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AVENUE is a wedding and events space in northeast Portland, Oregon, that opened in 2023. It’s the brainchild of local A/V equipment company The AV Department. Photo: Courtesy of AVENUE
There’s a new wedding and events venue in northeast Portland, Oregon, and its main differentiator? It’s all about that professional-grade audio and visual.
An events space created and owned by a local A/V rental company, AVENUE bills itself as an “AV-forward event space” that’s invested in the kind of tech needed to pull off a concert-level event. But is that a good fit for your wedding?
Here’s my take as a professional wedding planner.
The basics
Address: 631 NE Grand Ave., Portland OR 97232
Fits: The main ballroom is 8,500 square feet and fits up to 350 seated, 500 standing (note that the venue provides seating for up to 350 guests; after that, you’re renting elsewhere to supplement the on-site inventory).
One notable exception to this abundance of space: The upstairs getting-ready space, which is included in the venue rental, has a capacity of 15 people.
Don’t be fooled when you see the room in person: It’s much larger than that number implies; the 15-person capacity had something to do with how many people can safely leave the space in case of an emergency and could be a detriment if the folks you anticipate using that area number more than 15 (don’t forget to count vendors).Costs: For a Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, AVENUE costs $12,500. For a Sunday or Wednesday, $8,750. For a Monday or Tuesday, $6,250.
As of publishing, AVENUE is offering a 30 percent introductory discount to recognize their first year in business. The discount applies to events booked in 2023 and hosted in 2023 or 2024.
To save you the math, this makes AVENUE’s rates: Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, $8,750; Sunday or Wednesday, $6,250; and Monday or Tuesday, $4,375.
This fee does not include the 8 percent kitchen and facility fee detailed below.Includes: AVENUE’s standard venue rental (the one for the prices listed above) includes the following inventory:
350 black resin folding chairs
(35) 60-inch round tables (most comfortably sit a max of eight to nine people)
(4) six-foot wood banquet tables
(4) eight-foot wood banquet tables
(10) black 40-inch-tall cocktail tables
a 12-foot x 16-foot stage, which can be removed upon request at no additional fee
set-up and clean-up by the venue of the inventory listed above
Note: Linens (e.g. tablecloths and napkins) are not included. You will need to source those elsewhere (typically, from the caterer or from a rental order initiated by you or, as applicable, a planner or coordinator).
The standard venue rental also includes AVENUE’s “premiere audio and visual package,” which includes a:
“professional high-performance” sound system
dual 16-inch high-definition wall projection system (pictured below in the gallery)
What can you project on the ballroom’s main wall? AVENUE has a standard gallery of AI-created images that you can pick from as part of the standard package. If you want to submit your own image or hire the AVENUE team to create one for you, there’s an additional fee.
LED lighting system (this includes 16 uplights and more than 35 lights for the stage and other areas around the main ballroom; various colors included)
audiovisual technicians (number of technicians not specified)
Timings: Twelve hours are included on the event day, which is near the higher limit for what I see venues offer.
During my tour of the space in October 2023, there was no stated time that was the earliest you could get entry and there was no stated time that was the latest you could be out (typically, the venue out time is 12 a.m. or earlier in Multnomah County though there’s a chance that here, you could go as long as 1 a.m., venue out by 2 a.m. given local noise ordinances; check with AVENUE).
As for a rehearsal, this wasn’t technically included in the standard package. Instead, the standard packaged included two venue tours.
I recommend using one of those tours for the rehearsal (for a wedding, you really only need one tour in nearly all situations). Be sure to double-check if you’re going to be charged extra for having the rehearsal on-site (this was unclear during my visit as the venue wasn’t clear on the pricing for an AVENUE team member to be on-site during the rehearsal).
The actual scheduling of the rehearsal depends on the venue’s schedule, which is very standard for this kind of thing. I typically recommend an hour for a rehearsal and it doesn’t have to happen in the ceremony location (here’s a script for how to run your own rehearsal).Parking: The venue doesn’t have its own dedicated lot but has created a few partnerships with neighboring businesses to offer parking to clients.
AVENUE provides those details here but doesn’t list pricing. Per my conversations with the AVENUE team in October 2023, those prices could range from $10 per spot for the Metro parking garage to $500 to $800 for the estimated 35 spots in the Umpqua Bank lot.
If you go the parking garage lot route, you might consider asking the parking garage if they offer a pre-paid option. This is where you’d pre-purchase a certain number of spots on behalf of your guests and vendors and then gift those spots to those people ahead of the wedding.
Paid street parking is also available through Parking Kitty and the venue is easily accessible via transit, ride-share, and car-share.Accessibility: The main ballroom is flat and easily accessible from the street level. The upstairs getting-ready room is not ADA accessible; there is a flight of 15 to 20 stairs and no elevator.
Inclusivity: There are two restrooms on the main level. One has five stalls; the other has four stalls. They can be marked male, female, or all-gender (a rare option in Portland).
Sustainability: While AVENUE provides a kitchen, there were no visible sustainability efforts beyond recycling; if you’re interested in composting and other sustainability efforts, this would likely fall to whichever vendors you hired. Here’s a list of interview questions to use when hiring vendors in case you want to center sustainability in your conversations.
Additional notes:
In its marketing, AVENUE advertises a venue coordinator as part of the standard package. This is good news (you want someone who’s responsible for the venue day-of) but the title should not be conflated with that of a wedding coordinator or planner. They’re different jobs. Learn more here.
AVENUE also highlights that it offers free wi-fi for up to 500 users. While I’m sure there’s some technological wizardry there that’s notable, the ability to get on the wi-fi at a centrally located venue in downtown Portland is not all that special.
Many venues have some kind of wi-fi that you, your guests, and your vendors can get on. Will it be as good as what AVENUE offers? Probably not and also, typically only the vendor team needs regular access to wi-fi during a wedding.While AVENUE has a preferred catering list, the venue does not have a required vendor list. This is good news for clients as it typically means you have more options when booking your team.
Do note that, as of publishing, the caterers on the catering list — Vibrant Table, Devil’s Food Catering, Art of Catering, and Elephants — are some of the most-established caterers in Portland. That means you can pretty safely bank on an estimate of $100 per guest for food and labor, before any alcohol or rentals.Because of the thoroughness of the A/V options at AVENUE, I was concerned that you’d have to hire any DJ you want through AVENUE (which can get expensive or not be what you want). Thankfully, that’s not the case.
AVENUE said that any DJ is OK and that they’ll patch into the venue’s sound system. That’s, again, very standard and also worth noting to whomever you might hire as a DJ or other music-provider during the wedding so they can, as needed, talk to AVENUE ahead of time.
This is the getting-ready space included with the venue rental at AVENUE. This space is only allowed to hold 15 people (hard to believe, I know) and is not ADA accessible. Photo: Andie Petkus Photography, courtesy of AVENUE
The pros
The sky’s the limit when it comes to A/V
Nicely appointed kitchen
Central location in downtown Portland
One of the biggest spaces in the area
When I asked the AVENUE team to describe the ideal client for the space, the most commonly used word was “creative.” I agree. If you’re going to shell out for this space, you might as well make use of all the bells and whistles they offer in terms of audio and visual because, really, that part can’t be beat.
What does “make use” mean here? Personally, if I booked an event at AVENUE, I’d take advantage of every screen and light I could.
This would mean using the projection wall in the main ballroom, playing up all of the included uplights and stage lighting, likely taking advantage of the “story wall” (a fleet of 16 TVs on the east wall of the ballroom where you can put a static logo or, potentially, run a photo or video slideshow), and watching the activities on the ballroom floor from your hiding place in the getting-ready room (yes, you can actually do this and yes, it is a little creepy to think of spying on your guests and vendors mid-wedding).
I would also budget to do even more cool audio and video things because this place is run by The AV Department, which has done more than 800 virtual and hybrid events since 2020.
That could potentially mean hiring the AVENUE team to livestream the event, design me a custom backdrop for the projection wall, share photo booth pictures in real-time during the wedding (a $1,500 to $2,000 fee in addition to whatever the photo booth might cost), and/or make use of the “robotic” and “mobile” cameras that are in stock but not part of the standard package.
The result: At AVENUE, you could easily have a venue bill that’s north of $10K. That’s a lot of money, even when we’re talking about wedding venues in downtown Portland. For easy reference, many downtown venues cost $3,500 to $5,000 for 10 to 12 hours. Why the difference? I imagine AVENUE is charging a premium for the size, location, and, of course, tech abilities of the space.
This is the kitchen at AVENUE, an events and wedding venue in northeast Portland, Oregon. It’s what’s known as a “stage-only” kitchen in that the food needs to arrive pre-cooked to be heated up on-site (not uncommon in events). Photo: Andie Petkus Photography, courtesy of AVENUE
Beyond the A/V capabilities, AVENUE has a very nice kitchen that includes four ovens, four hotboxes, and a fridge with freezer. It’s what’s known as a “stage-only” kitchen, which means catering has to bring pre-cooked food to heat up on-site. That’s not rare for wedding and events venues but something to note and to share with a caterer.
Lastly, if you want a wedding in downtown Portland, the location is hard to beat (it’s right next to the Convention Center). AVENUE also isn’t wrong when they market themselves as “one of the largest non-hotel venues in Portland.” To my knowledge, when it comes to venues that do weddings, that 350- to 500-person capacity can only be rivaled by places like the Portland Art Museum.
The cons
Expensive for not including a couple key elements
Limited capacity for the on-site getting-ready area, which also can only be reached via stairs
Logistically, the projection wall is best for reception-only
I don’t say this lightly: $12,500 for a wedding venue is steep, even one as well-equipped and centrally located as AVENUE. My guess? AVENUE is banking on the fact that people who care this much about tech are going to have the funds to back it up (I also anticipate that most of their clients will be nonprofits or other non-wedding events, which have different resources than clients planning weddings).
Is the high price justified by what’s on offer at AVENUE? That depends. For A/V, yes. For other details (such as the 15-person limit in the getting-ready room and the TBD pricing on an included rehearsal), no. It’s also notable that AVENUE does not include any linens or catering. Typically, when I see a venue break into five figures one of those two things is part of the price tag.
The pricing also doesn’t include the 8 percent kitchen and facility fee that’s required by AVENUE. The fee itself is 8 percent of the food and beverage contract so if you’re estimating, say, $10,000 in catering (not unlikely for a 100- to 150-person event), anticipate an additional $800 for the kitchen and facility fee.
Per AVENUE, that money is used to cover the use of AVENUE’s kitchen space, and the AVENUE team asks that “the catering company identifies this fee on their invoice to the client, so it is not a hidden cost and not a surprise.” The catering company then pays AVENUE after the event.
The AVENUE team also noted to me that “we have learned that our rate is among the lowest of area event venues.” I couldn’t easily verify this because while I rarely see “kitchen and facility fee” listed on a venue’s contract — even venues that require certain caterers be hired — there’s a chance that those venues are baking the fee into their pricing. What’s notable with AVENUE is that you’re already paying a premium for the space before the additional catering cost.
Something else to factor in: AVENUE’s showstopper is the projection wall. That wall is also on the side of the ballroom that would most easily be set up for a reception. This isn’t necessarily a problem but if you foresee yourself using the projection wall for the ceremony or the ceremony and the reception, the space is going to require what’s known as a “room flip.”
This means asking your guests to move to a different part of the room or leave the room entirely while your vendor team changes the layout of the space. This is doable but it often means additional staffing from a caterer, hiring a coordinator or planner, and, of course, can be an inconvenience or eyesore for your guests.
Do you have to do a flip? No. In fact, revealing the projection wall post-ceremony could be a delightful surprise as you go into the reception — and only an option if you pay for draping across the width of the ballroom to hide the wall as guests enter. Otherwise, they’ll see the projection wall as soon as they enter the ballroom.
A view of the ballroom from the mezzanine level at AVENUE, an events and wedding venue in northeast Portland, Oregon. This is the same level as the getting-ready room. Photo: Andie Petkus Photography, courtesy of AVENUE
The bottom line
At AVENUE, you’re going to get the most bang for your buck if you love to geek out on tech things or have the budget to let seasoned professionals geek out on your behalf.
Because that’s what you’re paying for here: Top-notch equipment and an even more top-notch team who actually knows how to use it.
So if want to bring your personal Eras Tour dreams to life on your wedding day, book a tour at AVENUE. Taylor Swift not included.
Learn more about AVENUE: avenueportland.com and @AvenuePortland
Check out the other wedding venues I’ve reviewed.
Do you know of a venue that I should visit? Tell me: elisabeth@elisabethkramer.com.