As a Guest Service Representative at the Phoenix Convention Center, Flare Elliot brings a wealth of experience gained from leading teams across various nonprofits and businesses. Having started as Heritage Square's Visitor Services Manager upon moving to Arizona in 2015, Flare eventually secured her current position at the Phoenix Convention Center in 2018. In her free time, she enjoys exploring the Valley and staying active.
Q: What do you enjoy most about your role at the Phoenix Convention Center?
I love meeting convention guests from around the world and sharing insider navigational tips for easy access to attendees’ key convention locations, hotels, and their preferred food and entertainment options. When I worked at Heritage Square, we were always so excited to meet the average thirty PCC conventioneers eager to tour the Rosson House. I could never have imagined that just one block away, as a GSR at the PCC, that I would greet thousands of global visitors every week!
Q: What is a favorite memory you have of your time at the Phoenix Convention Center?
My favorite PCC memory is of helping a young woman with a disability find assistance to the Light Rail amid the merry chaos of the first Fan Fusion after the COVID pandemic. She arrived at the information desk distraught because her trusty scooter, the essential tool for her independent lifestyle, suddenly died in the middle of the jam-packed Expo Hall. The event medics loaned her a manual wheelchair and directed her to find help at the North lobby information desk. She said she had already arranged for her cousin to meet her at her normal Light Rail stop, but that she was unable to pull herself to the rail station in the manual chair, let alone drag her scooter. Knowing that the Downtown Phoenix Ambassadors have wrestled their share of dead scooters for conventioneers, I called their hotline, and they were at the info desk in less than ten minutes. One Ambassador chatted with her while the other retrieved her scooter from the event medics, then the trio waded through the crowd to the exit – one Ambassador pushing her in the chair: the other pushing her scooter. The Ambassadors later told me that they stayed until she was safely seated on the train, then returned the wheelchair to the event medics. Although helping her was a little more challenging due to the huge crowd, Guest Service Representatives workdays are a goody bag of opportunities to help people in these small but significant ways – and that’s the joy of the job for me.
Q: What is a hidden gem in Phoenix you wish more people knew about?
Our biggest, shiniest hidden gems – from the rough-cut gems in Glendale and Gilbert to the highly polished Scottsdale Waterfront – are the SRP Phoenix canal trails. The canals are hidden in plain sight throughout the Valley - tucked between city streets, under freeways, snaking along rail tracks, and gliding through upscale and hardscrabble neighborhoods. The banks of the rural canal trails north and east of Phoenix are flanked by patchwork quilts of farmland, and sprawling horse and cattle farms. A ride on any canal is a miles-long storybook adventure that connects you to the engineering genius of our canal-building ancestors, our bold and brash Wild West pioneers, and the Victorian entrepreneurs. The canals also feature public art extravaganzas like the Arizona Falls Waterworks and the miniature Roosevelt Dam on the Grand Canal in Tempe. Although Phoenix offers hundreds of big, dazzling adventures, riding the banks of the SRP canals at your own pace on a glorious sunny day is a uniquely magical way to discover the secrets of the Valley of Sun.
You can find more information on the canals here.
Q: Do you have any restaurant or coffee shop recommendations near the PCC?
Love the Latha Restaurant - the newest restaurant in Heritage Square. The food is Pan African, and it is an experience unlike anything else in Phoenix. CEO and Founder, Evelia Davis, has transformed the old Rose and Crown Pub into an exotic getaway with two intimate dining rooms, a sprawling veranda, and an art-filled outdoor space with cozy bamboo swings and DJ music for happy hours and Sunday brunch.
My favorite coffee shop is Stemistry - the floral lattes are amazing!
Q: What’s your favorite feature of the PCC?
Tough question! Just working in such a light infused, color-splashed, Oz-like space is a joy, but my favorite features are the “The Earth Dreaming” mosaics in the cornerstone grotto at Monroe and 3rd Street. The artist, Isiah Zagar, created the feel of a grotto with three outsized ceramic and mirror tile murals on opposite sides of the grotto. The riot of color, found objects, and mirrors depict the intertwining lives of Arizona’s ancient people and animals in a swirl of visual energy that reminds me to stop and enjoy a little art break. For as many times as I have looked at the mural over the years, I didn’t initially notice that the mirror slivers throughout the mural reflect the viewer as they move through the grotto, which I think is Zagar’s way of bringing real time movement into his work and also to remind each of us that we are part of the great swirl of life unfolding in Arizona.