What happens when you're asked to insure the Washington Monument, cover it in plastic days before New Year's Eve, or delay a world-record fireworks display with the clock ticking toward midnight?

Host Rick Kiley and Soho Experiential co-founder Jeff Bojis sit down with veteran pyrotechnics producer Joe Mercante for two high-stakes stories from the world's biggest celebrations.

From America's Millennium Celebration in Washington, D.C., to a 60-mile fireworks spectacle across Dubai, Joe shares how meticulous planning, clear safety protocols, and the discipline to hold the line turned impossible moments into unforgettable shows. Hear why the best event plans aren't about preventing every problem—they're about knowing exactly what to do when one arrives.

What happens when a 120-to-140-mile-per-hour windstorm hits the day before an Adidas pop-up opens near Coachella—and the city shuts down the entire structure? Host Rick Kiley sits down with Brad Jackson of Out of Office to revisit Adidas's 2018 Clima Ultra Boost activation in the California desert.

The plan was a black mirrored roadside retail experience set among the wind farms. But after extreme winds made the site unsafe, officials chained the doors and barred guests from entering. With hours to go, Brad and his crew transformed shipping containers, black gravel, and the closed installation into a new retail moment and photo-worthy art stunt. Hear how they got the shoes into people's hands and salvaged an impossible situation.

What do you do when your "Super Bowl" event for 1,000 guests suddenly balloons to 2,700 RSVPs just two weeks before showtime—and then a global tech outage hits?

In this live-recorded episode from the TruNorth Presents: The Business of Experiential event in New York City, host Rick Kiley sits down with Marie Christofferson (Experiential Marketing Lead, Campari Group) and Jeannie Veneri (SVP of Client Services, SoHo Experiential) to recount the chaotic production of Noche Neon. This massive event celebrated the 25th anniversary of Espolón Tequila during the legendary Tales of the Cocktail festival in New Orleans.

The team faced a "comedy of errors" that would break most producers: a 3x surge in attendance, the infamous 2024 CrowdStrike travel outage that stranded key staff, a DJ testing positive for COVID on event morning, and a centerpiece neon backdrop that arrived in plain black and white. Hear the incredible story of how the crew "acted like ducks"—calm on the surface while paddling furiously underneath—to solve every crisis, from hand-coloring a massive scenic wall with Sharpies to turning a production assistant into the night's headlining DJ.

Season 1 proved one thing: the best stories don't come from perfect plans.

As we head into Season 2 of In the Unlikely Event, we're looking for event organizers, producers, and creative leaders willing to talk honestly about the moments that tested them and what they learned along the way.

If you've got a story, we're listening.

🎧 Explore Season 1 and connect with us at sohoexp.com/podcast