Securing Your Event: Insider Tips from a Pro

a Tech. I got involved in the Atlanta Olympics. I went to Australia and ran the sports department for the Sydney Olympics back in 2000. I was there for four and a half years. Then I started my first company. We thought we were going to solve the world's problems in crisis management and operational readiness, and then 9/11 happened and I decided we're going to be a security company. So we've been in the event security space for a long time.

I sold that company and was with a couple of New York firms. I always thought I needed a New York address for some legitimacy. Then during COVID we started Stratoscope Partners, which owns Stratoscope Consulting and Ingressotek, which were our first two companies. Recently we acquired Ford K-9, and we launched Stratos K-9.

The difference between the companies -- they all have a lot of similarities, but Stratoscope is really the strategic layer that pulls the whole plan together. Everything from what kind of staffing plan do we need, video surveillance, event ops center, police, canine, medical, weapons detection. The Stratoscope team builds that plan with the event team, really as early as possible in the event planning phase, and then they become the general contractor that contracts and manages all those pieces.

Ingressotek is the weapons detection company -- the latest in artificial intelligence weapons detection and X-ray from a couple of the top manufacturers in the US. Ford K-9 is the leading training, certifying, and consulting entity on explosive and gun detection canine. And Stratos K-9 will be the dogs and handlers that we deploy at events. So a wide variety of companies with a lot of similarities, but they stand on their own.

Jeff: That's fascinating. So when you talk about the different parts of the event that you might either be consulting on, implementing, or providing the technology for -- are you staffing those as well, or is that typically through a third party like an Argus that's going to be using your stuff?

Dan: We provide the management layer from a staffing perspective. Some of the biggest events we do annually are Salesforce's annual conference called Dreamforce and Google's annual conference called Google Cloud Next. We'll bring in 70 to 100 of our people for that management layer. Then we contract the staffing company -- an Argus, a Best, an IPS, or Allied. The secret sauce is being able to build a staffing plan, the job orders that those staffing companies can really fulfill, and all the post orders and the access control plans to make sure that security guard really knows his or her role. We get the best out of them by having that management layer in place.

Jeff: I was going to ask about the management layer. I've seen some people who are really good at checking bags, and some are not. I'm sure that's always part of the struggle when you're doing event security.

Dan: 100%. The frontline defense is that security staff, right? A lot of our events don't spend the way they need to to have the right frontline people there. Because if you don't have them well-trained, you don't have them coached up, they're going to go to their own natural devices and go look at their phone or not pay attention to what their role is.

Jeff: We see this a little bit on the other side of the event -- the less critical but still important side -- which is checking in people at the door, greeting them, getting their information, getting them prepared for the event. Either way, it's not an area you want to skimp, because this is the entry point for a guest experience.

Let me ask you this, because I think this is also a unique struggle. You've got to make the experience secure. You've got to make sure your staff is doing all the right things. But you don't want to really annoy the person. They've got to be polished, polite -- "Let me look in your handbag" or whatever it might be. And quick.

Dan: It has to be thorough. And it's that balance of a great guest experience while still being able to ensure you've got a really good security posture, whatever that posture happens to be. Not every event needs all those elements I talked about -- weapons detection, video surveillance, all those pieces -- but a lot of events do.

So how do you do that in the most effective manner? Because we're really in the brand and reputation risk business. We get categorized as security. But to your point, we've all been at the airport and that gate agent doesn't tell you what's going on and your flight was supposed to start boarding 10 minutes ago and everybody's anxiety goes up. That's the last thing we want to happen at any of our client's events. We want their experience to be a great event, a great concert, sporting event, or business conference. They're there for a particular objective, and we want them to leave with that objective and not talk about long lines or how frustrating it was to get in.

Jeff: Trust us, we get the concern about long lines. We say the same thing. We have a job to do. The job is important. Our job is different than your job. Your job is to make the event safe and secure -- and that creates an amazing guest experience when done well. Our job is to make sure that the guests have an amazing time, but that the charity or the organization or the host gets the information they need from the people walking in the door. We share some of the same challenges.

Dan: For sure.

Jeff: As it pertains to security -- you said some people don't need a weapons check or whatever. What tends to dictate that? Are local governments, venues, jurisdictions, or insurance companies playing a role in what an event needs?

Dan: Sometimes. In certain locations, local government might look at an event before they permit it and say, "Hey, what are you doing to make sure it's going to be safe and secure?" But generally, these are at private locations and local government isn't getting too involved. We did the inaugural Formula One in Las Vegas. Obviously we had everybody's eyeballs involved and wanting to understand everything that was happening. But that's not the norm.

So it's really up to the event owner to say, what's my priority as it relates to the safety and security of the people coming? And what are my true risks? Identifying those risks is different today than it was five or ten years ago. We used to go to local law enforcement or state law enforcement and get a risk assessment. We could find out if there was a terror cell or something going on. Now we have pro-Palestinian protests that have caused issues in some parts of the country. Most of that traditional risk assessment is out the window because of the socioeconomic challenges that most of our communities are facing.

Nobody thought that the guy on New Year's Eve was going to drive a truck down Bourbon Street -- thankfully at 3 AM and not right at midnight. We have people in this country that are under certain pressures where they're not acting the way they have been, and now we've got real risk at events. So it's really looking at each event and saying, is this a possible target for something? Do I need to be doing more? What's the latest information I have? And how do I make sure I'm not a target for somebody that just decides to do something bad today?

Jeff: I don't know how you answer that question. I can't imagine -- obviously we're involved in a lot of fundraisers. We just did my own recently, which is at an outdoor concert venue in Denver for the Kentucky Derby. It never crossed my mind that somebody would come in and do something awful. They're not going to drive a car through the gate. But I mean, you saw what happened in Boulder recently. There's a lot of different things people can do. We never thought about that. We thought about theft for sure, or vandalism, because there's hundreds of thousands of dollars in equipment at this venue overnight. But I've never thought about the safety of our guests. I think a lot of event hosts take it for granted.

Dan: Right, until you're on the news. There was the Garlic Festival in California going back a few years. A good person became a bad guy that particular day and brought a weapon to that event and shot people. I'm sure those organizers were never like, "We need weapons detection and vehicle mitigation." But it happened. And now their mindset changes -- realistically, any gathering is an opportunity if somebody wants to be a bad guy that day.

Elise: We work with a number of organizations, from very small to much larger. Obviously, some of them do not have a lot of funds to spend towards safety and security. What would you say would be your minimum recommendation for people? Even Jeff's event -- just keeping safety in mind?

Dan: I think there are a couple simple things that are low budget. What's my perimeter and how do I really know who's getting inside my perimeter, with or without weapons detection? A lot of our events focus on the front door because we've sold a ticket or want to make sure we've got the right people in there. But what's going on at the back door? How are we making sure that our vendors and suppliers are really who we think they are?

There are some simple processes to put in place to vet that whole perimeter. Just make sure there's a way for people you want to have access to get access. It doesn't have to be cumbersome. Most people expect that if they've been invited or paid for access, there will be some sort of process they go through.

Then I would look just outside my perimeter. Our latest threat is the vehicle attack -- it's really easy to do, anyone can rent a car and use it as a weapon. So what am I doing in my parking areas? What am I doing in areas where I might have a lot of people flowing from the parking area to the entry area? What are the little things I can do to protect that area? What's a few pieces of Jersey barrier or K-rail going to cost? Local law enforcement -- "Hey guys, we're here, we'd love to have your presence. Have you heard of anything?" Talk to your local agencies. Maybe they'll get an officer to come out and have a squad car near the entry. That visual deterrent is worth its weight in gold.

Those are small things where you don't have to spend a lot, but you can give your guests that satisfaction that you've thought about it and you're doing something to make sure they're going to have a fun, safe experience.

Jeff: I think it's a great idea. You see a lot of churches around here that have law enforcement parked out front these days for obvious reasons. For events, especially ones that are very visible -- like an outdoor event like the one I run -- having that presence makes a lot of sense.

So let me ask you another question, because this came up at my event the day before. I almost feel like it's one of those awareness training things you need to give the staff. Here's this guy walking around the venue. Again, it's an outdoor amphitheater. It's very well-known and popular in Denver. It's technically a private venue. You can't just walk into it without a ticket. But when we're setting up that day, all of the doors are open, all the gates are open. Forklifts are coming in and out.

And here's this guy walking around. You just get that feeling -- you don't fit here. I look at him and it's my event, so I know who everybody is. I'm like, who is that guy? Well, he's talking to one of my board members, and I'm thinking, oh, he must be with her. Although they don't look like they would ever be friends. He looks a little suspicious -- it's got to be 75 degrees out and he's in long pants and a sweatshirt with a hood over his head.

Finally, she's getting him a glass of water from the bar and chatting with him. He leaves and walks past me. I walk up to her and I'm like, who was that? She's like, "I have no idea. I thought you knew who he was."

So -- is there awareness training that you tend to give people? Like, look for the people that don't fit? Does everybody need to be credentialed? A wristband, a badge, something around their neck?

Dan: There are a number of pieces there. Everybody that you have provided access to is part of your team on that day. They should get the "if you see something, say something" message. It doesn't have to be the national hotline -- it can literally be, "Call me, call my manager." Just "This looks out of place over here."

And then that goes into -- well, what if we had a medical incident during load-in? It's the same process. What's that call tree? What's the communication plan? So the "see something, say something" from my local event should be the same thing. This just doesn't look right. This person keeps surveilling the perimeter. That's the first step.

Obviously, I would prefer in any situation from day one of load-in that I've got some sort of access control. Whether it's a wristband -- I prefer credentials because it's hard to see a wristband if someone has long sleeves or they won't put it on their wrist. Something that says these are the people that have been approved to be here. And maybe we don't have to have all these doors and gates open all day. I've got this particular area for load-in. I'm going to shut down the rest. I'm going to make everybody else check in in this particular area.

Most of the pushback we get is, "That's an inconvenience. This labor group from this union always comes over here." I get it. I understand the inconvenience. But I want to keep it safe for everybody, including your labor and the people working for you. So here's what we're going to do. We're going to have one check-in area and one area for vehicles and trucks. That's how we're going to get everything inside the perimeter. We'll keep everything else shut down. If I've got to open something else, I'll open it for a short period, have people there to make sure that it's just that vehicle that needs to get in and out. Then I shut it back down. A little discipline helps make sure that we only have the right people inside of our facilities.

Jeff: I agree with that 100%. All these things are popping into my head of what we're going to change next year. But do you think a lot of people feel like that's the venue's responsibility and not the people using the venue?

Dan: Every one of those venue agreements is different. Sometimes you're just renting the shell. That responsibility falls on you. Go do an event at a convention center in any city in America -- you're basically running a blank field. Most convention centers have some 24/7 security to lock doors at night and open them in the morning, but they're not a proactive security team that's going to work on your behalf to make sure only your event people come in.

It really depends on the venue and your agreement. Now, if you rent a stadium or a professional MLB park or an NBA arena, you're going to end up paying for that basic level of security in your rental agreement because they're just not going to let you not have that level on site.

Would I push back if the venue says they're not taking any responsibility? I'd be like, well, you're charging me this fee. I think you should be providing some basic level of security, at least for load-in or at night.

Jeff: I mean -- I won't name the event because I don't want to embarrass anyone. But we did this massive event once. When I say massive, the tent itself was over a million dollars to set up. Thousands of people there every night. During the day they were off to other things, but at night there was a concert and a dinner -- basically a gala, for three nights out of a week.

At night, we just walked away from the tent. The doors were locked. We thought. We came back the next day and half of our auction items were gone. So again, it wasn't just about a safe environment -- this was about, I always thought about event security as "don't steal the signed boxing glove that's on the table." It sucks because the stuff was donated, but there's a real opportunity loss in the lost revenue for the charity.

We're having this long conversation about what happened, and it's like, well, they paid somebody to watch the tent. And again, this tent is massive. I don't think they locked all the doors. Somebody didn't lock a door. But the guard got cold because it was cold. So she went and sat in her car and watched YouTube videos and fell asleep and didn't watch the tent.

But in those cases -- what's outside of safety? You have safety and weapons checking, and then you just have surveillance. Do you provide that too, and do you guide on that?

Dan: I think each event organizer has to consider their priorities. You're typically going to start with the safety of your attendees as priority one. Crowd management might be priority two. Loss prevention typically falls pretty far down the list because you're insured for that stuff. You're not hurting somebody. But it could have a very negative impact on the event.

If you're going to move loss prevention up on your list as a higher priority, how are you going to do that? Because putting a security guard in a tent -- let's say that guard was on point doing a great job and you, the event organizer, had to go in and get something. Does that security guard really know that you can go in and I can't? Because I can probably talk my way past the guard -- "Oh no, I've got to go fix something at that table, it's got to happen before tomorrow morning."

One of the biggest problems with overnight security specifically with no management is anybody can talk their way past that guard, even if they're doing their job. Because we don't have credentials that really identify who can and who cannot go in after hours. So I always push back on clients that want a security guard to watch the audio equipment at an event. I'm like, okay, let's pay for that. Now tell me exactly who can and who cannot go in after hours. And they can't answer the question. So what's the security guard going to do? Let's help the guard do their job, or else they're going to go sit in their car and watch YouTube videos.

Jeff: So let me ask you -- I just chatted with a gentleman recently who got into this space. His company sells surveillance technology -- kind of like the blue light thing that police will put up in a grocery store parking lot. He sells it for construction job sites. It's all remote surveillance. Does that kind of stuff work? Is it worth it?

Dan: It depends on the environment and what you're trying to achieve. If I had that tent -- the million-dollar tent with overnight security -- what's the cost of putting up two or three cameras so that I've got some investigation as to what happened? Did the guard go in there? Did the guard let a colleague in? Did somebody on my team actually go in there and help themselves? A couple of cameras so that I can go and see what happened can be very valuable.

Jeff: All these things are popping in my head. These don't have to be super sophisticated cameras either. If I'm a small charity running an event and I'm nervous that my event setup is going to be unmonitored for some period of time, can I just throw a couple of Ring cameras on the tables and leave them there?

Dan: It literally can be that simple. At least you have something to go back to and see what happened. The camera's not going to stop that item from walking away. But it's going to give you some intelligence. What you need to do is look at your risk profile and look at that tent. It's got all these charity items and the next day it's really important for those things to be there. I'm going to put a manager on the overnight and make darn sure that stuff is there the next day, instead of a $10-12-15 an hour security guard. Because it's a very important aspect of my event.

Jeff: I've met some of these security guards. They're not going to be chasing down any perpetrators any time soon.

Dan: Unfortunately, that doesn't happen. You asked previously about what the posture should be for an event. A good general guide -- 5% of your budget should go towards something security-related. That's a really low number. But let's say you've got a $5 million event. You're putting what, $25,000 into security? It's not a lot, but it's something. It's a useful measure.

Jeff: I think it makes a lot of sense. So let me ask -- and I'm going to get a little bit legal for a second. Does this map to any form of gross negligence? Is your insurance company going to look at you and say, you did nothing to ensure the safety of the guests?

Dan: Plausible deniability is no longer a way to get out of that lawsuit. If you've got some sort of loss coverage with your insurance company, they should have some general elements in place that say you have to have A, B, and C. But when you're playing in that legal field, are you telling all of your guests and vendors that you're taking no responsibility for any loss or their safety? A lot of the fine print on tickets tries to get them out of that. But at the end of the day, that lawsuit's going to happen. So how much are you going to spend to defend yourself versus being proactive and making sure it doesn't happen?

Jeff: I'm just curious -- fun stories. What would you say is the most challenging event you've worked?

Dan: It's a fun question. Seven different Olympic Games, 13 Super Bowls, Formula One in Las Vegas. That was one of the biggest challenges we've had because we were responsible for the whole security apparatus for all of the fan zones. And we're part of the track, of course. We're in Las Vegas, and the track has to open early morning, like three or four AM every day, until like 4 PM the following day so the city can breathe. Because the track basically encompassed the whole casino area.

So now you're trying to secure these fan zones -- there were seven of those and a track. We had 10 different security companies as part of that, plus coordination with Las Vegas Metro PD, which they were phenomenal, and then all the agency support that came in.

We're in Las Vegas. It's a huge event. First time it's ever been run in Las Vegas. First time Formula One has ever run a race where the track opens and closes. So you really have no secure perimeter overnight.

Jeff: So people could go in there and plant something, like what happened at the Boston Marathon?

Dan: The track was open. The fan zones weren't -- the seating areas. But you've got seating areas, and then all of this public space outside of the ticketed seating areas. There were 250,000 people there. The stress and pressure of that event, knowing our team is going to do the best they can to secure what we could secure, but you've still got this element of all the people outside of these secure areas, and what if something goes wrong?

The race ended Saturday night -- so let's say two or three in the morning on Sunday. When that event ended and we got everybody home safely, the amount of pressure that came off our shoulders was significant. But throw in there that on the first night, we load all of the fan zones for practice session one. We're not 10 minutes into it and one of the cars spins off a sewer cap -- a water cap -- damages another car, and they halt racing. It was supposed to start at 10 PM. They halted it at 10:30.

Jeff: I heard about that.

Dan: And now we're trying to figure out what we're doing with these hundreds of thousands of people in these fan zones. What if they all want to leave? Because we don't know when racing is going to restart -- Formula One and the FIA have got to go check the whole track. How long is this going to take? We had a huge ops center. We had all the decision-makers there. But it literally got to 1 AM when Formula One made the decision that racing was going to start at, I want to say, 1:30 or 2 AM.

And we've got fans coming back in who, who knows where they've been out drinking, and they're not going to be really friendly when we tell them they can't come in. Because we didn't have guest services, food and beverage -- all of that staff was off the clock at 1 AM. And I can't put people in venues if we can't provide water. So it was a very challenging night.

Those aren't security issues -- those are operations issues -- but they significantly impact security because we're the ones that have to tell people you can't come in, or if you're already in, you have to leave.

Everything you do affects security in one way, shape, or form. Those incidents -- the real critical piece of any event, I don't care how small -- what is my incident assessment, my incident management process? What's my communication process? How do I pull decision-makers together to ensure that whatever happens throughout my event, I can bring people together, assess what's happened, and make a good decision very quickly?

That's one of the biggest challenges. Most event organizers kind of take it for granted. "Yeah, we have a crisis management plan. We wrote it down. We have an evacuation plan. It's over here in a binder somewhere." It's a really good plan. People don't dust it off. They don't practice it and they don't really exercise who's going to make what decisions and what the communication is going to be like.

Jeff: It makes total sense. Just looking at some of the incidents and crises -- I do remember the sewer cap that flew off. But look at what happened with Trump over the summer. Wasn't part of that that you had multiple groups? You had law enforcement in five or six or seven different configurations. Are they all talking on the same frequency using the same tools? Has that been fixed? Because I could see that being a problem at most events too.

Dan: When you bring multiple agencies together, you get multiple headaches. I'm not on the inside of that issue, but clearly the lead agency was the Secret Service, and then local law enforcement had responsibilities for different pieces of the security of that rally. And there were gaps. There was a lack of good communication and leadership that said, "We've got these resources in these places, and if we don't have any in this place, by the way, if you see somebody walking around with a weapon, they don't belong there, that's not one of us." There were a lot of failures in that one.

Jeff: Bringing that communication together is critical. And just the part that resonates with me as it pertains to my event -- are we all talking on the same frequency or not? Because what I've seen at a lot of charity events -- and we're going to take this from Formula One, which I'm really impressed that you ran security for, down to just a standard 500 to 700 person gala -- you've got people texting each other, people on radios, people on phone calls. Is there a model or infrastructure that allows everybody to be informed about something that's happening? A lot of our charity partners probably don't have that.

Dan: Being in the security and crowd management side, we rely on radio communication, and it's got to be done well. I can't have a gap in communications because we don't have time to sit and look at our phone and see the last WhatsApp or text -- Slack messages, pick a channel. We don't have time for that. And by the way, most production people don't either. You're in the middle of doing things. You don't have time to look down at your phone.

But the industry has gone that way. People think, "I'll put a WhatsApp group together, a text group together." A lot of the production side of our clients have moved away from radio communications. The problem with that is they don't hear how the problem started. They only hear the problem. Because they see what actually happened.

When you don't have the background, what the radio does -- if you keep it in your ear -- you hear what's going on. You can start to see, that doesn't sound like it's going to come out right, and maybe you can jump in and solve it. But if you're relying on a static messaging system like text or WhatsApp, you're not getting the background of what's happening. You're not getting the tone of the person's voice. Now you've got too many mediums or channels to try and keep everybody up to date. I think it's been bad for the industry that it's gone away from radio communication.

Jeff: 100% agree. We have radios. In the beginning, I think a lot of people say, "Well, I'm going to use radio only if my venue is big and spread out. But if we're all in a more confined space, we don't." But to your point, I've seen that fail too.

We do an event out in North Carolina. They've got 700, 800, 1,000 people, somewhere in that range. It's all in one convention center, which is not a big one. But it doesn't matter. When you're on a text thread and you put your phone down and come back and you've missed 62 messages -- you don't even want to go back and reread. The current conversation is about "we'll try this and see if this works." Try what?

Dan: 100%. Radios are not expensive. Invest in them if you're running an event. And keep it on, by the way.

Jeff: This year I kept my radio on. It's a Derby event. You look really ridiculous in your fancy Derby outfit with a radio on. But I'm the event host.

Last year, Dan, I had a board member come up to me and say, "Man, I just want you to enjoy the event. I'll take your radio." So I gave him my radio. No one could get a hold of me. No one knew where I was because I'm running around doing other stuff. And he decided to go to the bar and not do his duties with my radio. So that didn't work out. Definitely keep it on. Don't pass the radio.

Dan: Don't abdicate your duties. But you say it's only 400, 500, 600 people -- it's still that many people in a space that can probably only hold that many people. You've still got that density. You're not yelling across the room to tell someone to close that door or change that food and beverage setup. Now you're going to text them? They might only be 25 feet away, but by the time you get there through the crowd, it's very inconvenient and not very efficient. So stick with the radios. Be able to get on the radio and say, "Hey, Dan, I need to close that door," or "Hey, talk to that caterer. We didn't tell them to set up right there and it's going to block the way we're going to move everybody around."

Jeff: Right. So it doesn't matter the size of the event because you're still packing that number into a space that can probably barely hold that number.

Dan: I agree.

Jeff: This was really interesting. I'm feeling really encouraged that I'm much more educated on what I need to do. And look, these aren't big things.

Dan: No. You've got to get your group together and discuss an incident response plan. We do it in cybersecurity, right? We're a software company and people ask us all the time, what's going to happen if there's a data breach? What's going to happen if there's some other sort of cyber breach? We have to walk through and discuss it. And my staff -- Dan, I'm telling you -- they love annual security training.

Dan: It is necessary, though. You work at a company and they're like, why are they showing me how to spot phishing in my email? Well, because they're trying to reduce the opportunities. But why aren't we doing this at our events? I know it sounds easy. And you can make it cost-effective.

Jeff: For sure.

Dan: Cost-effective step number one is recognizing that there's no event that isn't a target. It's an opportunity for somebody. It could be just a disgruntled employee. It could be that you're doing a charity event and the host got divorced two months ago and there's some personal drama. You don't need any of that at your event. So talk through what those different challenges might be. There's not one event out there that isn't a target or an opportunity for somebody to do something you don't want. Hopefully it's not something disastrous or tragic. But you don't want a disgruntled family member to show up and cause a scene.

Jeff: It should be all part of the same conversation, for sure. I love it. That's great. This is awesome. I appreciate your time educating all of us, including our listeners and viewers, about what this is all about.

Elise: And Jeff and me.

Jeff: So in terms of your business, give our audience a little more information about how they can use your services in the future.

Dan: Best way is our website -- stratoscope.com. That's S-T-R-A-T-O-S-C-O-P-E dot com. Ingressotek -- I-N-G-R-E-S-S-O-T-E-K dot com -- that's the weapons detection company. And listen, we do weapons detection for a 100-person event. And then Stratos K-9 -- stratosk9.com. Each of those companies is here to help. We'll take the phone call just to give you our advice. We don't charge for that. We're happy to help anybody in the industry because our objective is to, A, build some long-term relationships, and B, make sure everybody stays safe at their events.

Jeff: Love it. We'll get all this stuff linked into the podcast notes so they can get a hold of you. Dan, thank you so much for your time. This has been awesome.

Dan: Anytime.

Jeff: This is hopefully encouraging everybody out there. It was super interesting, too, which is always a bonus. And you can balance security with guest experience.

Dan: Absolutely.

Jeff: Can I tell you one last story?

Dan: Yeah, of course.

Jeff: So I'm starting the two companies -- Stratoscope and Ingressotek -- and I'm working with our branding company. They're pretty high-end, and they're trying to come up with the right names. We settled on Stratoscope and we loved it. Then we were talking about the weapons detection company, and this marketing person who knows nothing about the event business, let alone the security business -- I'm on a call and they're brainstorming. She looks at me and goes, "Dan, you're not in the security business." I said, "Really? I'm not?" She goes, "No, you're in the emotions business." And I said, okay, help me out.

She goes, "Think about it. Someone buys a ticket to go to Taylor Swift or a sporting event. Their emotions are way up here because they're going to go. They've got access now and they're going to go. And then the day of, their emotions are even higher because they're going to finally see this talent they want to see. Then they get there and there's long lines and their emotions go way down because they've got to go through this painful bag check. And there's lines and it's slow and terrible. And once they go through that, somebody on the inside has to bring their emotions back up."

She goes, "You're a new technology that takes away all those long lines. You're in the emotions business, and you're here to keep their emotions up here." And that's all of us in the event industry, right? It's that guest experience.

Jeff: For sure. So that's my last good, fun story.

Jeff: All right, we're going to end on a high emotion. That was awesome. We're in the emotions business. Thanks everybody for joining us today. Dan, again, thank you so much for all that you do in the event space. Hopefully you guys will reach out to Dan here soon and make your event more secure. Until next time, happy fundraising.

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