Alan Semsar was in Las Vegas preparing to stage a food festival when tragedy struck at a nearby country music concert. The chief executive of event production firm Barcelona Enterprises in Woodland Hills was at the Hakkasan restaurant inside the MGM Grand Hotel on the evening of Oct. 1. After finishing his dinner with the restaurant’s chef, he tried to leave but found the doors locked. “A lady said, ‘I’m sorry sir, you can’t leave the restaurant,’” he recalled. “I thought it was a joke.” Then the manager announced “something had happened” and everyone had to stay put. “I opened up my phone and saw it,” Semsar said. A little after 10 p.m. that night, a gunman had opened fire on a crowd at the Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino. Hundreds were injured and 58 died in the shooting. Semsar was less than a mile away from the melee. He stayed in the restaurant until 3 a.m. But the business impact came later. Semsar’s Las Vegas Food & Wine Festival was scheduled five days after the tragedy. Tickets were selling at a pace of about 100 a day until the shooting; the following day sales fell to just one ticket. Pre-arranged TV segments and media stories to publicize the festival were cancelled. Red Rock Casino, the venue for the festival, removed its name from the marquee and replaced it with “Vegas Strong.” “What can you do? The city was mourning,” Semsar said. “We were running on two cylinders the whole week.” Semsar estimates he lost at least 500 ticket sales because of the situation. Chefs cancelled appearances at the show. And the Vegas police demanded extra security. But the show went on. “I had to hold it together and save face,” Semsar said. “The event itself was a little gloomy, but people still came out. It was good to see them, but there wasn’t that same enthusiasm.” While the festival went off without a hitch, the experience gave Semsar a new appreciation for emergency planning. “I always made fun of it,” he said. “Now I see why you need that stuff.” – Joel Russell