Qadriyyah Braxton: The Creative Force Behind Events on Q

Qadriyyah Braxton: The Creative Force Behind Events on Q

Ever wonder how to queue up a successful party without breaking a sweat? The secret might be professional event planning, and it's becoming more accessible than most people realize, as you'll hear on this episode of the Good Neighbor Podcast. Meet Qadriyyah Braxton, or "Q" as friends and clients of her Events on Q event planning company call her.

Listen to Host Bob Blaisse interview Q about how she takes celebrations from stress to success, specializing in smaller events like birthday parties and baby showers. The everyday celebrations shine when given professional attention, but still allow the host to walk into the room with everything done. From first taking her clients' initial vision, to flawless execution of the event, handling everything from themed decor and stunning photo backdrops to vendor coordination and post-event cleanup. Q's expertise shines through in her sharing how she creates cohesive aesthetics that transform ordinary gatherings into memorable experiences, with particular attention to photo-worthy focal points that guests remember long after the party ends.

Get to know "Q" and how her Events on Q can work with necessary budgets, benefiting from her industry connections and creative solutions that maximize impact within financial constraints. After listening to this episode, if you’re still hesitant about hiring a planner, Q even offers her consulting services to teach you how to be an event planner for your own event and then the events of others. Here's your cue to listen to this episode of the Good Neighbor Podcast with guest Qadriyyah Braxton of Events on Q.

Events on Q
Events-On-Q.com
267-412-3550

--- About The Show--- Good Neighbor Podcast is a spotlight on local businesses in and around Delaware County, PA (“Delco” ) and Beyond... The executive producer and host, Bob Blaisse, is a community sponsorship advocate, business branding specialist, and publisher of several hometown magazines, including: Newtown Square Friends & Neighbors, Marple Friends & Neighbors and Newtown Edgmont Friends & Neighbors, mailed monthly to more than 12,000 homes in Western Delaware County, PA, and also available for reading online.

Transcript

Welcome to Good Neighbor Podcast

Speaker 1 0:00

Hello, delco. This is Michael Barkan, welcoming you to the Good Neighbor Podcast, where fans of local businesses and their neighbors come together. It's my pleasure once again to introduce my friend and neighbor, our host Bob Lacey.

Speaker 2 0:18

Thank you for that introduction. Michael Barkan and everybody, welcome again to another episode of the Good Neighbor podcast. We're coming to you from Delaware County, Pennsylvania, that's the southeast corner of Pennsylvania. If you're familiar with the boxy, rectangular size of Pennsylvania. We're just below the city of Philadelphia, just above the state of New Jersey and just west of the state of Delaware, I should say, and just west of the state of New Jersey.

Meet Q from Events on Cue

Speaker 2 0:46

Delaware County is lovingly referred to as Delco, so we call this podcast, the Good Neighbor Podcast, Delco, Delco and Beyond, where we bring the residents of Delaware County and beyond word and news about really good neighbor businesses in our community. And we try to go for different types of businesses and you know, and these include healthcare and any kind of services to homes, but also entertainment, and we have a bit of a kind of a crossover one here today. This is a service and it's great because I think one of our recent episodes we had as a guest on the Good Neighbor podcast a professional disc jockey and so it gave us some thought and we were thinking through this as we saw some nominations come through, and today we're going to introduce to you the owner and founder of an event planning company and it's a little different. It's fun and this lady is fun. So let me bring to you the owner and the founder of Events on Cue. This is Quadria Braxton. Quadria, welcome to the program.

Speaker 3 1:44

Good morning Bob. It's a pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me.

Speaker 2 1:47

Well, it's great to have you and I guess, quadria, I have to let the listeners know I am saying your name correctly. It's a little bit of an unusual name Begins with a Q and I know that your nickname is Q, correct? That's correct. Well, can I call you Q and let our listeners call you Q as well. But Quadria Braxton is our guest and, as I said she is, they probably would have run into an event planner only in their experience while attending a wedding or hearing about someone who had a wedding planner, an event planner but that's not really the majority of the business for event planning these days. Is it? Tell me the circle of types of events that you would help manage and bring to wonderful events that we get to enjoy?

Speaker 3 2:50

Well, I actually I'm involved in all types of events. We do corporate events, we do weddings, but my primary clients are birthday parties and baby showers, and I believe it's basically because those things happen every day, so there's a bigger market for that.

The Value of Event Planning Services

Speaker 2 3:08

Well, it makes sense. But there's also kind of a growing market because the busier people get and the more they want to kind of still have an event, like a birthday party or a shower, to be able to enjoy it and not just have to be necessarily working through it and to make sure that it's memorable because you're celebrating someone. That's key. So let's focus on that before we get to the bigger pictures. But if I could say Quateria, when someone thinks about contacting you, are they typically somebody that has used an event planner before? Are they kind of just trying to figure it out or investigate Is it worth it? Is it worth it? Is it too expensive? And is that the moment where you're opening their eyes up to be ready if you don't have an event planner, Are you thinking about this, this, this and that? How's that first call work typically?

Speaker 3 3:56

I think in many cases people have tried this before and they realize all the work and time and energy that it takes to actually make an event and, like you said, they don't get to enjoy their events because they're running around trying to do everything, whereas if you hire an event planner, literally all you have to do is walk into the room and everything is done for you, so you get to enjoy your event. It also gives you more time to get ready and you know you don't have to worry about what you forgot. You can just show up, you can look pretty, you can, you know, greet your guests and everything's great because all the work is done for you. So I take away the stress from your event planning experience.

Speaker 2 4:33

Well, let's talk a little deeper then. Is it so so from a from a full circle event? It first it means, might even mean where are we having it and who's invited? So are you handling kind of the search upwards, Typically, especially, I guess, with the birthday parties and showers? Do they have them more so at their home or are they at venues? Are you recommending venues and are you actually helping with the invitations to even kind of kick off the announcement of the event?

Speaker 3 5:02

So the majority of my clients. They do have venues and they choose their on their own, Although I do offer venue selection. If you have no idea, as far as invitations and things, I don't get involved because you know I don't know the people, they know who they want. I can suggest, like invitations, things like that, the aesthetics of the event but not the actual, I guess, mechanics.

Creating Cohesive Event Themes

Speaker 2 5:29

Right. Well, it might even be better, because then you're they're getting all the credit If they're contacting all their friends and family and say come to the event. It looks like they're working hard to make this event work really nice. But then they get there and they find out it's working wonderfully. A lot of help here at this event. Wow, you know how did you pull this off? This is how you know. Q was here and this was an event that was right on Q. She was working for me the whole time behind the scenes. So let's go deeper. Now the people are arriving and they're looking at the event. Is this involve what some of us with less familiarity with this would think of, like table settings or centerpieces or even decorations in the venue?

Speaker 3 6:13

Absolutely. We have table settings, the centerpieces. I specialize in the backdrops, so your focal point would be amazing, because that's where all your pictures are going to be and most of the time, that's what people remember most about your event is. You know they look back at the pictures that they took and you just want it to be beautiful just in all the spaces around you.

Speaker 2 6:28

So so, depending on what the birthday is or what the event is, you're, you're, they're telling you that, and then you're kind of saying, okay, so we're, we're we have these possible themes that we'll bring into the event.

Speaker 3 6:44

So sometimes they have their own theme or they'll have at least a color palette, and then I can work with that. I make suggestions sometimes depending on, like, if it's a baby shower and there's popular themes going on. Every year the themes change Depending on, like, the color palette and everything. We can discuss how we want the themes to look, you know, and then that goes into how the tables will be dressed, things like that. It's just to make sure that everything comes together and looks cohesive.

Speaker 2 7:10

Yeah, well, you know this is very interesting because I'm thinking at this part of the conversation here. Majority of listeners are thinking come on, I can do my own party. I've had lots of parties but it's a market event planning that's growing and growing for good reason because of what you've talked about being able to pull it off right and beautiful, but really to know in advance where the pitfalls are, you're going to have problems. What has to come before something else to really make the event run smoothly. And that's with great consideration that you, as the host I don't mean Q, I mean the person who's hiring Q wants to enjoy the event themselves. So really, do we have help that's going to be serving and all that kind of? We'll get to that. And for those of you who are wondering who we're talking with here, I wanna bring it home again.

Working Within Client Budgets

Speaker 2 8:03

The business is called Events on Q and we're talking to Q. Q is Quadria. Quadria Braxton is the owner and founder of Events on Q and you can get a chance to look at her website Meet Q online. The website is the name of the business events-on-qcom. That's where you'll find Quadria Braxton and you'll be able to talk with her If you'd like to talk with her. Her phone number is 267-412-3550. Of course you can. You can follow her on Facebook events on Q, the letter Q, and also on Instagram it's eventsonq. If you want to take a look at her Instagram page Now. Now Q.

Speaker 2 8:52

Here's where I think we have to take this to the next level with the listeners. We're talking about people who let's talk about people who have never hired an event planner, and this is not for a wedding, it's not for a 300 person kind of a thing. This is. You know, let's stick with birthday parties, you know retirement parties, you know, kind of a birth announcement, baptism, christening kind of party, some kind of a bachelor or not you know bachelorette party, something like that, that this person is going to host. They might think already I don't know what I'm doing and I cannot afford this to not come off wonderfully. When someone calls for the first time and they've never used an event planner, do you have to kind of lead them towards simplicity, a bit Like I'm going to take care of everything for you, or do you have to really kind of sell them into believing that it's necessary to have an event planner? Or do they know when they call you?

Speaker 3 9:52

I think when they call me, they know they need an event planner because a lot of times they don't have a clue. So what I do is I take away the guesswork. They talk to me and tell me what their vision is, and then it's up to me to bring their vision to life. So, you know, we get into all the specifics. You know what type of vibe are you looking for, like who is the party for? What type of person are they? Because we don't want to have you know something, we don't want to have a boring party for someone who is a party person and we don't want to have you know the the crazy turn up for someone who is kind of low key. So we want to keep everything balanced to make sure that the customer is actually getting what they're expecting.

Speaker 2 10:42

And so, as you have this conversation about, did you think about this and would you want that and you could do this, then those things become tasks, but the tasks are always going to be managed by you, correct, I mean?

Speaker 2 10:51

it's the idea that you're not just the planner, you're the execution person that's going to bring it all about coordination of the event, from whatever that concept is, you know, to the day of the event. You're going to manage everything seamlessly right for the person who's look of the place. You're going to either bring the items or you're going to actually mention the providers and vendors but then work with those vendors, whether it's florists or other kinds of food caterers. That's correct. You take it all the way.

Speaker 3 11:29

It depends on the client and the budget. The budget always matters because you know there's only a certain amount that you can do with anything. And in these times you know things are expensive and we have to acknowledge that things are expensive and be able to work, you know, within the parameters of the budget the client gives us. Now, as event planners, we have workarounds. You know that we can do to, I guess, alleviate parts of the budget, but you know we always give a nice event regardless.

Speaker 2 12:06

Try to solve, right to the price point that they can afford for what kind of an event that they want to have.

Speaker 3 12:12

Absolutely.

Speaker 2 12:13

And take away the pain. You know, know, I mean part of the pain is the end of the event too. That's the cleanup quadrilla, the cleanup and the and the setup, you know, kind of similar, but when somebody's tired from having a party and they don't really necessarily want to clean up. So you know, there's times where you know we're gonna, you're gonna bring food in and mech that could even include the, the um servers could could include the plates and dishes and such, and taking dirty plates away, cleaning them up off site so that by the time the party's over within short order, the help that you have brought in is actually getting either in the house or when people leave the venue. It's all kind of taken care of because you planned it so right.

Speaker 3 12:58

Absolutely.

Speaker 2 12:59

That's awesome. That's awesome.

Speaker 3 13:01

I can do is go home and go to sleep and not have to worry about it, because we'll take care of it.

Service Area and Contact Information

Speaker 2 13:06

Quadria Braxton is her name. We're talking to the founder of events on Q. Q is her nickname and Q is from Upper Darby, which is in Delaware County and, you know, serving both Delaware County and even outside of Delaware County. Do you ever head into New Jersey or Delaware or the other counties like Chester County, Bucks County, Montgomery County?

Speaker 3 13:27

My service area is up to an hour and a half drive away.

Speaker 2 13:31

An hour and a half drive Good. So if our listeners are looking for event planning, you sound like you'd be very accessible and like you're even the kind of person to help educate somebody, and maybe some calls go with like well, thanks for the insight and advice. I realize now I can't afford to have an event planner, but it's really not that expensive when you consider the alternatives Correct.

Speaker 3 13:53

That's correct, and if you can't afford an event planner, I can teach you how to be an event planner.

Speaker 2 13:57

That's so nice. Some consulting from the event planner Events on cue. You'll put them on cue for their ability to kind of host and have their party and their event. And let's always remember the underlying point here Nobody typically has a party for themselves, no-transcript, it's a memory of a lifetime, and so the work that Q does here is for you and for that memory box, for all the people that attend that event. It all comes down to just some advanced planning to get it all right. You sound like the right person to get it done, q.

Speaker 3 14:47

I believe I am.

Speaker 2 14:49

I think you are what a great business, what a great good neighbor business in our community. We need people like you to help us so that we can build those wonderful memories of a lifetime. Events on Cue Quadrilla, Braxton. Thank you for being a great good neighbor business in our community and thank you for being a guest here today on the Good Neighbor Podcast.

Speaker 3 15:07

Thank you so much, Bob. Thanks for having me.

Speaker 1 15:09

Thank you for listening to the Good Neighbor Podcast hosted by Bob Lacey. This is Michael Barkan inviting everyone to get on the Good Neighbor team. Nominate your favorite local business to be featured on an upcoming episode by going to gnpdelcocom or by calling Bob at 610-557-3745.