business
Hosted by J.R. Spiess and Kris McNeil · business · EN
Storms don't only come straight at you. Sometimes they blow in from the side. Season two of Sideways Rain is a full slate of those stories, told by the people who build meetings, events, and experiences for a living. Hosts J.R. Spiess and Kris McNeil sit down with founders, planners, and production pros and walk through the same three beats: the storm, when things went sideways; the umbrella, how they adapted in the moment; and clear skies, what they changed and where they landed.
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Contact path
Verified email
Booking probability
31%
Guest openness
Selective
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Signup to Generate a PitchStorms don't only come straight at you. Sometimes they blow in from the side. Season two of Sideways Rain is a full slate of those stories, told by the people who build meetings, events, and experiences for a living. Hosts J.R.
Sideways Rain is hosted by J.R. Spiess and Kris McNeil. The show has published 37 episodes to date.
Recent episodes include "21. Turn Left at the Wall" (16 August 2026, 39 minutes), "20. Strength by a Thousand Paper Cuts with Alyssa Frank" (19 July 2026, 65 minutes), and "20. Strength by a Thousand Paper Cuts with Alyssa Frank" (19 July 2026, 65 minutes).
Sideways Rain publishes roughly every two weeks, with episodes averaging 51 minutes across 37 episodes.
Booking probability for Sideways Rain is 31%, and the host is rated Selective on guests. Sideways Rain requires a Pod Score of 80 or higher. Sideways Rain's contact route on record: verified email.
The strongest fits for Sideways Rain are Event & Concert Promoters. Sideways Rain has a business audience.
J.R. Spiess and Kris McNeil hosts Sideways Rain, a business podcast with 37 episodes published.
Our AI reads these to draft pitches. Use them as grounding for a pitch that cites a real guest and a specific topic.
Episode #21
Some guests survive a storm. Liz Lathan walked straight into one with her eyes wide open. Years into building her career in the association world, Liz had earned her director title and hit the ceiling of a four-person...
<p>Most guests bring us one storm. Alyssa Frank brought a thousand paper cuts.</p><p>Alyssa is a CMP with 15 years in meetings, events, and incentive travel, and the founder of Covalent Events and Travel. She slid into...
Most guests bring us one storm. Alyssa Frank brought a thousand paper cuts. Alyssa is a CMP with 15 years in meetings, events, and incentive travel, and the founder of Covalent Events and Travel. She slid into the...
<p>Most people in events have one storm they'd like to forget. Kevin White has four.</p><p>Across 30 years in experiential design, Kevin watched his whole industry go under four separate times: the dot-com bust, 9/11...
<p>Most people get into events because they love the energy. The problem is loving events and knowing how to run an event business are two completely different things.</p><p><br></p><p>Andrew Roby, founder of Andrew...
Episode #17
<p>The industry treats the last 48 hours before an event like a war story. The 3 a.m. rebuild. The no-sleep show day. The save. We've all got those stories, and we need to stop telling them like they're flexes. If...
<p>What happens when an AV vendor cancels 72 hours before a half-million-dollar international event and the audience never knows? In this episode of Sideways Rain, JR sits down with Toronto-based event leader Evan...
<p>In this episode of Sideways Rain, JR and Kris sit down with Shanondoah Nicholson, a corporate event planner turned full time freelancer and the host of Beyond the BEO. Together, they tackle the “capacity lie,” why...
Episode #14
<p>In this JR and Kris episode of Sideways Rain, we open with a scar we have seen for 20 years. Teams contract space based on a capacity number, then production shows up and the room is suddenly too small once you...
Episode #13
<p>Michael C. Clark thought the path was clear: leave investment banking in NYC, stop his life, and chase a lifelong goal—law school—while married with two little kids. Then the plan didn’t end the way he...
<p>Anthony Cortes started Motion Flix in the middle of the pandemic with a simple idea: outdoor movie nights that let people gather safely. Then the first “neighborhood promo” turned into a perfect storm: a popcorn...
Episode #8
<p>Everybody loves January because it feels like a clean slate — like clear skies are guaranteed. But if you’ve lived any amount of life (or built anything), you already know the wind shifts whenever it wants. So this...
<p>What happens when you walk away from a company you co-founded, right after your first child is born… and then a global pandemic wipes out your pipeline? In this episode of Sideways Rain, Brian Samson talks about...
<p>Event tech leader Chris Donaldson joins JR and Kris to talk about what happens when you stop being a cog in someone else’s wheel and bet on yourself instead. Chris shares how sobriety, burnout, and a lack of real...
Episode #8
<p>In this unplanned but powerfully real episode, J.R. and Kris tackle a modern sideways rain — our collective addiction to social media. What started as a simple mic check turned into a raw conversation about...
<p>When keynote speaker and emotional intelligence expert Rich Bracken was let go from a job he loved, while doing great work, it could’ve been the end of his story. Instead, it became the beginning of something...
<p>Founder of Game On Nation, Steve Shenbaum, joins Sideways Rain to unpack why great intentions and catchy ideas aren’t enough—and how turning “good to know” into “good to do” changes rooms, teams, and results. Steve...
<p>Chris Hall spent more than 15 years inside global organizations leading a team that produced thousands of events and grew to about 60 people. Earlier this year he was let go. Instead of chasing another title he...
<p>JR and Kris compress the IMEX learning curve into one fast listen: why the show matters, a plain-English breakdown of registration types, first-timer tips (buffers, water, sneakers), floor-flow at Mandalay Bay, Smart...
<p>Howard Givner cuts through the buzzwords to explain ROI as an actual calculation—“was the juice worth the squeeze?”—and how to frame results with stakeholders before the show even starts. We get into relative ROI...
Recent guests on Sideways Rain. Study who booked and why before you pitch.
Co-Founder and Head of Content & Community, The Community Factory and Club Ichi
Vice President and Director of Athletics Emeritus, Fairfax County Police Department
Founder & Chairman, Plugg Technologies
Author/Motorcycle Traveler, National Black Police Association
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