¶ Introduction to Tammy Richter
Hello everyone , Welcome to On the Move , a show where we share transportation , sales and marketing success stories . I am Jennifer Karpis-Romain , Executive Director at the Transportation Marketing and Sales Association , which is a trade nonprofit educating and connecting marketing and salespeople in transportation and logistics .
And today on the show I'm very excited we have Tammy Richter , who is the VP of Event Operations at South by Southwest . She's going to be one of our panelists at our upcoming Elevate show and she's here on the podcast today . How are you doing , Tammy ? I'm doing great .
It's so exciting to be here , so excited to have you and to chat with you about all things South by Southwest and our upcoming show as well that will be in Austin , Texas . But can you first tell us a little bit about your role as the VP of Event Operations ? How did you first get involved with South by Southwest ?
¶ From Criminal Justice to SXSW
Absolutely so . I'm a born and raised Austinite , which what we call it's what we call we're unicorns at this point . So I originally had an interest in criminal justice . That's what I went to school for .
In college I got the travel bug and I joined the airline industry for a few years and then in the early 2000s the airline industry , just you know , as we all know and so I came back to Austin and I started working in a bunch of the high tech startups and I landed the job as a marketing admin .
And one of the things that I did as a marketing admin was I coordinated the consumer electronic show booth for my company , and that is where I just absolutely fell in love with events . I love the logistics of it just that small little bit of it and I also wanted to get back involved with the city of Austin .
It was very much , you know , in my blood , being an Austinite . So , flipping through the Austin Chronicle looking for the next big music show I wanted to go to , I saw a advertisement for South by Southwest volunteers and so I went to the volunteer call and , over almost 25 years later , here I am , the vice president of event operations .
I love that story and that journey to get there . It is such a massive , multifaceted event . What does your typical day look like in the months leading up to it , if you have a typical day ?
In one word , it's long and you're right , it's not usually typical , but you know , our days consist of a lot of coordination and planning meetings . We're collaborating with a lot of internal and external stakeholders . The event itself takes place over the entire city of Austin , and it's critical to balance the success for attendees , but also for the city .
We impact the city on a pretty grand scale , and so we want to make sure that we're taking care of the city and that they are also benefiting from our event as much as our attendees are that are coming from around the globe from our event , as much as our attendees are that are coming from around the globe ?
Absolutely , and you have so many events that range from film and tech to music and education . How do you keep all of those moving parts aligned ?
So the secret sauce would be over communication . You know , regardless of the content or the type of event that we're
¶ Keeping Moving Parts Aligned
producing , it's really the same from an operational and logistics point of view . We're still having to staff it , we're still putting the pieces together , we still have to coordinate with the city , we have to do the permitting . So you know , on the back end of it , everything's very similar . On the front end it's going to look really different .
We do an assessment for every single event that takes place at South by Southwest . That's showcases of a film , it could be a speaking engagement , it could be anything that's happening . So each one of those events we do an assessment on and we look at okay , what do we need in terms of resources to make sure that that event goes off seamlessly ?
We want it to be successful , we want to prevent disruptions and , again , we want to prevent pulling from resources from anywhere other than our own .
What do you think with all of those pieces is the most kind of underestimated challenge that comes up when you're planning this event .
I would say planning for the unexpected . So because the event is so large , you know , and , like I said , it takes over an entire city , basically downtown part of Austin , we start planning more than a year in advance for the next event , so that planning cycle is very long .
So what we're planning for right now , at the end of April , that could very much be completely different in the next 30 days . The political climate , the global trends , all of those things influence how our attendees see our event and how they take in information . So we have to take that into consideration .
We have to just continuously plan and make adjustments where we need to to make sure that it's going to be the optimal experience for the people that are coming to our event , whether they're coming from outside of Austin or they are part of our community . You know , one of the things that I really really love is being able to pivot really quickly .
So there's the planning aspect of it . But then we get on site and we have to , you know , make sure that in a moment's notice we can fix a disruption .
We can , you know , pivot to go in a different direction if it's not going how we expected it to go , and so being able to have that forethought and having those resources ready to go at plan A , b and C is instrumental , and that's the things that people don't see .
Yeah , I mean , you don't want them to see , you want them to be like oh yeah , this is just a seamless experience for you .
Yeah , exactly A couple of years ago I spoke at a different conference and it was a gentleman by the name of Louis Gravance and he is from Disney , and so he gave a talk about the seven secrets to Wow service , and what he said was never let them see the wires . And the second he said that I was like that's it . That is totally what we do .
We do it all from behind the scenes and , as chaotic , as chaotic as it seems in the background , you never see that in the front .
I think that's really good advice . I had a boss in college and he told me because I wasn't doing it , I was like a student manager at the dining hall . It was a very serious job at the time but he took something about like leadership and guiding people that , um , I've kind of taken with me . But he was like you want to be like a duck ?
And I'm like , excuse me , what ? And he was like you know , ducks , when they glide across the water you just see this like majestic duck going , you know , but underneath the water their feet are like going like crazy , but you don't see that and so you need to be more like that .
And I've tried to be like that , but I feel like people tend to see my feet going a little bit crazy , but I do my best .
But I do think like that's what you want for your event attendees and I love hearing those because , yeah , like we're planning for Elevate right now , there's so much going on , so coordination , so many different people , and our attendees are like event planners and marketing people and sales people that can see the cracks , I think , a little bit more than other
people , because they do this type of work , which also , I think makes them a little bit more forgiving , which is nice . But and they'll like help , like I remember last year that we're having like an audio issue . One of my members was like , do you want me to ? Like , yeah
¶ Behind-the-Scenes Event Planning
, go tell them what we need , thank you .
But because we have all these people that are part of this , like planning process or executing , making sure that their customers and their sponsors are happy how do you kind of ensure the coordination between so many internal teams and external vendors and then you talked about the city and how important they are how do you make sure all of those coordination I mean
, obviously communication is going to be really big here , but how do you make sure that goes and everything to support the event ?
um , yeah , obviously , frequent conversations , especially leading up to the actual event . Um , it's a lot of not assuming . Um , you know , just because it happened last year doesn't mean it's going to happen this year .
So making sure that you're not assuming that you know it's just a cut and paste sort of deal , um , not jumping to conclusions and understanding how everything that you do impacts somebody else , regardless of what it is . It's going to have an impact on someone else and you have to understand that . So you know it's promoting big ideas .
Is is one of the pillars of South by Southwest , and we can put it on our social media , we can hype it up , but if we execute it and it falls flat , then it was all for nothing , right ? So we want to make sure that we're having all of those very detailed conversations internally , but also externally .
So we have very deep conversations with our city partners .
There's actually a department called the Arts , culture , music and entertainment They've just kind of switched their names so I had to think about it for a second and leading up to the event , we have very regular meetings , usually weekly when we get closer , and it's all the departments so transportation , public works , public safety , anybody that is going to be
impacted by our event or plays some role .
And we are very transparent with what we are doing because we want to make sure that they can support us appropriately , that we're again not impacting on their resources because , you know , we may feel like we're going to be successful from everything that we're putting into it , but we need them to feel successful too and we need them to be able to support us
and we need to support them . And so those conversations are very , very important . Um , they're also very important because we're working on logistics together . We have a ton of road closures , we change traffic flow , we have , you know , barricade plans .
There's meridian barricade that has to go up , there's construction , uh , that needs to stop in certain areas so that we can have our event .
So , having those um relationships , those communications and on a regular basis , super important and again , not assuming just , I send emails all the time that are like you probably already know this , but and I'm just going to drop it in your lap again and probably again so it's okay to over-communicate .
I think people will appreciate it more than if they're left in the dark because they didn't hear about something . So , transparent , parent-free early engagement and again that over-communication .
I think that's so true . And especially like , even if you did tell someone something , there are so many moving parts and I love what you said at the beginning like what you do is affect something else . It's a domino effect . So like if somebody in the middle of the dominoes doesn't know something , it really can cause chaos .
So like making sure and you mentioned like weekly calls leading up to the event when is that like time period of when you're like oh , it's go time , it's now weekly . We have to make sure we're touching base .
It's interesting because it's been very much the same over my entire career at South by Southwest . There's a lot of planning that's happening , and then we get to the December holidays and it's almost like people just take a minute to take a breath and then we come back in the holidays on the first day of january or the .
You know that we're back in the office and it's like , oh no , it's go time and it's just a . You know , emails flying everywhere , phone calls happening .
There is a point in time where you're like , okay , no more emails , it's phone calls only we don't have time to wait for emails , let's go um , so yeah it's when we , you know , january , february , and then the few weeks in march before we go on site , absolute organized chaos it's the way to live , I mean .
I think that's all . Event planners can understand that um do you guys then , after the event , take a break ? Do you like take naps , or do you're like , nope , let's go into next year ?
We try ,
¶ Coordinating with City Partners
but we're not very successful at that at all . We usually do . We have a lot of wrap up , obviously that we have to do with you know both our clients or vendors . We are looking at what went well , what went wrong kind of doing your after action review of the event but at the same time we're already planning for 2026 , while we're wrapping up 2025 .
So there's not a whole lot of downtime . We tend to take a day here and a day there , but , yeah , it's full steam ahead for 26 already .
Yeah , that's I . Our event is Sunday through Tuesday , so June 8th through 10th . I close the office for Wednesday , thursday , friday of that week , so that staff can nap and , like you know , get together after every and then , and then it's back to work on Monday .
So like that's something I've done which I really like , because it is like it's a lot and like I'm still in , like I'll still be in Austin on Wednesday and making sure the packages go and ship right and everything like that , but not but like just taking those couple of days to be like , okay , we just did so much , let's press a little bit before we start
going . That's been really helpful .
I think it's a little bit of waking up in the morning , getting a couple of hours of work done and then everyone going . I don't think I have any more left in me , so I'm just going to go , I'm just going to take the afternoon .
Yeah , you know , I think one of the great things about our staff is that we have found a balance between work and personal life , and you know , I'm pursuing those things outside of the office that are really important to us , so we tend to try to work that in together . It's work hard , play hard , and it strikes a good balance .
So I've got four kids and sometimes I've just got to go do kid things . And that is very much an understood thing in our office . We're going to get it done , but I also need to go to that track meet .
Yep , absolutely Love that and so , thinking about that experience side of of the attendee , the attendee experience , people that are coming to South by South but , like you said , people come from all over . This is an event .
How does the operation side and marketing then align to deliver that experience from when you first start promoting it until when people are leaving and being like , yeah , this is what we loved or didn't ?
It all boils down to having a shared vision . You know , the vision of South by Southwest is that we dedicate ourselves to helping creative people achieve their goals .
That is what South by Southwest is all about , and so you know that is what our marketing team , that is what our brand , you know , is trying to accomplish through all of their work , and it's the same thing that we are trying to accomplish through all of our work as operations .
And so you know , we know that the attendee journey , everything that marketing does , you know there's a reason behind it . There are very specific touch points that they have put into place because they want the customer , the participants , everybody who experiences South by Southwest , to feel this vision .
And you know , if operations can't execute that and make it again seamless and without disruption , then it's gonna fall flat and that's not gonna look good on social media . Or we need to be able to build the trust of our audience and in order to do that , we have to work together to produce what you know what our vision is .
And when you're having those conversations , having that shared vision , who's kind of at that table having those discussions ? How do you make sure everyone internally is aligned ?
Yeah , so it's a constant feedback loop and , like I said , there's that over communication and you know , even if you know I may hear something over here that I you know it's not really in my wheelhouse , but I heard it and I know that whatever I just overheard could be impactful to somebody else's role . And so we have Slack at work .
We have a bunch of different like chat channels . It can be as easy as just a really casual hey , I heard this might be happening . Is that true ? No , verifying information is really important as well . You know , making sure that you have true and accurate information .
You're not jumping to conclusions , you know , and just you know , being transparent about what you're hearing and having conversations . There is a thing that we have in our office called going direct . With respect , you know , if something isn't going right or somebody has said something , then we need to just go and talk to that person directly and find out
¶ Aligning Operations with Marketing
what is going on . You know it could be part of you know what you're doing or a project that you're working on , or it could be personal , but having those relationships and having trust in your co-workers , you know it builds accountability and it is just keeping that communication and that feedback loop going um .
Like I said , our event changes over the course of a year , so what we plan now is definitely not going to be what you know turns out to be when we get on site . So communication in both directions is really important , you know . The other thing is that you know it may our clients . They have big visions . Our sales team sells , you know , different assets .
Those start as one thing and they also morph as we go along . So we want to be able to deliver , you know , the end product to our sales clients and our sponsors , and we have to accommodate for their changes as well .
So not only are we having the internal communications , but we're we need to keep them linked in too , because we want to make sure that we're putting into place the systems of the structures that are going to support them as well .
I like that . I like how many catchphrases you guys seem to have in your office to really like help people understand , like , hey , we're all a team , we're in this together . Let's get through it and figure out the best way to do that .
One thing I'm interested to you that so South by Southwest has grown and obviously and now you do a South by Southwest , london too , correct , and Sydney and Sydney , wow .
I haven't done .
London . Yet London's coming , but we've done Sydney . And how do you tactfully approach scalability when it comes to event planning ?
So I think what's really important is , no matter how big or small the event is , again , keeping that shared vision and , you know , making sure that we're meeting our company goals , making sure that everyone in the company is on board with that , you know's going to make you successful . You have to have buy-in .
You have to motivate people and get people excited about what it is that we are producing . You know , one of the great things about South by Southwest is there's so much blood , sweat and tears that goes into the whole planning of it and then we get to see it come to fruition .
It's very satisfying , but at the end of the day , there's a bunch of bumps that we're going to hit , there's going to be setbacks . I mean , we all went through COVID-19 . That was pretty detrimental to a lot of people , including us .
And I think just making sure that you know we , we know where , you know we know what we want to do , we know what we want to do for the people , we are proud of it and no matter how difficult it is , we have a goal , we have an end game . We know what we want to do and we want to do it for the people that attend our event .
So keeping that morale up , keeping that excitement up about our brand is instrumental , and that's regardless of the size or the location .
I think that's really important . I always remind people everything should be towards your company goals and what you want to do , and especially like on the marketing side .
We have a lot of like small marketing teams that are tasked with doing all this kind of stuff and they're like I just feel overwhelmed and I'm like it's okay to be like , hey , what is this , what is the goal of this ? How does it align to our company goals ?
Because if somebody hasn't thought through that , then it might not be the right fit for what you're doing or not something that you have to prioritize . So I love hearing that from somebody who produces this huge show you know , like that's still really important . Everything we do still needs to align to the company goals , and then we scale based on on that .
So that's really good , you know , and you know I love that we have this huge event that we can see our successes and and grow from every year . But it's also the little wins that you have to take into account as you get to that large event as well . Um , like I said , you know it's going to be .
There's going to be ups and downs , ups and flows , and just maintaining , you know , some humility about it and some drive , yeah , you're going to be fine .
Absolutely . And I knew about South by Southwest London because we are really excited that we get to have you guys in Austin for our TMSA Elevate show , which is June 8th through 10th .
But part of when we were trying to decide who is going to come was because this was right on the tail end of South by Southwest London and we were like , okay , who can come ? What makes sense
¶ Scalability and Event Growth
? This panel is really exciting . People have asked me how we accomplished it and I said I was a very persistent executive director . To this wonderful woman named Tammy , who I remember our first meeting , I was like what do you know about us ? And like you're like this just kind of fell into my lap Tell me more .
But I loved because what we decided to put together is this really awesome panel of you talking about the event side .
We have the former chief brand officer of South by Southwest coming on the panel and then we also have your customer relationship person at Friedman who does the logistics of the event , and so it's this really powerful presentation panel of people who do all of the execution , from marketing to sales , to operations , to execution .
And then we have Bryce Brumley-ley milligan , who will be um , who does everything is logistics podcast and tmsa board member . She'll be the moderator for this panel .
So , um , that's like my quick hit , but you tell us what , what you're excited about , what people can expect from the panel yeah , I'm super excited because you know the way I thought about it was almost like a journey .
Um . So jay mabaska as you mentioned , she is our former co-president . She just recently retired but is still very much involved with the company and she was our chief brand officer for a number of years . So she is the brains behind our look and feel and our brand message and has been for many years .
And then Barb Barb has been our you know contact with Freeman AV since the early 90s . So she's been with us for almost the whole run of South by Southwest and so she has seen it grow .
And so this journey is , you know , we start at the unveiling of our look and feel every year for the next event , which we just got a sneak peek of and we may get to see it during your conference , maybe like the public and be like it's really , it's , it's great , I love it .
But it starts with her and it starts with brand and building the brand and the messaging you know . And then there's , you know , they've sold the dream and now it goes into Tammy world where I've got to facilitate the dream and make sure that it goes off without a hitch and I'm delivering it . I want it to be all over social media about how awesome it was .
And then there's also another layer of that , and that's Farm and Freeman and the amount of AV equipment that they have got to bring into the city of Austin is .
It's a logistical like wonder what she does , and she does it with a smile on her face and she's keeping us happy and she's fixing the problems and putting out the fires , and so , you know , I just think it's really interesting to be able to introduce all these different perspectives into how we pull off this really large event , because it's not just South by
Southwest , it's our vendors , it's our you know our clients , it's people bringing things into Austin , it's all of our local businesses supporting us as well .
So just
¶ TMSA Elevate Panel Preview
being able to tell the story of the bigger picture , I think , is really exciting to us , because we don't get to do that very often , and what do you think is important for transportation marketing and sales professionals that will be in the audience to really understand the event operation side of things and what they can take home with them ?
So it's a lot of the coordination but it's a lot of building relationships . It's how you communicate with one another and the important bits of that communication . You know how is it that you know we are going to put in this infrastructure that has so many different moving pieces to it ?
You know it's a big puzzle really , because you've got the brand bed , you've got the you know the logistics operations bit and then you've got all of our sales clients and our vendors and trying to fit that together in a way that makes sense .
It's difficult , it's challenging , but completely doable and you just have to be able to understand kind of the motivation and how it works best .
I love that , really excited . So hopefully everyone that's listening will join us at TMSA Elevate June 8th through 10th . They are closing out our show and I'm happy to announce that if you're watching this , we have a flash sale going on for tickets .
So if you go to register , use the code FLASH all caps and you'll be able to get that deal now through Friday , may 9th . So check that out , get your flash sale , join us here directly from Tammy and her team . Really really excited to have you and happy you came on the show .
One last question for you that I ask everybody who comes on and that's if you could go back in time and advise a younger Tammy anything personally or professionally . When would you go back to and what would you say ?
I think I'd probably go back to before I started at South by Southwest in my you know , maybe high school years and I would tell myself to make sure that you be your generalist about life and that you are a lifelong learner , because you don't have to know everything about everything , you just have to know something about a lot of things and I think that helps
you through life , open a lot of doors , have a different perspective , see the bigger picture , build relationships . So I would say , don't stay siloed , get involved , stay engaged and you never know , you could end up at south by southwest as the vp of event operations I love that .
I think that's really great advice . So happy to have you on the show and have you coming to elevate . If you guys want to check out the show , next week we'll be joined by jessica whit who will be um . She's with warner communications and pr . They are a new member of TMSA coming to Elevate for the first time , so really excited to have her join the show .
And if you want to register for Elevate , I'll pop up that QR code one more time for you . Remember to use the code FLASH when you are registering now through the end of the speak . And , tammy , it was so great to have you on the show .
It's been wonderful to work with you over the past couple months and I'm excited to see all the work that we've been doing come to fruition as well , I'm looking forward to seeing everybody in austin , and I hope to see a lot of new faces too perfect , sounds good , thank you , and thank you good day and see you in austin . Yes you , thank you .