After Mark Montgomery's Tech-tosterone, Pandoland Lets Women Attend Free

Nashville tech conference Pandoland is making waves after announcing last night that women entrepreneurs can attend for free, following some "off-script" comments by local tech-bro Mark Montgomery Wednesday at dueling conference 36|86.

The two conferences used to be one event called Southland, which was organized through a partnership between state group Launch Tennessee and Pando Daily, a Silicon Valley-based tech news website run by Sarah Lacy. The two announced their breakup in January, and a lawsuit over contract terms followed.

For its part, 36|86 was a very well-run conference with great speakers from companies like Eventbrite and Uber, and there was nary a mention of Pando, Sarah Lacy or the bad blood between the two teams.

That is, until FloThinkery exec Mark Montgomery took to the stage to moderate one of the final panels of the conference, a discussion on the music industry featuring John Rich of Big & Rich, Anthony Piedmonte of Bon Jovi Management and Ashley Capps of AC Entertainment.

Montgomery opened the panel by telling conference goers he was about to go off-script and fired the conference's first shots at Lacy.

And then the wheels really came off.

Montgomery — the kind of guy who seems like he loves to say offensive things just to watch people's reaction — told the audience he heard complaints that there wasn't any estrogen on the panel. Making a big show of things, he invited Heather McBee, local Sony exec on the stage.

"She was a pain in my ass," Montgomery told the audience. "We used to call her Mrs. No."

McBee, for her credit, gracefully and jokingly chided him, saying, "I would not have been a pain in your ass if you had done it differently," to which Montgomery responded, "Fuck you, Heather."

McBee was not given a chance to speak for several minutes after joining the panel, and her first comments were interrupted by Montgomery. But to be fair, he interrupted all the men, too, answering audience questions before the panelists and generally starring in what the conference's emcee later called "The Mark Montgomery Show."

(Having John Rich on stage didn't exactly help matters, either, as he brought his own special brand of sexism to the panel: "A chick threw a CD at me at a stoplight. She was hot so, I listened to it, it was horrible.")

Meanwhile, back on Twitter, Southern/Alpha (and friend of Pith) Kelley Boothe was reporting on the panel and Montgomery's comments, and Lacy was responding to them, tweeting "Kudos to Mark tho — first I'd heard anyone mention the conference this week. Hate sells buddy."

To which Montgomery responded, in a now deleted Tweet:

The Pando team responded pretty quickly, saying Montgomery's comments mirrored what they witnessed last year in jointly running the conference.

What wasn’t spelled out in our lawsuit against LaunchTN was some of the breathtaking sexism the Pando team witnessed, and experienced, while working with the government agency and its cronies. (I’ll stick to the sexism for now, and save for another time the casual homophobia, or the story about how I was told that LaunchTN’s representative had vetoed a black musician from the entertainment line-up because he might attract “the wrong element.”)

The Pando team also said that in response to the environment of sexism, they have decided to drop the conference's ticket price for women entrepreneurs from $699 to $0.

We’ve worked incredibly hard to create an event that is welcoming to all. Swearing is fine, strong opinions are welcome, but we will not tolerate sexism, racism or any other kind of prejudice — coded or otherwise — at Pandoland. That rule applies to speakers and audience members alike. No high-fives. One strike and you’re out, bro.

Lacy and her team seem to be getting some good buzz for this move, which will hopefully increase access to the conference for local and regional women entrepreneurs. But what's good for Pando is not so good for Launch Tennessee and 36|86, which are now being portrayed as a boy's club full of jerks. I can't speak for what happened behind the scenes, but overall, 36|86 had great content with many women represented both on stage and in the audience. It is unfortunate that Montgomery's comments marred what was otherwise an interesting, informative and enjoyable conference.