Nadene Grossman Orr swears she didn’t hire the dolphins. After all, she explains reasonably, wild dolphins can’t be booked to perform on cue. Yet early in her Key West career, during a sunrise beach wedding she coordinated, two wild dolphins leaped gracefully out of the water just as the happy couple exchanged vows.
That kind of in-the-moment magic characterizes almost everything Grossman Orr produces, from corporate gatherings to four annual festivals: the Key West Songwriters Festival, which features 150 to 200 performing songwriters; the Key Lime Festival celebrating the tiny fruit and pie it inspired; Taste of Key West, which showcases local restaurants’ cuisine and benefits the nonprofit Keys Health + Housing; and the iconic Fantasy Fest costuming and masking extravaganza.
Founder of the event production company We’ve Got the Keys, Grossman Orr navigates the challenges of her fast-paced career with smiling grace — motivated in great part by her affection for Key West and its creative community.
Grossman Orr arrived in 1991 after her art gallery boss on Long Island, New York, asked her to run his Duval Street gallery for two weeks. Those two weeks inspired her to move south and immerse herself in Key West life.
She undertook hospitality jobs that ranged from catamaran crew member to cocktail server to resort concierge. In 2003, after a lively campaign to raise money for the nonprofit then called AIDS Help, she was named queen of Fantasy Fest.
She opened We’ve Got the Keys the following year and now oversees a staff of people who share her enthusiasm and energy. Happily married to Trevor Orr for 15 years, she’s mom to preteen daughter Meredith — who loves theater and helps out at festivals wearing her own staff T-shirt.
These days, Grossman Orr is working nonstop on the July 1-5 Key Lime Festival, but she recently took time to chat with the Keys Weekly.
Why did two weeks running a Key West gallery inspire your life-changing move? I just loved the island. I lived in the gallery owner’s sister’s apartment and had her cute little sports car to drive around in, and I met cool people and hung out on Duval Street. After those two weeks, I went back home to Long Island and packed and moved to Key West with about $250 and a couple of suitcases.
When you began We’ve Got the Keys, what type of events were your focus? Destination weddings and corporate incentive travel — coordinating group events for companies that want to reward their top producers, or do a networking event or a board retreat, and that kind of thing. Festivals came later.
Out of the four main festivals you produce, is there one with special meaning for you? The Songwriters Festival is part of who I am. Charlie Bauer and I grew that festival from very humble beginnings, and I am so committed to it. It’s the most challenging event that I do, but it’s a passion project — a labor of love. After all these years, I just can’t imagine not doing it.
Your next big event is the Key Lime Festival and its Key Lime Pie Eating Championship. Isn’t that pretty crazy? It’s silly, it’s fun, it’s entirely Key West and there’s pie everywhere. There are so many great things to do and so many photos and memories that come from it. I love to see the event come together, and watch people smiling and enjoying it. … It’s magic.
What do you like best about your work with corporate clients? The memories and the happiness, and curating unique experiences that participants couldn’t stumble upon on their own. We always try to make it special and bring our favorite things together for the groups to experience. That includes Key lime pie, art, the artists and historians and storytellers and cigar rollers — the things that are quintessentially Key West.
How do your festivals contribute to Key West’s creative community? I am a huge supporter of the arts. When I took over Fantasy Fest in 2017, my goal was to bring it back to the arts and bring out the Key West creatives. These events wouldn’t be possible without the support of the local community, and I’m always trying to figure out how to get creatives and artsy costume builders and musical and theatrical people involved.
After your long career, what keeps you energized about new projects? The people that come to celebrate. I’m like a little kid on Christmas morning when I watch that Fantasy Fest parade come down the street. Creating joy is my ultimate goal across everything that I do.
So how big is your storage space at home for festival costumes and accessories? Oh my gosh, there are bins and bins in the attic and several bins in the guest room closet. Plus there’s a storage unit behind my office that’s packed to the rafters with props and things. I cannot ever move out of my office because I can’t imagine cleaning that out.
