Listen to the Podcast About aVenue Event Group
Podcast Summary
In this engaging episode of Felix and Fingers podcast, host Nate Rodriguez sat down with Chloe Hagle, a proven event planner from aVenue Event Group. Chloe, who boasts many years of experience in event planning and logistics coordination, shared her journey in the event industry.
Chloe, a proud alumni of the University of Central Florida, started her career in the spring of the previous year with aVenue Event Group. Bringing her extensive experience in event planning from Hello DMC and past tenure in Atlanta venues, she has helped pivot the focus of aVenue Event Group from venue-centric services to robust event planning solutions.
She revealed that the strength of the aVenue Event Group lies in their diverse backgrounds and ability to work together for successful event execution. Even though the company places an emphasis on venue, they also value the planning aspect where Chloe fits perfectly with her wealth of event planning experience.
She brought a unique perspective towards event planning, an overlap from her past career as a personal trainer, by emphasizing the importance of relationship building and understanding the underlying motivation behind each event.
This insightful discussion with Chloe Hagle from aVenue Event Group is packed with intriguing ideas about event planning and the transitioning focus of aVenue Event Group. It promises to be an illuminating listen for industry colleagues, event hosts, and budding event planners alike.
Learn more about aVenue Event Group
This interview was provided by Felix and Fingers Dueling Pianos
Podcast Transcript
Nate (00:25)
Hey everybody, it’s Nate with Felix and Fingers. I’m here with the amazing Chloe Hagle with aVenue Event Group. She is one of their fantastic planners. She’s been with them for quite a while. She’s originally from Florida where I met her and she wanted me to make sure I mentioned that she’s a proud alumni of the University of Central Florida, go Golden Knights. She has many, many years of professional experience. She’s been working in event planning. She’s been working with venues and she
is known for the way that she handles like logistics and coordination and really creative problem solving. I’m so excited to bring her here. I’ve known her for a little while and we’ve done some amazing events together. Chloe, thanks for being on.
Chloe Hagle (01:09)
Thanks for having me. So excited to be here.
Nate (01:11)
So we’re recording this on a Friday. Any plans for the weekend?
Chloe Hagle (01:17)
Not too many plans, but Friday is our work from home day, so I’m living that up.
Nate (01:22)
Awesome, yeah, it’s definitely one of the benefits of being in the event industry. Unless we’re on site with something special, we get to work from our couch.
Chloe Hagle (01:31)
Yeah, absolutely. I’ll take the rest because we’re always running around.
Nate (01:35)
So I wanted to dive in and kind of share a little bit more about your history with aVenue and with you personally and professionally. So tell me a little bit about your story. Let’s start with how long you’ve been with aVenue and what kind of brought you to aVenue.
Chloe Hagle (01:51)
Yeah, absolutely. So I started with aVenue in the spring of last year. So I’ve been with them for over a year. It’s a really small company, but we all have such amazing backgrounds. We work really well together. They started the company with the focus on venues, but we’re definitely leaning more into the planning side, which is where I come in with my experience. Prior to aVenue, I worked for Hello DMC.
Nate (02:10)
Mm -hmm.
okay, yeah. Another big name.
Chloe Hagle (02:21)
Yep, of course. So my background is more in the DMC world. And prior to that, I worked for a venue in Atlanta when I lived up there. So I’ve had a little bit of all different types of event experience, but I really love planning large scale events and doing more of that DMC work. And prior to my experience as an event planner, I was a personal trainer.
Nate (02:31)
really?
wow, okay.
Chloe Hagle (02:47)
kind of had quite the journey, but I am happy to be in events. what I love doing and just kind of flexing all of my different skills.
Nate (02:55)
That’s awesome. So I gotta know, is there any particular skill or thought process that kind of crosses over from personal training to event planning?
Chloe Hagle (03:08)
definitely. I’d say the biggest thing is relationship building because when you’re working with someone on a personal level…
Nate (03:15)
Mm -hmm.
Chloe Hagle (03:16)
Also understanding people’s goals. You know, as a personal trainer, you have to understand the why behind why someone is training with you. That definitely translates over to planning as well. You really want to understand the why behind this event. You know, it’s not just a fun party, especially with corporate. There’s always a reason why they’re hosting this event. So really getting down to the motivation behind why people do what they do in the first place.
Nate (03:21)
Yeah.
You
Yeah.
You know, that’s, I think you just kind of hit the nail on the head. I feel like that’s probably why we’ve done as many events together as we have. We’re very focused on what I say the goals, the goals of the event. So that’s really, really cool. tell me a little bit about aVenue’s event planning. Tell me a little bit about what kind of makes you guys different, what makes you different in particular. I know that aVenue,
started with little bit with more venues and being focused on providing spaces, talk to me a little bit about the transition and the opening up to more planning side.
Chloe Hagle (04:24)
Yeah.
definitely. It started as just a need for more clients. So, you know, they would come to us with our venues and then just through building that relationship and planning their events here in Orlando, you know, they figured out that they travel and they need help sourcing other venues and with our background and understanding what a good venue looks like and what would fit for them, it just kind of naturally came about that, you know, we have the capability to help them in other areas. So we’ve been very
Nate (04:29)
Okay.
Right.
Chloe Hagle (04:54)
lucky to travel with some of our corporate clients to other markets all across the US and really just do everything from the venue selection to even handle booking hotel rooms. Yeah, arranging travel if needed. So we’re kind of the one -stop shop for everything event related, which is sort of unique in the event space because a normal DMC or planning company might not do that. They might have offices in other countries or other places.
Nate (05:06)
Wow, okay.
That’s really cool.
Chloe Hagle (05:24)
but for the most part, they’re kind of localized versus we have the ability to travel really anywhere and deal with needs of all kinds.
Nate (05:28)
Yeah.
Yeah, there’s so many things that you just said that I’m like, ooh, I want to talk about that. So one of the things you mentioned was your experience with venues and how that translates to your planning. Yeah, I mean, when I talk with our clients, I always tell them it starts with a great when and where. And we refer you guys a lot for that reason. So almost all of our venues
Chloe Hagle (05:38)
Absolutely.
I’m
Nate (06:03)
all our favorite venues in Orlando and very quickly becoming all of our favorite venues in Atlanta, our avenue places. So the fact that you guys cover, mean, you even talked about like room blocks, just getting room blocks together is such a huge project. So tell me a little bit about like a story where you’ve had a recent client or even a long -term client that
Chloe Hagle (06:09)
Anyhow.
Yeah, absolutely.
Nate (06:30)
you they’ve come to you with I don’t want to say problems but with these challenges and how you’ve addressed them. Like talk to me a little bit about like tell me a story about something that’s gone really well when you thought everything was going to go really badly.
Chloe Hagle (06:39)
Thank
Yeah, for sure. One of our
big clients, the reason that they kind of went with us is because meeting planners have so many other things to do in their plate. So one of our clients, she will just give us everything. She’ll say, I don’t want to deal with this this time, know, and little by little, we’ve kind of picked up more and more because it started with just, okay, find us a venue. And then we realized, and she realized that we can do so much more for her.
Nate (06:54)
Mm
Chloe Hagle (07:13)
So it’s kind of progressed over the years working with this client, picking up more and more of like, we can handle the room blocks now. We can book transportation for you. We can do the decor. We can handle entertainment. So it’s been a natural progression of those things. And, you know, we’ve definitely had stories of when things go wrong, but most of the time, the feedback that we get from our clients is, wow, I should have went with you so many years ago.
have saved so much time and so much hassle because you know we’re taking that off their plate so our focus for them is to show up to the event and just enjoy it instead of working through all the little nitty -gritty tale. We handle the details so that they don’t have to.
Nate (07:47)
Yeah.
Right. Well, and actually, mean, that brings me to kind of an interesting question. It’s like, you were, you know, if somebody’s watching this and you were talking to somebody that was just getting started with planning an event, what would be like the one thing that you would want them to know, you know, just starting out?
Chloe Hagle (08:17)
Yeah,
I mean, if you’re brand new to the industry, I would say find someone who has a background in event planning because there’s so many nuances when it comes to this industry and planning an event. So finding someone who’s really experienced or has, you know, a little bit of insight into all of the details that this needs. But I think the one thing that I wish all of my clients knew or would keep a focus is to have fun.
Nate (08:31)
Mm
Yeah.
Yeah.
Chloe Hagle (08:49)
with it because we’re planning events and events should be fun. You know, we’ve had several times where they’re focused on one thing in particular about like pleasing the CEO and making sure like that cocktail is on the menu for him, which is important. know, details are important, but so many times I feel like their focus shifts.
and it becomes this whole process and you’re like, but we’re planning an event. It should be fun. Just as the process should be fun too.
Nate (09:13)
Yeah.
Yeah.
I have to share. So my fiance is an amazing project manager and the term that she uses for exactly what you’re describing is called getting lost in the sauce. And we’re actually getting married in about a week and we’re getting into kind of the finer details and it’s like once we got all the big stuff done, all of the things that were important and we were getting into the final details.
Chloe Hagle (09:32)
Mm -hmm, absolutely.
Yeah.
Nate (09:47)
She actually, about 45 days out from wedding, she’s like, I am now getting lost in the sauce. I need help. She’s like, when all the big stuff was needing to be done, I was totally calm. It was when we got into those little money details about specifics about the food and little seating elements and things like that. It’s like, I’m getting lost in the sauce. So feel free to use that. Don’t get lost in the sauce. I need a t -shirt made.
Chloe Hagle (09:53)
Yeah, that’s crunch time.
yeah.
Yeah, exactly. It’s all the little details that come together last minute where you’re like, what napkin fold are we doing? And did we order that? Yeah. You’re like, I didn’t think about that. So that’s also where, you know, planners come to help because you don’t know what you don’t know.
Nate (10:17)
my gosh, that’s a real, that’s so real! Wee
Yeah.
Right, right, and you know, when you do, it’s kind of something of benefit, know, like most folks, you know, if they’re doing a big corporate event, they do that once a year. So in 10 years, they’ll do that 10 times. In 10 years, someone like you or me might do that a thousand times. So, every day, yeah, so it’s amazing. So I wanna get into a little bit of story time. I’m gonna ask you, wind up asking you two questions.
Chloe Hagle (10:47)
Yeah, every day.
Mm
Nate (10:59)
My first is tell me a tale of one client that just knocked it out of the park. A specific event where everything went right or was and especially if it was something really unique or special like something you wish you could see again at more events.
Chloe Hagle (11:15)
Mm -hmm. Yeah, I mean, so much of what I do is behind the scenes. I mean, I like to say there’s no perfect events because something is always going to go wrong. But we recently had an event where it was multiple days, which is always a challenge because there’s so much time for something to go wrong.
Nate (11:22)
Yeah.
Mm -hmm.
Yeah.
Chloe Hagle (11:42)
But the client had a great vision from the start. We were doing the master’s theme Very The golf. Yep, which I’m not too much into golf. So I did a lot of googling about like what what that looks like, you know what to incorporate Yeah, but
Nate (11:46)
like golf, like the golf masters. Okay, yeah.
Green and yellow. Green and yellow.
Chloe Hagle (11:59)
The whole process was just so easy from start to end. It’s really rare that we have those clients where everything is just easy and they’re yes people and they like all your ideas. I only did one initial proposal, which never happens. I’m usually doing several revisions to get it right and fit the vision. So this was like off the bat, hit the nail on the head.
Nate (12:04)
Mm -hmm.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Love that.
Chloe Hagle (12:25)
everything came together, know, vendors were on time, everything flowed. It was a really great two -day event with multiple pieces and room blocks and hundreds of attendees and everything, everything went off without a hitch, which is more than you can ask for for an event.
Nate (12:42)
Amazing. you’ve probably guessed this, but my next question is the exact sort of the opposite. Tell me a tale of a time when nothing was going right and how you brought all of the challenges together, but the event still went smoothly. I think one of the things that folks watch our show for is to get a little of the tea, but to hear that what we do.
Chloe Hagle (12:45)
Okay.
Mm
yeah.
Nate (13:09)
as event professionals is take all of those problems, present solutions, and fix them before folks even realize that something’s happening. so I always love to ask this and learn a little bit about an example of some time you’ve taken. That’s something that’s been especially challenging or tricky and turned it around for a client before they really could catch on.
Chloe Hagle (13:32)
Absolutely. So the story that comes to mind is from a wedding I did last year where seemingly nothing was going right. And so my goal is to always handle it first. Whatever problem solving I can do before, you know, the bride or the family finds out within reason, you know.
Nate (13:38)
Mm -hmm. what a –
Mm -hmm.
Yeah.
Chloe Hagle (13:55)
but working behind the scenes to kind of problem solve. you know, the elevators to get up were not working. Our freight elevator wasn’t working. So we had to figure out a way around that, route for vendors to get up. I realized like during the ceremony that my champagne had not arrived with the champagne toast.
Nate (14:02)
my goodness.
Mm -hmm.
Yeah.
Chloe Hagle (14:18)
So I had to call up the vendor and be like, hey, where are you guys? And they were able to make it in time, which was great. Otherwise, I would have had a plan B or plan C to get it there on time. The guests were just getting a little bit rowdy, so we had to kind of put security in place to make sure that everyone was.
Nate (14:23)
Yeah.
Yeah.
HAHAHAHA! Is this…oh, at a wedding? Never. Never.
Chloe Hagle (14:41)
I don’t know.
For sure. But then some of the guests that were seated outside wanted to move inside. So we did our best, you know, to move tables. But I mean, our venue was already packed to the brim, but we did what we could to accommodate people. So the entire night just ended up being a lot of shifting around, a lot of just thinking on our feet. There was not a moment where I sat still because there was something that always required my attention. So that is really at the heart of event execution is just
Nate (14:46)
Mm
Yeah.
Hahaha
Yeah.
Chloe Hagle (15:13)
anticipating people’s needs is always what I am looking for. If someone’s glass is empty, okay, let’s refill this. If that’s gonna tip over, let’s go fix that down. So it’s always being mindful and alert to see what we can prevent. And then if something happens, okay, how can we fix this and how can we do it quickly?
Nate (15:17)
Absolutely.
Absolutely. As somebody who moves pianos as part of my job, I’m super curious about what ultimately was the solution for the elevators.
Chloe Hagle (15:36)
Yes.
we just had to bring everything up through the regular guest elevators instead of the freight elevator. So it’s not too crazy. Not likely we’re taking stairs up 11 stories, but yeah.
Nate (15:45)
okay, well that’s… yeah.
God bless you. God bless you. That’s awesome. So that’s so wonderful. I guess I want to ask a little bit about aVenue’s new route. Like if somebody was looking for planning, like what regions are you working in? What is it that you all look for in a client? And what should they look for?
which should a great client look for in you.
Chloe Hagle (16:21)
Yeah, absolutely. So we are really more of a boutique planning service. if someone, know, lot of companies post COVID do not have like full staff meeting planners anymore. And so we’re really there to fill that need from A to Z.
Nate (16:27)
Mm
Okay.
Chloe Hagle (16:41)
I’d say our main markets that we travel most to, obviously Orlando, since that’s where we’re based, but we’re also doing a lot in the Atlanta area, up in Chicago, Las Vegas, and California. So those are like our primary markets that we operate out of, but if there’s others, we can absolutely source and make those markets happen too. I’d say.
Nate (16:46)
Yeah.
really?
Amazing. Okay.
Chloe Hagle (17:07)
You know, our ideal client is just someone that needs the help. And we’re there to do full service for them.
Nate (17:11)
Ha ha ha ha! Yeah, fair enough.
Awesome. So you mentioned Orlando, Atlanta, Chicago, Vegas, and California. So California is a big old place. there a favorite city in California or a place you tend to go the most?
Chloe Hagle (17:26)
California. It is.
I’d say probably like the LA area, like Anaheim, Disneyland, you know? Just trading one Disney for the other.
Nate (17:38)
Wonderful. Well this works out. Felix Fingers got offices in all those locations. Yeah, yep. Anaheim’s a little smaller though. Orlando’s got them beat.
Chloe Hagle (17:50)
little smaller. Yeah, we’re the mecca. We’re the happiest place on earth.
Nate (17:55)
Amazing. what are, tell me about kind of what you’re looking forward to, should say. Tell me about what you’re looking forward to going into this coming season. Is there any particular event? Is there a new thing that’s happening, you know, coming out of this new planning stage for aVenue? What are you excited about in the coming season?
Chloe Hagle (18:16)
Yeah, absolutely. Holiday season is always our busiest season, which is fine because we get to do so many corporate holiday parties and it’s always a blast putting those together. We do have some more travel lined up for the fall as well, so I’m excited to do more traveling and assist in those other regions. And then next year is a really big year for us. We’re helping a lot of events for a local convention that’s coming to Orlando, so we have a
Nate (18:35)
Yeah.
wonderful.
Chloe Hagle (18:46)
lot lined up for February of next year. So we’ll be running around, but that is the joy of event planning. So I’m really excited for those events and next year to really be the big one.
Nate (18:50)
Love that.
So I’m somebody that goes all out on themed events. so holidays are prime time for me. Everything from Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas, I get to wear my most ridiculous outfits. So very excited about that. So you mentioned travel. Is there anywhere in particular that your events are taking you that you’re really looking forward to seeing?
Chloe Hagle (19:04)
yeah.
I don’t know.
You have a good theme.
We have one event that’s going to be in Toronto, Canada. So a little international trip. So I’m excited for that one. I’ve never been to Canada in the fall. So I’m excited to see what that looks like.
Nate (19:27)
Ow.
Love that!
my goodness, the leaves. Aya.
Chloe Hagle (19:41)
Yeah, the leaves. Probably have to eat maple syrup.
Nate (19:46)
There’s a thing with my family called the crotch, which is basically once all the leaves fall, we go around anywhere outside and find the piles of leaves and stomp on them because it’s extremely satisfying. So amazing. tell me a little bit about, my last question for you is tell me about what your next event is, what it entails, and where you are at stages with
Chloe Hagle (19:54)
Yeah.
Yeah, that’s the best part of Yeah.
Nate (20:15)
the client. Like talk about bringing something in for a landing, let’s say.
Chloe Hagle (20:20)
Yeah, so I don’t know if I’m allowed to say the client that it’s for because it’s a rebrand. So I don’t want to give away too much information, but it is an event at our venue, the balcony. So nice, big open space.
Nate (20:23)
That’s OK.
Fair enough.
Love the balcony. Shout out to the balcony in Orlando. If you’re getting married or you have an event, they have an amazing downtown space unlike anything else. Shout out to the balcony. They’re my favorite. They might be my favorite. They’re definitely in my top three Orlando venues.
Chloe Hagle (20:42)
Yeah, come check us out.
Yeah, so it’s very brand heavy. So we’re doing different installations. We’re doing fun like themed furniture that fits the brand colors. We’re bringing in entertainment and now we’re about a month away. So we’re getting into the final details of it all and
you know, making sure that it all just comes together flawlessly from food and beverage to entertainment to logistics because the balcony can be a bit of a beast when it comes to operating. But we have great vendor partners that we work with who know the space really well. So now we’re just in the final stages of, you know, getting down to operations.
Nate (21:17)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yep, now the trick is just to help the client not get lost in the sauce. Yeah, yes, so I will say it’s a terrace level downtown Orlando, so certainly there’s elevators and little challenges there, but my gosh is it worth it. Absolutely, so Chloe thank you so so much for joining me today. It’s been a blast. You and I have had conversations like this, I can’t tell you how many times,
Chloe Hagle (21:33)
Exactly. Or lost in the parking garage.
Yeah, but the view is worth it.
Nate (21:57)
But I’m so happy that we could let folks in on it and talk a little bit about our lives and behind the scenes and working together. I know we’ll be seeing, it sounds like we’ll be seeing you guys in the fall again. So I’m really excited about that. Thank you again and I’ll see you soon.
Chloe Hagle (22:08)
you
Yeah, thank you so much for having me. It’s been a blast.
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