We recently connected with Gabrielle Nyingcho and have shared our conversation below.

Gabrielle, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. So, let’s start with trends – what are some of the largest or more impactful trends you are seeing in the industry?

Luxury events for every occasion, not just weddings!

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

I’ve been in the hospitality industry for over 10yrs. When I talk about my experience, I feel like I’m speaking as if I just graduated from college because it truly feels like it was yesterday. It all started at Florida State University’s Dedman School of Hospitality. While earning my degree, I was a server at a private club and did an internship in banquets. Once I graduated I already had a job lined up in hotel management in event operations. I eventually left hotels and went on to do trade shows, meetings, and corporate events at a non-profit and now I am here, the owner and lead planner of my own private event space.

I use to say I stumbled upon entrepreneurship, but truth is, it’s always been a goal of mine, I just didn’t expect it to happen when it did. My event space, Alcove Event Studio, is a private event venue in Severna Park, MD. We offer our venue to the local community and surrounding areas for a variety of social events such as birthday parties, wedding receptions, baby showers, bridal showers, proposals, engagement parties and more. We also offer our space to other businesses for corporate retreats, trainings, networking receptions and meetings.

My goals as a space owner and event planner is for our clients to have a professional and stress free experience with us from beginning to end. Finding a venue is one of the first steps to planning an event. I want our clients to feel like the venue was the least stressful piece of the event planning puzzle. I take pride in the fact that when people book my venue, they are surprised that it is a small family owned business. Thanks to my education, training and corporate experience in the hospitality industry I’ve been able to either completely bypass or overcome very quickly some of those initial hurdles of a new business owner in this industry with no prior experience. While policy, procedure, and systems as a business owner are extremely important to me, I also truly value the importance of customer experience. Small businesses do not often have several chances to make the right impression. So first, I want to ensure I provide the service that was promised, then I want to do what I can to make sure our customers have a positive experience without sacrificing the integrity of the business.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

I started looking for a space for my business back in 2019. As a first time business owner trying to get a brick and mortar location straight out the gate is extremely hard. You are considered high risk for a building owner because you have no proven experience, sales, or success in the business. I remember reaching out to leasing agents and realtors over the phone about spaces I found and getting a long pause after telling them I was looking to open an event venue. Call after call after call, I heard most of the same response ” we are not interested in having that type of business occupy the space.” It took me two years to find my space and even once I found the space there was a long process to actually be able to open the doors for business. As stressful as the process was, I knew that I could only lose if I quit.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

Phew! When you put your all into a project, you are very protective of it. It’s easy to do things by yourself in your personal life, but when it comes to a growing business, you must delegate and enlist help when needed. I’m not sure if I can say I’ve truly unlearned this habit, however I do fully understand that in order to grow I need to get more helping hands in the day to day operations or it will hurt my business more than help it. The events industry is very hands-on and labor intensive no matter how you much you try to automate it. You have to interact with people and you have to do the work to keep the machine going.

In my corporate days, I would pride myself on being that hands-on manager and the one willing to work side by side with my team. However as a business owner, you have to take a step back and always have your eye on the bigger picture. As Author Salman Rushdie once said – “The only people who see the whole picture are the ones who step out of the frame”, and that is what I am learning to do.

Contact Info:

• Website: alcoveeventstudio.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alcoveeventstudio/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AlcoveEventStudioMD
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1-JLbijuKeigRPCDQLuQEA/featured