12 Things Every Event Planner Needs in their Planner Bag

SPEAKERS

Tess Vismale, Keith Johnston, Announcer

 Announcer  00:00

You're listening to the event tech pull up the show that brings you the good, the bad and the ugly of event technology with your hosts, Tess Ritz mail of isocial x and Keith Johnston of i three events.

 Tess Vismale  00:13

You know how you were little used to run down the street when your mom came home and you'd grab her purse. You can get all the goodies out the purse and with a whole bunch of stuff in that purse.

 Keith Johnston  00:21

Yeah, that usually brought down fire and brimstone on my head, though, but yeah, I actually do remember doing that. Yes, yeah.

 Tess Vismale  00:29

It's like, you always know that your mama had everything in the purse that she needed all the time, all the time, all the time, well, and

 Keith Johnston  00:37

it actually shocks me, like, literally, you go into a mom's purse and you could be like, do you have an elephant? Yeah, hold on, and a mom pulls out an elephant out of the purse. Yeah, exactly.

 Tess Vismale  00:48

Oh my gosh, it sounds so horrible. But growing up in Chicago, my mom used to come around corner. I used to like, die for these peppermint and you know, the round one was it with the plastic over, right? Well, my mom was a closet smoker, like, cigarette smoker, right? So I'll never forget, you dig down into her purse, and it's the best ones that have been in there the longest time, because they get all nice and gooey and stuff really cool. And then all I remember is like, picking, like, like a part of, like, a tobacco leaf.

 Keith Johnston  01:29

Oh my gosh, wow. That was the 70s, right? Growing up in the 70s, that was definitely it exactly,

 Tess Vismale  01:34

oh my god. It's so much fun. So what I wanted to talk to you all about today, and Keith actually had the idea, but I was like, Okay, let's do it. Let's do it. Let's have it for them. Is what should be in the bag of an event professional, especially a planner all the time, like in your go bag. What is that go bag? Look like? I'm not talking about your event box, not talking about the event box.

 Keith Johnston  02:04

And actually, this would be the bag that goes on you with you to a site inspection. It goes to the event. It might even go if you're going for meetings in the city, right? Like I live in the suburbs, I take the train into the city to have meetings. Most of this stuff is actually in that bag.

 Tess Vismale  02:18

Yeah, definitely. And I carry a book bag, you know, I can't do purse purses, and this, all of these things actually go book right? Yes, they do. They do. There may be one or two that don't go in. They may be out

 Keith Johnston  02:33

near it, but it's so funny. Younger planners, you see younger plan? They're like

 Tess Vismale  02:37

a phone and iPhone, tiny iPhone in their pocket, really?

 Keith Johnston  02:43

Yeah, no, you got you need stuff. You need stuff. Carry Bag anyway. Okay,

 Tess Vismale  02:48

so what's the first one? Keith,

 Keith Johnston  02:50

the first thing that I have in my travel bag, and you have one as well, is a USB C hub, because your your new computers only have one or two ports, and it's usually USB C, or it should be, anyway, if you have a modern computer, and you need one of those so that you can connect everything else to your computer, no matter where you are, whether it's an HDMI cable, you can connect cat five for internet. It could be, you know, somebody gives you a a SD card from a camera, you can get the pictures in. So you've got, you have to have a hub, right? Yeah,

 Tess Vismale  03:25

you definitely do, like I, I'm constantly having to use HDMI cord for something. I need to plug into something. And of course, you know, my MacBook only has USB C, a lot of finally, iPhone has caught up with the rest of the freaking world and decided to go USBC. And, I mean, like, Apple deciding to do that, it's like, the rest of the world's like, oh yeah, this is what you should do. No, y'all late. Have always been late, but that's okay. That's a phone. They always want to stay with their regular plug for Apple, but now they've got to switch over to USB C, am I right? Yes.

 Keith Johnston  04:02

And thank you European Union, because they kind of made them, but, but. And we'll put links to everything that we talk about here in in the show notes, but, but, but USB C, hubs, anchor makes a good one. CalDigit makes a good one. So there are plenty of good brands out there to get you don't want to go with the cheapest one. You want one you want, one that you know is going to work right?

 Tess Vismale  04:22

A bosses. I like that. One is B, A, S, E, U, S, I just got one of those. It's really cool. It does powering too. And not only does it power, because it's the little one, the bigger ones, of course, do power, but it's a little one that does power, and it has this cute little light on it, and it lets me have more than one monitor too, which is really and for

 Keith Johnston  04:40

power. Just so people know that, so you can pass through power. So for example, if you you know if whatever you're plugging into your USB BC hub needs power, it will get power from from the hub

 Tess Vismale  04:51

definitely. So number two, our good headphones, I've got to tell you for real. This is only the second time. Keith. And I have recorded the third time we've recorded third time we've recorded when we've been in person with each other. And that man has so many headphones

 Keith Johnston  05:13

you're wearing a really nice pair of Sony studio headphones. Sony studio

 Tess Vismale  05:17

headphones, a studio monitor that I'm the first person to wear them. He's probably had them five years,

 Keith Johnston  05:22

three, but, yeah, point taken.

 Tess Vismale  05:27

I was honored, but still. So tell us some others besides that, you know.

 Keith Johnston  05:32

And for this, you know, like we're wearing studio headphones, right? That plug into a mixer. You know, these are the headphones that you're going to listen to on the plane, on the train, on the in the car, whatever, not where you're driving, playing trans and automobiles, yeah. And so get a good pair. Like, I love that pair that you have the shocks. Yes, you know, those are great headphones because they're

 Tess Vismale  05:50

lightweight. It's hard for people to tell that you have it on and it doesn't go in my ear. It goes around my ear. Yes,

 Keith Johnston  05:56

which is awesome. Then there's, I have a nice pair of beats over the ear headphones that I take on the airplane, because I can't use the in the air once I can't use those drive me nuts. So, you know, but anchor makes great headphones, even those really dumb Apple $1,000 gigantic earmuff looking things.

 Tess Vismale  06:16

Well, shoot. The other day we had to, I was working with Dahlia and to go get headphones for some meditation someone's doing as an activation. There were 20 freaking butts over the ear headphones. They look just like these Sony's. And guess what? They were actually Bluetooth. And you could go to do both. You could do hard and as well as Bluetooth with those, there were 20 bucks.

 Keith Johnston  06:37

So yeah, so there's no excuse for not having and and me being the backups to my backups whenever I travel. I do have a pair of my over the air beats, but then I also have a pair of in ear backups, just in case something goes wrong with those. Even though I hate the in ear ones, I can

 Tess Vismale  06:54

throw them in for a little while. He always has backup to the backup. And

 Keith Johnston  06:57

here, this is your this next one is a that you wanted on the list. And I actually see the point here. I've never carried one, but I'm actually going to start and what is that one?

 Tess Vismale  07:07

It's number three. It's the portable webcam. I love the Logitech one because it's like, plug and play. You've got your USB C, your USB port, going in there, and then boom, it's done. And I'm always, regardless of any of the meetings that I actually have on Zoom or whatever, I can quickly go in there, or if, for instance, I need to record, I'm always going to look really good because it's nice and light. It's really, really tiny. It's easy to travel with. It's better for me to have it with me than wish I had it.

 Keith Johnston  07:38

And that is so true. And you know, I'll be the I'll admit, I usually don't carry one, but I'm now going to get a little case for mine and throw it in, throw it in my back. Why not

 Tess Vismale  07:46

go? He's fancy. I don't even have a case for mine. I need to get a case. Ooh, he's got me on the run. Now, what's the number for

 Keith Johnston  07:54

a good water bottle?

 Tess Vismale  07:57

And people are always saying, well, we get water bottles free at conferences all the time. I'm tired of a water bottle. Carry a water bottle, but there's so many on the on the horizon that is cool. This thing is magical. I just got it. I know you can get it at Target. Of course. I got mine from Amazon, and it's called a Walla, and it's called the free SIP twist. It's insulated. But the cool thing I like about it, it has a straw built into it, so you don't turn it up. You just sip it like a straw. And it does hot and cold. It's nice and lean, and it'll fit in the cup holder, cup holder, right? With no issues. And it actually is cute, because they've got all these different colors, and they're great colors. Yeah, I

 Keith Johnston  08:42

got my i three events, big ass Yeti that is not fitting

 Tess Vismale  08:46

too big, and then they get really heavy. It's,

 Keith Johnston  08:49

I take it to events, right? Because it's got a cool carry handle on it. And so when I'm at an event, it go, it slides into the sleeve on my backpack, but it's not the water bottle I can take in the car, because it won't fit in the exactly, but, but the family did get me a cool Yeti coffee mug that actually has a tapered bottom that does go into the nice

 Tess Vismale  09:09

but it's probably heavy. It's heavy. It's a Yeti. See, you want to take stuff on the we're talking about on the road, in your bags, but

 Keith Johnston  09:16

you could put glacier ice into a yes for 14 girls. No,

 Tess Vismale  09:20

no, we need something nice and slim. So let's try that one. And

 Keith Johnston  09:25

now the next one on the list actually goes right with the water bottle. And this is a this is all you

 Tess Vismale  09:30

Yeah, it's called a hydro bag. It's a cool bag,

 Keith Johnston  09:35

but it's a cool bag.

 Tess Vismale  09:37

It's the coolest freaking bag in the world. I didn't know anything about it, and I was researching a bag for my water because I have tendencies of losing water bottles or not drinking at more most important, not drinking enough water all day, working in events all the time. So I wanted something cute. It comes with not only a little zip area, but in. Two zip areas where I can put my phone in here, I can put my credit cards and things in here. I can actually put a couple of other items that are on this list, which we're not going to mention just yet, in here. And they have really great, cool straps, easy to work with. You can make it fashion forward. Just do a plain black one. I've got a lovely dark green one that has a lovely camo color on it. And after the fact that I realized it was on Oprah's list, I had absolutely no idea at the time. And

 Keith Johnston  10:30

again, it's not a me bag, but it's cool bag. Yes, yes, yes. Well, you

 Tess Vismale  10:35

can get it for Nila.

 Keith Johnston  10:36

There you go. So next up, this one is one I'm adamant about, and I don't care every every person should have this. And that is a multi tool. You should have a multi tool because, as a planner, how many times have you gotten somewhere and there's a box that needs to be opened, there's a this that needs to be done. There's something in the hotel room that just doesn't work right?

 Tess Vismale  11:04

You just need a multi tool. How much are they?

 Keith Johnston  11:09

So you can get there's the one that I carry with me, and it's actually on my key chain. Is actually just called a Gerber dime, right? And it's got a little pliers, it's got a screw, couple screwdrivers, it's got just a bottle opener. What else has got? Opener

 Tess Vismale  11:25

too? Yeah,

 Keith Johnston  11:27

it's got like, 30 bucks, 32 bucks, yeah, and, and it will get you out of more jams, right? There's no more when you're in the exhibit hall trying to hunt down one of the GES people to borrow their knife. So

 Tess Vismale  11:40

are we putting this in our back? Can we take it to TSA, or do I have to do it checked?

 Keith Johnston  11:44

So here's the thing, TSA just changed their rules so I would check it. But the rules I think now, is blade under three inches, I think, or under two inches. So a Gerber dime would fit that bill. But I've lost so many multi tools at TSA because I, because I'll even have check, I just forget to take them out of my bag, yeah, that I just literally throw them in my check back now.

 Tess Vismale  12:09

Okay, cool. I will do that too then. So this next one is something I'm addicted to. Got a black sharpie.

 Keith Johnston  12:21

Gotta have black sharp actually. And I'm gonna add to that, you say every bag should contain a black sharpie. And I agree with that you should also have a silver sharpie. Oh, that's a good one too. Tell them why. Because a lot of the stuff you have to write on is black, yes, like our cases, you know, you know, sometimes gaff tape, if they only have black gaff tape, and you need to write on it. A silver sharpie is going to show up. Yeah? So I go with the light and the dark,

 Tess Vismale  12:46

light and dark. Okay, cool, cool. What's the next one? Number eight.

 Keith Johnston  12:50

Okay, so I have a story behind this one, but it's a mini flashlight, and so I have one that is great. Mag light makes one called the Solitaire, which is a tiny little like takes a triple A battery. They're tiny, but they're so bright. So I have one on a clip, and I was at TSA, I had just come through security, and when I was putting my backpack on, the clip went kind of like, twang, and the light went flying, and it went over the security, the TSA no like area, and fell down behind one of, like, their bomb sniffing desk, you know that desk where all the machinery is, and I'm like, Huh, well, I can't really reach back there. They probably take me to jail. I'm like, so I had to, like, call the guy over, and he's like, what? I'm like, You're not gonna believe this. But so then they had to, like, get a broom and get underneath their stuff. They got me my light back, but okay, yeah, and it's amazing how often those come in handy, not the fact that I'm an old guy now, and I need it when I look under the AV desk, because I'm usually with production, but there are so many places where you just need a flashlight, and these things are smaller than your pinky now. So get a flashlight.

 Tess Vismale  14:01

Get a mini flashlight. Okay, I guess so. Okay, I'm so glad I get to do this one so I'm addicted to something, and I try to very hard not to have it with me, because I love it so

 Keith Johnston  14:15

much. We can get a program for you. They have programs when you're addicted to something. I don't know we want the best for you,

 Tess Vismale  14:23

but all my team members forever ago, they know I love this thing, and I just try to stay away from it. I used to keep it in my bag all the time, and then I just had to stop, because it was just too much. And it's called gaff tape.

 Keith Johnston  14:39

I still have some in my bag.

 Tess Vismale  14:43

So why I like gaff tape so much is just because it is remarkable. It does very big for

 Keith Johnston  14:52

people that don't know, gaff tape is what you see the AV crew taping down wires to the floor with and it is. Basically a cloth tape with a non stick residue. So you can pull the tape up and it doesn't leave a residue, residue, and it fixes everything, everything.

 Tess Vismale  15:10

So Keith, give me two things that you have used gap take for in a crunch, fixing

 Keith Johnston  15:15

glasses.

 Tess Vismale  15:16

Okay, tell them how.

 Keith Johnston  15:18

Just no, you know, like the nerd style, where I broke a pair of glasses in the middle and I had to tape them back together, but the gaff tape I had was black. Glasses were black, so no harm, no foul, where it got me through the day, and another

 Tess Vismale  15:29

one at an event

 Keith Johnston  15:33

for some weird shit, like, like, we were in a in a ballroom one time where, you know, we had a ballroom that was basically our office, and I needed my portable monitor, I didn't bring a stand for it, so I used gaff tape to stick it to the air wall. Ooh, that's a good one, right? Had to work now. Now, mind you, I wouldn't do that with a $5,000 piece of equipment, yeah, my $79 you know, portable monitors. Or why not? It loves and you'll you, I mean, you get weird uses for it all the time. Oh

 Tess Vismale  16:06

my gosh. You just start dreaming of things with it. Yeah, you can make little strips out of it. You can make labels with it. You can just do anything.

 Keith Johnston  16:14

You know, what I use it for a lot of times is, like in the hotel, like on the nightstand, like I'll plug in my my phone charger for night time, and it'll, you know, it slides off the nightstand. So I'll just tear off a little piece of gaff tape, and then it's slide off the night

Tess Vismale  16:31

simple thing. Simple thing, number 10,

 Keith Johnston  16:35

ooh. This is, this is my new favorite, only because it's going with me all the time now, and now I'm,

 Tess Vismale  16:42

I know it's now you got me now you got me thinking, you know, I had one for the longest. Did you have it? But go and now

 Keith Johnston  16:48

you have it back. And that is a portable monitor. Oh yeah, second screen so. And Asus makes a good one. Acer makes great ones. I

 Tess Vismale  16:58

love this one I just bought, which is by,

 Keith Johnston  17:01

yeah, we both

 Tess Vismale  17:02

got the same

 Keith Johnston  17:03

thing on brand. That's like some nasty temu brand,

 Tess Vismale  17:07

a PP, something ours, yeah, but we'll get it and we'll put it in the link too. But the reason why I really like it is because it's light. Big. It's a 16 inch and I have, like a 1413, I think 1314, inch laptop. And because this particular one, the kickstand is such where I can turn it in any direction, I was like, too,

 Keith Johnston  17:39

you've got the integrated kickstand on yours, and like yesterday at the PCMA thing, we were we were part of you had it turned vertically exactly, which was really cool. And that's

 Tess Vismale  17:49

where I had my script. So I had my script on there, and I had everything else in front of me, and it worked really well. So I don't ever feel like I'm out of place. Yeah, and

 Keith Johnston  17:57

I will say that on the ones that I've gotten, I actually throw the stand that comes with it away, because they're typically not as good as the one you have, and then I just buy a portable holder. Yeah, that way I can choose the angle. It doesn't fall over. But a portable but it's it makes it working on the road tolerable, because I have three monitors on my dad, my my regular,

 Tess Vismale  18:24

yeah, I do too, and not having all of that with me is a pain. Yes,

 Keith Johnston  18:28

okay, next one. And this is one. This is, this is me as the AV guy. So here I am. Is your production guru? Now, that's a bad word, your production Poppy, your old production guy, who knows better? How's that is a pocket full of cheap ass chuckable flash drives. Chuckle, so like you can go on Amazon and you can get a 10 pack of two gigabyte flash drives for like 20 bucks. I get those, and they go in that way. Whenever somebody needs to borrow a flash drive, you can give it and not expect it back if I have to. If I'm working at the AV desk and we're swapping PowerPoints back and forth, I use one of my cheap ass flash drives now. I do have a really good flash drive that's like 64 gigabytes, USB C. It's blazing fast, right? That is not this. These are those just flash drives that you don't care,

 Tess Vismale  19:30

okay, which you should always have as a backup. Because, yeah, regardless, people are going to always mess up and not bring something or not do something, right? And you say yourself, but it can all be digital in the cloud, but sometimes you just need it to move fast.

 Keith Johnston  19:44

Sometimes, yeah, well, in the cloud isn't fast, especially if you're like show last week we had the show decks for for a singular a single day. Were 56 gigabyte of materials. When you're in the hotel and they made an update to those media files in the morning, we have an hour. You're not going to be able to upload 56 gigs on a hotel network, send a we transfer link for the odd for the AV guys to download it. It's faster to just stick a flash drive and hand it to somebody. And these cheapo little they're not the fastest in the world. Like when you transfer data, it's going to say it takes three minutes, right? Because they're old, but three minutes is better than the hours and the stress of trying to get something to

 Tess Vismale  20:31

the cloud. Yeah, definitely. And the final one is one of my favorites. It's another something I'm addicted to, which is wipes.

 Keith Johnston  20:42

You've got to have wipes. And it sounds so funny, right? Like you think about it and, you know, we all laugh, but it's like you kind of do

 Tess Vismale  20:51

everything is icky, icky. What's the

 Keith Johnston  20:53

first thing you use your wipes for in the hotel room, the

 Tess Vismale  20:56

door, the doors, the telephone, the remote. Go right for the remote control, the table next to the debt to the bed. Oh, yak, yeah,

 Keith Johnston  21:09

no. I mean, I trust housekeeping to hit the big stuff. Like they're, they're gonna, they're, they are gonna wipe down, like, the faucet. They're gonna wipe down the the surface areas. But they're not gonna do the remote. They're gonna throw it.

 Tess Vismale  21:21

They're not gonna do the telephone. Either, no, they're not. Or the lamp,

 Keith Johnston  21:24

I don't think touching the funky telephone,

 Tess Vismale  21:27

but the lamp, when you gotta turn the damn thing on and off, they will not. They don't touch the they don't touch that either. I'm like, this is a really good wipes. So I use honest wipes, which I love the best, and grapefruit. It is amazing. And every time you whip one out, it just is, like a breath of fresh air. And people are like, what's that?

 Keith Johnston  21:43

And it's so funny. And I'm like, an environmental guy, like, I recycle everything. I'm good about that. But when it comes to my wipes Better Living Through Chemistry, I want the Clorox newcombs.

 Tess Vismale  21:54

I understand. I totally understand, but definitely on the road for events, because, you know, even an exhibit area. Let's just say, when they're supposed to come back and take out trash, just they don't wipe down as often as they need to. It's not as gross, it's nasty, and then you need to be wiping your freaking microphones.

 Keith Johnston  22:16

All right. Then that's, that's, that's, that's a great place to end there.

 Tess Vismale  22:22

So those are our top 12 items that we think event planners need close to them in their lovely bags as they travel.

 Announcer  22:32

Thanks for joining us this week on the event tech pull up. Make sure to visit our website. Event tech pullup.com and find us on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube. You can subscribe to the show on iTunes, Spotify and other podcast platforms so you never miss an episode while you're at it. If you found value in this show, we'd appreciate a rating or simply tell a friend about our brand of crazy interested in becoming a guest. Check out the application on our website. If you would like Tess Keith or both at your next event or in house training, please email us at Tech, at event, tech pullup.com,