The Great Hot Dog Apocalypse Of 2022

The end was near, and by that I don't mean the apocalypse, though that, too, might be near, considering how things are going. No, it was just that after standing in an interminable queue at a concession stand at the Miami Marlins' home opener, I was just a few feet away from being able to get my hot dogs and pretzels and get back to my seat to watch the game when...

Okay, here's how it works. Like many other businesses, the Marlins have gone cashless, and as part of that, they've instituted a system with which you order on a tablet and then proceed to the register, pay with a card, and you're on your way, kind of like they do at Wawa, if you've ever been to a Wawa. That's supposed to make things move more swiftly. On Opening Night, it wasn't moving all that well. And then, as I was maybe about fourth in line, with a lot of people behind me, it completely stopped moving.

The problem was that the system crashed. The tablets kept showing empty carts, then the program would crash and go back to the operating system log-in. An IT guy showed up after a few minutes and did what anyone who's seen "The IT Crowd" would recognize as the first thing you suggest when something goes wrong: He unplugged the tablets and plugged them back in. Didn't work. The IT guy then got on the phone, got off the phone, unplugged and replugged the tablets, got back on the phone, furrowed his brow, and left. The crew behind the counter just fidgeted. The hot dogs and pretzels and popcorn were sitting under the heat lamps. This went on for something like twenty minutes, everyone looking baffled while the queue of increasingly upset patrons stretched practically to Hialeah.

Yeah, we'll get to radio. Patience.

"Hey," a red-faced guy called out, "can't you just take cash?" No, no, they couldn't. They could take cards, though, because the register was working. They just... wouldn't. Why? Because, um, because that wasn't part of the system. They literally couldn't figure out how to just take orders the analog way, by someone saying the order to them. And then, suddenly, a light bulb switched on over one manager's head. Hey, why don't we just, you know, take orders without the tablets and ring everyone up at the register? Eureka! That this should have been the procedure from the very beginning seems to have escaped everyone, but at least they finally got to the right conclusion, and, after some additional confusion, I got my hot dogs and pretzels and made it back to my seat in time to see Kyle Gibson give up four runs. What fun.

The Marlins' concessions department did have a plan. One plan. When the technology failed, they clearly didn't have a plan, or if they did, it wasn't communicated to the people who had to implement it. The utter confusion I witnessed among the staff was a sign that there was no emergency plan, no preparation in case they had a big crowd (a rarity for them, to be sure), no backup. If someone hadn't figured out that it was okay to just manually ring up the purchases...

It shouldn't have come to that. They should have been prepared. Someone should have created a plan in case of emergency. And, yes, I have told you this before. I've told you about Howard Price's presentations at NAB conventions, urging broadcasters to have emergency plans, redundancy, alternate sites, alternate technology. Many of you can remember being in the studio when the power cut out, or the cart machines (yes, we're all old now) broke, or someone didn't show up for their shift. It happens, most of us have experienced it, we know what we need to do, yet when something happens, we're not always ready. We saw it this week when tornadoes ripped through Iowa and several stations were knocked off the air when the STL tower collapsed. They did a great job keeping the listeners informed on the AM station that wasn't knocked out, but every station should have an alternate way of feeding the transmitter, just like they should have generators and alternate studio sites and ways that several staffers can get on the air from anywhere there's an internet connection. (Remember rushing to the transmitter shack with a box of records to broadcast from the dusty-turntable emergency setup out there?) Technology is your friend until it fails, and you can't have too many backup plans.

It's not just technology. If your morning host can't make it -- illness, accident, AWOL -- do you have someone who can jump in at the last second? Wait, only one? What if that person can't make it? How many backups do you have? What, you're all syndicated? You sure the satellite receiver and dish are always going to work? What alternatives do you have lined up if the computer crashes or the dish falls down or the receiver fails? Can you get the shows via IP? Great, and how about if the computer crashes, or you lose internet access? Anything on tape? Does everyone in the building know what to do when disasters great and small happen? Ah, good, you're catching on.

Because no matter how much you think you've prepared, there are gonna be times in your life and career when something you're relying upon fails. You can't be too prepared, but you can be not prepared enough. At the ballpark, they were not prepared enough. They put all their faith in a third-party ordering system and left customers hungry and angry and less likely to be customers in the future. Don't be like that, no matter what you do. Even if you're just a host and not a manager, make sure you have the ability to do your job any time, anywhere. Get a backup computer, or set up your phone to be an emergency broadcasting device. Get a UPS backup. Have access to the internet if your primary ISP fails. And periodically test it all out to make sure it'll work when you need it.

Be ready.

And don't get me started about the "free flow parking" that didn't flow freely. Seriously, I'm lucky I even made it out of there.

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And here we are, just days away from the All Access Audio Summit, Wednesday and Thursday, April 20-21, and it's time, if you haven't yet done so, to register. It's all virtual and you will find a lot of useful and interesting sessions on there, including mine on the present and future of spoken word audio, with Spike Eskin of WFAN/New York on sports, Robin Bertolucci of KFI/Los Angeles on talk radio, Elsie Escobar of Libsyn and She Podcasts on, yes, podcasting, and Rich Stern of TuneIn on streaming and subscriptions. It's good. And check out the rest of the agenda. And register. Also, happy Passover and Easter, everybody.

Perry Michael Simon
Senior Vice President/Editor-in-Chief and News-Talk-Sports-Podcasting Editor
AllAccess.com
psimon@allaccess.com
Twitter @pmsimon