Chloe Richardson’s Post

Possibly the best 40 minutes of my stage career to date. DEFINITELY the hottest. And mainly because I made a big mistake 😬 Yesterday, my brave panellists (and victims/friends) Koleen, Dean and Keegan joined me on stage for Hot Wings, Hot Takes during the ELX Annual Congress. The idea was five spicy questions, accompanied by five progressively spicier hot sauce coated chicken wings. I had promised the panel it wouldn’t be TOO spicy, but - hands up - I messed up when ordering the sauce. Dave’s Insanity Hot Sauce, renowned for being a killer, has a younger sibling called Dave’s Temporary Insanity Hot Sauce, with a less punchy scoville unit rating of 57,000. I went for that as our final sauce - something that would deliver a whack of heat without tipping anyone over the edge. It wasn’t until I sat at the table just before the session and looked at the bottle that I realised my mistake… frantically checking my phone to see which final list of sauces I had sent over to Jen Wilson a couple of weeks ago. Turns out I had missed out the key word for sauce numero five. ✨ Temporary ✨ Turns out the sauce we ended up with is 180,000 scoville units, and was in fact ninth in its season lineup of the ten hot sauces used on the hit show, Hot Ones. Turns out, that’s pretty hot. Turns out, I’m lucky to still be able to call them friends. Cue 20 minutes of pain, downing pints of milk, crying, rubbing yoghurt on faces and total delirium. On a stage in a room in front of our wonderful community. Koleen, Dean, Keegan - you are AMAZING sports, and I can’t wait to see the official footage. #eventprofs #eventleaders P.s don’t be fooled by the smiles, we were not smiling on the inside

A 5km walk/run at 6am in Las Vegas in July!? Definitely worth getting out of bed for. In fact, there’s no better way to kick off the first day of content at the ELX Annual Congress! Feeling good, legs stretched and ready to go. Hannah and Mathys - I love you guys for braving the heat with me this morning. Go! Running Tours, thank you for partnering with us on this activity (you’re the best!), and being a perfect example of how business events are so much more than just sitting inside conference halls all day. #eventprofs #goodmorning

An obligatory “before” photo with our friends from the RAI Amsterdam, and neutral supporter DK, just before the game. Still friends after; I promise! The events industry - bringing people together as always. Europe - we’ll see you on Sunday ☺️

Good morning from the ARIA hotel, Las Vegas ♥️ Something exciting is in the air… Maybe it’s that so many of our ELX members are going to be together again in-person this week. Maybe it’s the content that is going to get everybody talking. Maybe it’s the amazing evening experiences that have been planned by our hosts. Maybe it’s the collective intelligence-sharing, problem-solving, solution-finding that this week will bring. Maybe it’s the gorgeous venue and delicious food. Maybe it’s just the thought of having so many event leaders in one space, at the same time, and the magic that it will inevitably bring. Maybe it’s my ridiculous suit that I’ve brought to wear on stage. Or maybe it’s the football, which we’ll be watching alongside our friends from the Rai tomorrow. Whatever it is - it’s going to be a good week! #eventprofs

Las Vegas, here we come! Hannah Elston and I are on our way for this year’s Event Leaders Exchange (ELX) Annual Congress 💚💙 Ready for the 🔥 - hot takes, hot speaker sessions and hot Nevadan sunshine. #eventprofs

📣 PSA: I don’t usually talk politics on LinkedIn if I can help it, but with the UK general elections tomorrow, I wanted to share a very valuable tool with my network. Vote for Policies does exactly what it says on the tin - allows you to choose which anonymised policies resonate most with you on some of the key election issues, without the shiny veneer and distraction of party branding or media bias. I swear by it at every election, and hope it can help even just one of you in your decision making process ahead of tomorrow. https://lnkd.in/eBanhPSM #ukpolitics #vote #election

ONE WEEK TO GO! I am so excited to not only be speaking at, but hosting, our second ever ELX Annual Congress in Las Vegas next week. My favourite time of the year is when we have a large group of Event Leaders Exchange (ELX) members in a room together, tackling some of the most pressing challenges of our industry. It is truly like watching magic happen. Not only that, but this year - it’s getting spicy… 🔥🥵 Can’t wait to see everyone there. #eventprofs #eventleaders #lasvegas

You are only as powerful as the stories you tell… yourself. There are four different types of stories that will be told about you: 1. The story you tell other people 2. The story other people tell about you 3. The story you tell yourself 4. The unwritten story yet to be told, where the pen is currently in your hand Not all of them are in your control, but they each hold a different sort of power. Sometimes, you might feel like you’re not good enough. Or ready enough. Or brave enough. That’s the time to borrow from someone else’s story about you until you believe it yourself. Repeat their narrative until it becomes your own. —— This was some of the gorgeous wisdom shared by Jaz Ampaw-Farr on Friday afternoon at the FF15 Graduation, and you could have heard a pin drop in that room. Thank you for a wonderful session Jaz 🙏 #eventprofs Fast Forward 15® #storytelling

Another weekend, another event. This time, running 25km of Sheffield’s hilly trails with some of my best friends and family. Not that we spent too much quality time catching up… Plz can everyone make sure I stop doing these silly things now 😅

Graduation Day! 🎉 Today is our Fast Forward 15 graduation… how has a year gone so quickly?! Honoured to stand beside these wonderful ladies today, who (along others, especially my mentor Anupa White) I’m not sure I could have done this year without. Multiple keynote speaker sessions, 10s of events across the world, seeing Kelly Clarkson in Vegas, a promotion at Explori, numerous injuries and health-based hurdles, watching the ELX community grow, taking up golf, a city relocation, launching a new exhibit tool, a triathlon and Olympic aquathlon… it’s been quite a whirlwind 366 days. Congratulations to the other mentees for graduating ♥️ some friends for life. Now, time to carb-load before my half marathon in the morning… #eventprofs #womeninbusiness