My team and I were headed to beautiful San Francisco to support our client in a two-day large-user conference. My organization was the event agency for the program, and we were responsible for planning every logistical detail, from finding and managing the venue to handling the event's agenda, the flow of the show, food and beverages, the exhibit floor, and furniture management. This was not the first time we dove into this particular conference. In fact, it was the second time and just like the first iteration, when we jumped in we found that the water was fine.

Day one could not have gone better. Things were going swimmingly and all was as smooth as the surface of a lake on a calm day. There was not even a ripple in sight or a hint of an iceberg ahead. In hindsight, I wish there had been because maybe without that false sense of security, we could have done something to prevent the deluge of problems that were threatening to drown us.

On the morning of the show's second and final day, my phone dinged. It was a text message from the venue. “Hi,” it said. “I am so sorry, but a water pipe just burst, and there is a leak on the show floor. Sprinklers are spraying water in the expo hall.” That was not the message I was expecting after such smooth sailing, and my spirits were immediately dampened.

The rest of my team was just entering the show floor when they got the same text I did. So together, we ran to the leak as fast as if a tsunami was on our heels. When we got there, we were met with a sight that threw a wet blanket right on our bustling conference. The overhead sprinklers were spraying water on the furniture, the sponsor booths, and the food stations.

To add even more to this wave of misfortune, all of this happened during a session when people were in attendance. That means a handful of attendees got a clothed shower before running away to drier ground. I'm sure that none of them came to the conference because they were interested in a water park type of experience, so I'm not surprised that they got out of there fast!

In addition to some wet clothes, the spraying water caused some damage to LED monitors that were hanging on booths. There were 20 booths in total, and every booth had at least one LED monitor. Luckily the venue's insurance covered that damage.

A raindrop-size morsel of luck was that the burst occurred in an isolated area, so while other sessions were taking place at that same time, those were dry. However, the alarms were going off across the venue. In fact, the worst part of the incident was the sound of the fire alarm screaming across the facility. It was disturbing the attendees, the sessions, and the entire atmosphere. Remember how awful the fire alarm sounded during fire drills when you were in school? Now imagine it in a professional setting. Every single minute it rang was a sting through my entire body. The scene was intense. But somehow, everyone on our team remained calm.

We had 10 people on our core staff at the event, but only three of them were dealing directly with the incident because we didn't want too many cooks in the kitchen, er, lifeguards in the pool. Our first move was evacuating attendees. One event lead dealt with the client, another lead handled the venue, and another tackled relocation logistics.

It took about 10 minutes for the firefighters to show up. Then it took about 30 minutes for them to shut off the alarm. Then it was another 30 minutes before the water was turned off. The entire ordeal lasted an hour, but it felt like an eternity.

Other than trying to survive that banshee of an alarm system, the most difficult part of the situation was orchestrating the logistics with the client and key decision makers, and then getting more than 15 vendors to be on the same page with the changes. We moved furniture out, moved the booths, and set up the audiovisual system and chairs outside all while disseminating information and calming people's nerves. The only way people would have been calmer is if we had access to the Titanic's violinists!

Once we got the details confirmed, the vendors started moving, and attendees were informed of the changes through our mobile app, through email announcements, and through announcements made in sessions. Things turned calmer, and it wasn't just because we were in the eye of the storm — we were through it!

I think the pipe bursting was an unusual experience for sure, but post-show surveys showed attendees didn't blame our client or have a negative experience at all. We were all bummed it happened, but people threw us a life preserver and seemed to be in really good spirits about it. And the venue was extremely apologetic and willing to do whatever it took to fix the problem and reimburse people for the damages.

Maybe we all got tinnitus from the alarms, but we rode a wave of positivity in post-event planning by learning how to prepare for disaster on the show floor. We've significantly adjusted our approach and now do two site visits with a venue prior to going onsite, hold pre-conference meetings with the venue before the event, and then meet with the venue daily when we are onsite. We also ask any venue we work with to do maintenance checks of all the water systems, pipes, and elevators prior to the event; review insurance clauses; and make contingency plans. Now that we've made these changes part of our system of checks and balances, we're confident no pipe will ever rain on our parade again.