Meet Dave and Rachel

Summary

Episode one of The EventTalk Podcast. Rachel Martin, 20 years in sports, corporate, and nonprofit event planning, and Dave Foreman of Poor Masters, 33 years in mobile bartending, introduce the show and the kind of stories it's built for. The standout untold disasters: Dave's first bartending wedding where literally not one guest showed up, a Cinco de Mayo festival that earned $12 in tips while kids ran through misters all day in fire-truck hats, and a rattlesnake at the bride and groom's table that took a shovel.

Key takeaways

1. A wedding can have zero guests — Dave's first bartending wedding. Everything set up. Bride, groom, bridal party arrive. No one else. No phones, no internet to fix it. Maybe wrong address, maybe wrong relationship. Sometimes the untold disaster is the people who weren't there.
2. A karaoke machine is sometimes the AV plan — Rachel ran a 20-person outdoor EventTalk talk and didn't want to spend on a real sound system. Karaoke speaker in the corner, two mics, worked perfectly. Rented, not bought. The grown-up version of the toy is usually the tool.
3. Trust the people you work with on the stuff outside your expertise — Dave doesn't claim to know every liquor law. He calls the trustworthy person and says bring the alcohol, you figure out the paperwork. Knowing what you don't know is a competitive advantage. Verify your vendors are real.
4. Bartenders see the wealth tell before you do — How a host treats the staff at their own party reveals where the money came from. Inherited treats the bar like furniture. Earned helps unload the truck. Same lesson surfaces in nearly every episode after.
5. *The Oh Sht Kit is the planner's job** — Sewing kit, stapler, superglue, zip ties, duct tape, chalk for the dress, a bulb pump to put out candles instead of blowing across every table. Most planners keep one. Every untold disaster has a kit-shaped hole in it.

Transcript

00:00 With over 33 years in the mobile bartending and service industry, he is the guy who brings the party and the joy wherever he goes. She's a seasoned event planner and producer with more than 20 years of experience in sports, corporate, nonprofit, and private events — and she's here to keep things running smoothly. Together we are Hot Mics, Cold Drinks and Untold Disasters of the wild, hilarious and unforgettable moments in the world of events.

00:27 This is the Event Talk podcast with Dave and Rachel.

00:31 Hi everybody, so good to have you here with us. It is officially the first episode of the Event Talk podcast. My name is Rachel, this is Dave over here — he comes with the entertainment. We have a ton of event experience, probably over 50 years between the both of us. Neither one of us looks young enough for that, right? But old enough, young enough — I'm old enough. We're excited to be here today and just kind of introduce who we are, talk about some fun things coming up, and highlight something we're always going to do during the Event Talk podcast: a mocktail.

01:10 Dave is in the bartending service, Poor Masters, and his amazing team has created all these mocktails our guests are going to be choosing from. You can probably see we have alcohol back here too just in case. Sometimes these are recorded in the morning, sometimes the afternoon — but who cares, it's 5:00 somewhere. Cheers. This one's an organic mango with pineapple juice, garlic lime juice, and spicy simple syrup. So we even have a mocktail bar now for the guests that don't drink — no alcohol in it.

01:59 I just didn't expect the spicy. Mocktails are really big now — especially bar mitzvahs and bat mitzvahs, they want to pretend they're adults because at 13 you become an adult. It's also safe for driving. Something we'll get to one day on the Event Talk podcast is the liquor licenses behind hosting events. A lot of people think, "oh I can just have a party and sell tickets and have alcohol." No, no, no. Arizona Liquor Board is going to get very angry.

02:38 My daughter just got married and she doesn't drink, which is sort of ironic. So we had a spicy watermelon mocktail and she chose it, and a lemonade lavender. Everybody liked it so much they started adding tequila — Tito's vodka I do probably 99% of the time. My sales rep had to squeeze like 50 watermelons. How do you squeeze a watermelon? I don't know — she sent me a picture of a shopping cart full of watermelon.

03:29 She makes all sorts. Mocktails are definitely the healthiest way to go, safest for driving. We always say "one sip and you take Uber." Not even a cocktail — one sip or less, it's a family rule. Uber and Lyft are the greatest inventions ever.

04:06 Well, you can talk to the driver in the Waymo — it's just a machine that talks back to you. I can't, there's another end. You're independent — if someone else drives you, how do you feel? I love it, because I drove all the time. I was the sober one in college, didn't drink at all. I was the driver of the basketball team at U of A — I had a seven-foot-one guy sitting next to me and three six-foot-eight guys in the back. So whenever somebody drives me now, I love it.

04:38 Me and Uber, by the time we're done that driver's coming to our party. I know about his entire family, his kids are going. We've had one or two come to our parties. One was a nonprofit — he didn't understand how to run it, so that was a great meeting because he took us home and came back the next day and we explained how the laws work.

05:08 One thing I learned in the event space a long time ago — trust the people you work with. I'm never going to claim I know everything about liquor. I'd call somebody I trust, somebody reputable, and basically say, "bring me the alcohol, you figure out all that stuff." That has made me pretty successful. You do have to trust people. We had a competitor 30 years ago doing something for the Phoenix Business Journal, selling drinks. The client goes, "is this legal?" I said no. He says, "but he says he's only selling the cup, not the alcohol in it." And you fell for that.

06:19 I was doing an event once where they were selling from a market area. They had to have these machines so the host could see how much money was tracked and pay a percentage. This company basically said, "okay, it's only $5 for this product and you're tipping me $20 — I keep all the tip money, I only pay the $5." They were sliding through 100% of the revenue. And guess what? They got kicked out. Welcome to our industry.

06:51 So we're here to talk about hot mics, cold drinks, and untold disasters. I have a few of those untold disasters — and I've learned how to drink alcohol since graduating college. Weird, I was in a sorority. But there's a right way to drink, and then mocktails — I'm so excited to learn all these different amazing mocktails. So many fruits and syrups. Everything is squeezed or made fresh.

07:33 An untold disaster in the event space — disaster, funny, memorable. Maybe a person, maybe something that happened. I'll tell you a sad story. The first time I bartended a wedding, I set up with the caterer, and the bride and groom and the bridal party showed up — and no one else showed up. Not one person showed up to that wedding. There were no phones, no internet. I don't know — maybe they gave everybody the wrong address, maybe they shouldn't be getting married.

09:35 I was helping out at one of your events — it was a Cinco de Mayo festival, and nobody came to the bar. We had three or four bartenders and we made $12 in tips the whole day. The whole entire time it was warm and they had amazing performers. The most entertaining part of the whole event were the kids running in front of the mister. They got fire-truck hats from a vendor down the line and would put it on, pretend to walk by, the hat would blow off, and they'd go running after it — like 25 times.

13:23 I did a mini event out in the middle of the desert. Beautiful, phenomenal events out in the middle of nowhere. At the end of every event our debriefs were "things we could do better" — and in this particular one it was: how to kill a rattlesnake. And I'm like, no, with a shovel. That is not part of my job description. We had two rattlesnakes — one came right up to the bride and groom's table. Luckily we had a firefighter on staff as a bartender that night who scooped it up and put it in the desert. It came back. So they took the shovel, chopped the head off, and buried it.

16:21 We did a party at a house that had a leather kitchen floor. Leather kitchen floor — you walked on it, it was gooey. Soft. Like, you had too much money and didn't know what to do with it. We're like, what happens if we get cranberry juice on it? It's sealed, you know. You guys are nuts. A guy that had — he built his house into the mountain because he was a rock climber, so he could rock climb in his house anytime. When it rained, he couldn't seal it, so he had to have a drainage system underneath.

18:22 I worked an event for a former NFL player — beautiful backyard, lazy river, you could walk into the pool and have a meal but stay dry. Beautiful place to do this charity event. The guy who owned it said, "you want to go see the movie theater, the bowling alley, the gun range?" Then I leave that event and hear he made his money in porn. I hope nobody else knows that, because this poor NFL player is trying to do good with his charity and it focuses on kids.

19:24 Okay, one thing I learned — trust the people you work with. I have been to one NBA player's party where they did not want cell phones. We bartended at a hat party. I got a call from the bartender going, "there's a hat party." And she goes, "no, no — that's all they're wearing." Do I need to send someone? She goes, "no, no, I'm taking pictures." We get these things all the time — of course they're not going to tell us upfront.

20:49 Speaking of that — I have to be late to one of your events tomorrow. Five minutes. I'll talk to them. They have to pick up the ice. So fun seeing these different venues and different people. I don't know what I would have done if I was that bartender at the naked hat party. Probably would have just laughed — wouldn't have taken pictures, because I don't really want that in my memory.

22:07 One thing we're adding to the Event Talk podcast that Dave does not quite know yet — I have a surprise. Dave tends to go off on tangents that are sometimes inappropriate. So I have buzzers for you. Two different buzzers — blue and green. When you go off tangent, I'll just hit one. So whenever you cuss or you go off the dark side. I'm not that conservative, it probably will never be pushed, but I was like, this sounds like fun.

24:05 Part of what I do with the Event Talk is tips of the week, tricks of the trade. I did the Event Talk yesterday — we had 20 people at an outdoor space and cars were driving by. You can talk and 20 people can hear you, but cars make it hard. I didn't want to spend a lot of money on a sound system, so what did I do? I bought a karaoke machine. Put the karaoke speaker in the corner and we had two microphones. It actually worked perfect. Did you return it afterwards? No, but I did rent it. Bought wine that didn't come in time, so I had to go rush out — exactly, an untold story.

25:31 Have you ever met the Wine Fairy? Hayley Wells. She teaches wine, educates wine. Something I learned was when you're doing wine pairings, never pair it with the meat — pair it with the sauce. Most people have sauce on meats. We try to incorporate the wine into the sauce. That's why I don't drink wine, too complicated.

27:02 We have Crown Royal on tap in the backyard. We have Fireball on tap at the office. We were going to do Jägermeister, but you say the word Jägermeister and everyone has a story about dancing on a table or taking their pants off or kissing the wrong person. I am not a Fireball person. In college I'm like, that's my hard no for alcohol — that or anything with energy drinks. Mixing the high and the low.

28:15 What I did with my Cricut. A Cricut is this machine that laser cuts — not laser, but cuts whatever image you want. You can put it on glassware. People are super creative with it, especially in weddings, for place cards. Sticker stencil. We're going to have a lot of education in the Event Talk. Every time you tell me something I don't know about, we do a shot. Non-alcoholic, though.

30:13 The people we're going to have on is going to be very interesting. Some of the stories should be pretty fun, because everyone thinks we do a great job — which we do — but they only see the front of the house. They don't realize the crap that goes on behind the scenes. For example, the Zamboni guy who drives a Zamboni for the Stanley Cup. Let's get his perspective. I'd like to talk to the guy that picks up the horse sh*t at the Kentucky Derby. His job is important — if he doesn't, the horse could slip. Security at events. JD, I'm coming for you.

32:18 The bride and groom getting married on a dock and the dock just gives out, everyone goes flying. One I just saw — "does anybody here have anything to say against," and a cow came up and went "moo." So if you guys have fun untold disasters, this is your podcast. You can submit them. We've been doing this a long time. We can sit and talk about how great we are and how great everybody else is, but we want to talk about the sh*t that happens behind the scenes — and maybe learn a little bit along the way.

34:04 I have friends part of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame curator — he's been there for 14, 16 years. I've known him since I was 13. Get a musician, somebody who sings in front of people at a concert. He fell off stage and nobody knew it — that could be an untold disaster nobody sees because it's behind the scenes. As a kid I ran the spotlight at the Ice Capades — I was up on a scaffold, stoned off my ass, 16 years old. My mom was scared I was going to fall off — I was like 16 feet in the air. My mom used to hand the flowers to the winners on horses at our family's horse stable in Oregon, Wisconsin.

36:04 We're looking for all sorts. So with our guests in mind and everyone else who knows who are going to come on — I just want to hear dirt. I don't care about names, I want to hear what happened and how you fixed it. Tricks of the trade. As a planner at a wedding, don't you have a sewing kit you wouldn't think about? You have a stapler. Some people call it the "oh sh*t kit," or the party kit. What if someone's girl's heels break and you fix it. Chalk is a good one for weddings — for the dress.

37:31 Candles have been a huge thing on bars at events. Large setups of candles, long hair blows and gets the flame. You don't want to go around table to table blowing out every single candle. So you get a bulb pump, one of the little handheld bulb pumps. I learned that from Adam — he works in the candle industry. Tricks of the trade. I don't have a bottle opener in my kit. I have a wine opener, a screwdriver, but no bottle opener. So fun stories, tips, tricks of the trade, learning, education — but at the end of the day we're just here to laugh.

39:32 Again, we understand what you do, but we want to hear the stories. We've been to celebrities' homes, the Super Bowl, the Governor's party. We've also done events for foster children, for dogs. It doesn't always have to be the celebrities. So tune in — every couple weeks check out what new podcasts we have coming up. Amazing talent of behind the scenes, front of the scenes in the event space. If you know anybody you think has some good stories that's in our industry, let us know. Email info@theeventtalk.com. Cheers.

41:15 Thanks for tuning in to the Event Talk podcast — Hot Mics, Cold Drinks and Untold Disasters where every event has a story. A big thank you to our guests for their laughs, stories, and lessons. If you loved this episode, don't forget to subscribe, leave a review, and share with your fellow event pros. Until next time.