Olaf Growald
After falling in love with Fort Worth during a visit, Anna Crelia and sister-in-law Rhoda Brimberry — co-founders of Loot Rentals — decided in 2019 to expand their Austin business northward. Loot rents vintage furniture, place settings, and other decorations for events like weddings, corporate parties, wine tastings, and photo shoots. Though COVID-19 forced the cancellation of many events Loot had booked, including this year’s South by Southwest in Austin, Crelia and Brimberry found ways to stay afloat: leasing furniture and other fixtures to real estate companies for staging, outfitting home offices, and working with event planners and venues to put on small-scale, outdoor events in compliance with local safety mandates. Crelia, a graduate of the Fashion Technology Institute of Fort Worth and member of the Entrepeneurs’ Organization, sat down for a Q&A.
Founding Loot Rentals: “It happened so organically. In designing my wedding and working on all these details, I fell in love with the creative process. It was hard to find the vintage items I wanted. I enlisted the help of my sister-in-law and co-founder, Rhoda Brimberry. We’d been thinking that we should rent out my decorations after the wedding and decided to do it. So many people were interested that we started taking it more seriously and set up a basic website. In early 2011, Word of Mouth Catering in Austin recommended me to an art foundation for their gala in San Antonio. After that, word spread quickly.”
Falling in love with Fort Worth “In 2019, an events planner we worked with in Austin got a job outfitting the VIP tent for Fortress Fest in Fort Worth, and she brought us onboard. My husband came to help me, and we fell in love with Fort Worth. When we got back to Austin the week after, we leased our house, and my husband made plans to work remotely. We moved to Fort Worth on July 1. I felt like once we made the decision to move, the universe was pushing us to Fort Worth.”
Getting the word out “When we found the perfect building off Riverside [Drive], the permitting process took a while to complete. We finally signed our lease on Jan. 1, 2020. We couldn’t do much yet in terms of events, but I hit the ground running to let people know we were here. We took lots of meetings with corporate offices in Dallas and with planners in Fort Worth. We threw a party at Artspace 111 here and invited several planners. That’s how I like to do business; I’m more of a relations person than a salesperson.”
Managing through COVID-19 “On March 6, the sky fell for us. We were well on our way to having our highest revenue month ever, and then South by Southwest was canceled. We knew it was going to be bad. We had to let go or furlough most of our staff of 15 people in Austin, but we’ve been able to bring about two-thirds of them back since then. Luckily, our landlords are angels and have either waived or reduced our rent.”
Leasing “There’s been a lot of demand to lease furniture since COVID hit, especially for home offices, so we’ve been leasing our vintage inventory long term. Furnishing commercial shoots for marketing projects and magazines have also helped to make up for lost revenue.”
Events “We’ve been marketing backyard event packages when there could be no more than 10 people at a gathering, and that’s been popular. As restrictions have eased, larger events have really taken off in Fort Worth and Dallas. We’ve also done some wine tasting and dinner party packages to give people different options.”
Looking ahead “People are starting to book us again, and 2021 is looking good — especially the fall. We’re finally breaking even and making our rent. That’s all I can ask for.”
Maggie Fraser is a Fort Worth freelance journalist.