Meet Dr. Courtnie Gilmour | Event Planner and Professor

We had the good fortune of connecting with Dr. Courtnie Gilmour and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Dr. Courtnie, what role has risk played in your life or career?
I have never been one to hide, I have always been the one to try anything and everything at least once because I do not believe in failure. While getting my PhD a wise professor once told us; “Failure is just an event. It is not a characteristic. People can not be failures. Take failure as a faithful attempt in learning.”- Judge Victoria Pratt. That phrase as stuck with me my whole life. My risk taking when I was younger was more of the wild side of trying new things and growing as a person but those passions and desire to do and create new things has always been in my blood. I have been at the top of my life and career and I have also experienced the rock bottom of my life and career. My life experiences have all brought me to where i am today and I would not have a successful event planning company in three different states if I did not take those risk everyday to get there and to continue to excel. If you do not take risk and experience new things, I feel like, I wont continue to grow. People, places, and things continue to evolve. I believe the people should continue to evolve as well or you will be left behind and that includes taking risk. Taking risk can mean many different things to many different people. Skydiving may be a risk for one person while moving to the other side of the country for a job, is a risk to another person. whatever that risk is to you, I believe should always be explored because you never know what that simple action will lead you too in the future.

Can you give our readers an introduction to your business? Maybe you can share a bit about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
Eminent Events is a event planning firm that specializes in destination event management, corporate event planning and charity events. I started Eminent Events in Tampa Bay Florida (www.partytampabay.com) working with pro-athletes and has expanded to Seattle Washington (www.partypugetsound.com), and newly in Phoenix/Scottsdale area (www.partyinthedesert.com). When starting a business it is never easy or cheap. I was very fortunate to already have a great client base due to the location I lived, the people i knew and the work I was doing at that time when I started the company back in 2012. That made my first year great, the next couple of years did not do so well and I had to work every hard to promote myself and try to find niche markets in the industry to stand out more from the rest. I almost gave up a couple years in but decided to stick with it and it ended up better then I could of ever expected and is still growing today. I talked about failure before and not being afraid to fail and using all my failures as a learning experience is what I have learned from this all. We may not be able to fly but we still need to try! COVID has definitely been a big impact and all events cancelled and money lost and that has been a huge hurtle presently, but that just did not happen to me, it happened to everyone in the world so nothing to complain about there. Now its time to rebuild, re-focus, and re-brand.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
I am new to the Scottsdale area so let me begin with that. Scottsdale reminds me of a mini Vegas as well as where I am from, Tampa Bay. We all like to party and eat great food. Scottsdale not only provides that form of entertainment but also has the most beautiful sunset and outdoor activities. I am a huge fitness person as well so I love hiking, biking, running, exploring the great outdoors. If your out here for a party: Brunch on the weekends is a must and I would recommend The Montauk to start your weekend off right. Then to beat the heat in a festive way, move on over the Maya Dayclub (its also a nightclub at night) where you will find a high ended- Vegas style pool party. If you make to night AZ/88 is great for dinner and drinks and you can even stay for the party all night or head over to one of the night clubs such as Rockbar. If you want the outdoors: Hike Camelback, tube or kayak Saguaro Lake Ranch, helicopter into Havasu falls if you do not want to hike 23 miles. The outdoor activities are endless and the sunset breathtaking.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
Its hard to dedicate my success to just one person because everyone in my life through these 34 years have had such an impact on my life, whether it was a bad or good. So I dedicate, who I am today, to everyone I have met in my life now, who was in my life in the past and who will change me in the future. However, Anthony Bourdain was and always will be my idol and the reason why I pursued work in the industry that I started in when I was 15. He showed me to be me and that you do not owe an explanation to anyone for any reason.

Website: www.partyinthedesert.com