In this episode of 500 Cats, the team takes a breather during the rare "event off-season" to reflect on a massive year of production. While they usually spend this time skiing, the unusually warm weather has them in the office focused on inventory, redesigning travel applications, and catching up on much-needed sleep.

The crew reveals the results of a company-wide vote on their Top 5 Favorite Events from the past year. From the sheer technical complexity of a massive ranch-based production to the high-altitude challenges of Colorado's most iconic bike race, they break down what made these shows successful—and what they learned when things didn't go perfectly.

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In Episode 32, we kick things off with a recap of the Louisville Turkey Trot, where the team volunteered and filmed to support the Community Food Share. But the warm fuzzy feelings end there as we dive into the absolute disaster that was our trip to Qatar.

What was supposed to be a standard broadcast installation turned into a travel nightmare. We recount the journey from hell, featuring a passenger vaping in the bathroom, a "cattle car" flight experience, and a vomiting incident in the aisle.

Things didn't improve upon landing. After navigating abandoned cables from the World Cup, we were promptly fired by the TV station before we even plugged in at the studio.

In this episode:

• The Flight from Hell: Dealing with entitled passengers, the "assistant to the assistant," and taking a blind man to the lavatory.
• The Job That Wasn't: How we flew halfway across the world only to be told "we won't need your graphics" less than an hour after arriving.
• Airport Security Drama: Marcus gets flagged for hours over a pair of snips and a tool bag.
• Duty-Free Dreams: Window shopping for McLarens and Sony cameras at the Doha airport.
• Lessons Learned: Why you should always have a production doc and a deposit before flying 7,000 miles.

Join us as we explain how we accidentally circumnavigated the globe in three days just to come home with nothing but a story.

Mentioned in this episode:

• Community Food Share - https://communityfoodshare.org/
• The Compton Museum - https://www.comptonmuseum.org/

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If you enjoyed the episode, don’t forget to subscribe and leave us a review wherever you get your podcasts. Follow us on social for more behind-the-scenes content and updates on future episodes!

When live event professionals try to leave the country and the airlines say, “Absolutely not.”

In this episode of 500 Cats, Dave and Marcus attempt to fly to Qatar for the Samla 200, only to have their flight canceled on the train to the gate and rebooked into a 42-hour, five-airport hostage situation. Meanwhile, we still have bags that are emotionally recovering from a previous trip to Spain, where $2,000 in luggage fees bought them a 10-day delay and some very unintentionally “just-in-time” broadcast gear.

Along the way they roast out-of-office auto-responders (again), relive the chaos and glory of IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship in Marbella and the final IRONMAN Arizona, survive sprinklers and sand at two Miami events, nerd out over GPS-in-3D maps and fancy Sennheiser mics, and debut their new hit: “Auto Responder Blues.” It’s travel disaster, tech gossip, endurance sports, and petty email rage–all cruising at 30,000 feet of mild turbulence.

Thanks for tuning in to 500 Cats!

If you enjoyed the episode, don’t forget to subscribe and leave us a review wherever you get your podcasts. Follow us on social for more behind-the-scenes content and updates on future episodes!