On The Event Pro Show, host Seth Macchi sits down with Julie Leithoff, an experienced event producer, and recounts her thirty-year journey through live event planning and production.
This episode is full of stories, practical strategy, all including an unwavering care for people. For event professionals of all backgrounds, Julie’s approach to production, collaboration, and personal growth offers tangible takeaways.
A Career Shaped by Curiosity and Care
Julie’s road to event production wasn’t exactly mapped out from childhood. In fact, as she shares, she didn’t even know event management was a career possibility when she started. Her true entry into the field arrived organically. Working at Clarkson Hospital, Julie began organizing employee events and helping with conferences long before these responsibilities reflected an official job title. No one handed her a job description. She simply saw needs, took initiative, and wove her attention to detail with a genuine desire to look after people. It’s a pattern that would come to define her entire approach.
Event Production: Fluency in Details and AV
One of the qualities that sets Julie apart, according to Seth, is her rare fluency in both planning and audiovisual requirements. Many focus on one or the other, but Julie’s curiosity pushed her to ask “why” and “how” so she could anticipate team and client needs, translating technical jargon into clear project requirements. She admits she’s not the one to operate a complex switcher, but she thoroughly understands what AV technicians need to excel. She knows what questions to ask, which details matter, and how to advocate for both show logistics and technical requirements.
Her approach isn’t just technical; it’s deeply relational. Julie emphasizes listening and paraphrasing client questions to ensure understanding. With a knack for gently rephrasing queries until everyone’s on the same page, she bridges gaps between stakeholder knowledge levels and event objectives.
Learning from Experience
Julie’s stories from her early days are master classes in learning by experience. For example, she chronicled a major lesson at a big box store event where staging, cable runs, and storage logistics collided. The general session area and exhibits were separated by movable bleachers and seating, all physically stored behind the stage. When it came time to move these massive items with forklifts, carefully laid AV cables were suddenly at risk, and the production schedule went awry.
From that hard lesson, Julie emerged with a new question-driven process. She now consistently asks about item storage, load-in routes, and precise venue logistics well in advance. If there’s a path that crosses sensitive equipment, she wants to know before the crew sets one foot in the building. It’s a reminder that great production management is about eliminating surprises, not just reacting to them.
Calm Under Pressure and the Power of Kindness
Calm is Julie’s trademark. She recalls times when last-minute schedule or venue mishaps threatened show timelines, including an instance where overnight venue staff failed to pull out seating as planned, leaving her and her team scrambling at 4 a.m. Her solution wasn’t to bark orders; it was to get to know the venue’s staff, build respect, and let kindness do its work. She believes that treating every individual- union worker, technician, or CEO- with consideration paves the way for cooperation and smoother solutions, even when tensions run high.
True Collaboration: Treating AV Partners as Part of the Team
Julie’s core philosophy is partnership. Successful events rely on transparent information-sharing, including clear communication about budget ranges, timelines, on-site rules, and what’s included in each vendor quote. She stresses the importance of being an “absolute teammate,” whether discussing budgets or engineering show logistics, and why being included on early planning calls can help her “catch butterflies”, those tiny details that, if overlooked, snowball into bigger problems later.
She also advocates for giving AV companies a sense of the planned budget up front. This transparency doesn’t lead to a race to pad estimates but allows vendors to build solutions that fit the client’s needs and financial constraints, ultimately leading to better outcomes for everyone involved.
Navigating Venues with Tough Rules
From union labor rules to airwall storage mysteries, Julie’s mantra is simple: do the homework. She warns planners not to simply take a venue’s “we’ll make it work” promises at face value. Instead, she demands clear, written policies. She seeks out the real (not sugar-coated) restrictions and documents everything. Her experience has shown her that leadership changes and staff miscommunication can derail even the most promising partnerships if things aren’t spelled out in black-and-white from the start.
The Human Element at the Core
Reflecting on her greatest professional satisfaction, Julie treasures the relationships she has built with clients, teams, and the countless people she’s helped along the way. She shares that much of her work now comes through referrals, a testament to the trust and reputation she’s cultivated.
Seth closes the conversation by highlighting one of Julie’s defining stories: how she once arranged a young crew member to meet a high-profile speaker in their dream field, simply because she cared enough to open that door. This deep respect for everyone, regardless of title, is what keeps people coming back to work with her.
Julie Leithoff’s journey is a rich reminder that the best event producers don’t just execute flawless logistics. They build a culture of mutual respect, curiosity, and collaboration. Her way is meticulous, honest, and always people-centered, modeling a path for anyone looking to grow, adapt, and create memorable events that work for everyone.
You can find Julie Leithoff on LinkedIn. And if you’re an event producer or planner in training- find yourself a “Julie” to learn from. There’s no shortcut to experience, but there’s no substitute for kindness, either.
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