because I don't— I would never want to hurt them.

Jen: Yeah.

David: But, um, there are sometimes cultural balances and there are challenges, if you will, and there are sometimes language barriers. It is just a challenge, right? And so as, as folks who work with people in medical who have physical disabilities and can't do stairs, we really have to be really super clear on what stairs are. And so one of the things that we struggle with in Europe, um, and this particular city had lots of stairs everywhere, and it was a challenge. You know, when you have a disease, for example, this was, um, scleroderma disease, and your skin hardens, and so you're not as mobile.

Jen: Yeah.

David: And it's tough because You can't physically move around that. You know, for you to move up that stair, that step, it hurts someone. And I walk with a cane myself, so I get it. But those site visits are so important. And for people to understand, hey, stairs really are a challenge for some folks. You know, they— this is not something the hotels did to, you know, that was a mistake. This is just an older castle or whatever, and there are stairs, and that's not going to work. We work with sequencing machines that cannot be tilted. If they do, they are off caliber. If this is imbalanced through stairs, my, my tech team will be like, Dave, you didn't tell us there were stairs. And I'm like, I asked several times. And they're like, no stairs. And so we try to spell out all the little things with hotels across. And thank goodness for AI because we can say, hey, we needed rollaway beds in another country. Not everywhere in the world calls those rollaway beds. In Europe, they call them Sketchers, like the shoe Skechers.

Jen: Oh, funny.

David: And we were like, okay, so, and then when you tell a hotel that you're bringing in patients, in a room and you want them to be in robes, they're like, are you doing surgery? Liability, liability, liability.

Jen: Yeah.

David: And I'm like, no, no, no, no, we're not doing surgery. Don't worry. This is a non, you know, communicative disease. This is something that you, you know, what have you. But anyway, to answer your question, yes, I would say anything we can do to— with, especially with AI, um, to help translate, to help, uh, folks understand. Um, and I'm certainly not perfect. I, I make lots of mistakes, but I'm so grateful that we have these wonderful tools.

Jen: Yeah, I am. I think one of the things that attracted me to your LinkedIn profile and like constantly commenting on your posts is because you just have such a generous heart and you have such attention to detail. Like, I'm like, you post about things that you see in hotels and venues, and I'm like, yeah, I've totally noticed that, but it never once occurred to me to like, I don't know, Like, call it out. And I just think that's— and you really are there for your clients and your colleagues to make sure that they can have the most exceptional experience possible.

David: Thank you. That is so nice of you. Thank you. Yeah.

Jen: I want to thank you so much for being here today and sharing your generosity with me and all of my listeners. And I'd love to give you a couple of minutes to tell my listeners where they can learn more about you. as the Director of Fun and learn more about Moore Style Events. So I hand it over to you to wrap up.

David: Oh my gosh, you are so sweet. Well, I want to say thank you for inviting me. I would love it if people would want to follow us on LinkedIn. We, we try to post a little something fun and inspirational every day, and we try to make people smile. So in our industry, there's lots of times where you can say, hey, I don't like this, or this isn't very good, but It's all about the way you work with people. And if you approach it from an angle of we're together and we're trying to make it together, so it's such a better world, you know, like let's share hands and hugs and not bombs and crazy, you know what I mean?

Jen: Yeah.

David: Like kinder to each other. So our little company, we main clients are biotechs and techs, and we are branching off a little bit here and there. We've hired a couple of new planners. So you might see some fun things from us in the more corporate world, or I would say commercial world, uh, some clients that are really awesome in Europe. Um, and I'd love to work with people. So we always partner too with great DMCs and, and good folks. Lots of planners out there. We're always open to help too. So please reach out if you need it. We'd love to share. We're not—

Jen: Yeah.

David: We're not the type of person who thinks that you're gonna steal our clients. We're like, Let's work on this together. We're better together.

Jen: As I've been telling my teams for decades now, we succeed or we fail as a team, right?

David: Well, and as people, I feel like when we're privileged enough to go to IMEX, it's like a reunion. I mean, I look around and I see so many brilliant people. And I think right now, there's a lot of them that are at various parts of their career. And maybe economy-wise, they're struggling. Anything we can do to help each other, let's do it. Seriously, I'd love to help any of your viewers with anything I can.

Jen: Awesome. Thank you so much. And thank you for being here today, David.

David: Oh my gosh, you're so kind and I really appreciate it. Take care of you.

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.

David: Audiocracy.

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