av production

The State Fair of Texas, Illumination Sensation

November 9, 2021

State-Fair-of-Texas-Illumination-Sensation-Onstage-Systems — Photo Courtesy of the State Fair of Texas

Onstage Systems returned to work at The State Fair of Texas this year after last year’s Fair was canceled due to COVID-19. The State Fair has been running annually since 1886, and 2020 marks one of the few years the Fair has been canceled in its 135-year run.

Hosted in Dallas, TX, Onstage Systems’ hometown at the historic Fair Park, the State Fair of Texas is an annual celebration of the Lone Star State. The State Fair promotes Texas agriculture, education, and community involvement with quality entertainment and family-friendly fun. It is one of the largest in the United States, with more than two million visitors each year welcomed by its iconic mascot, the world’s tallest cowboy, the 55-foot Big Tex.

Onstage Systems has worked with their client, Interlaced Productions and the State Fair of Texas since the ‘90s on the Illumination Sensation show. Originally held inside the Cotton Bowl, the show has since transitioned to the Fair’s water gardens.

The nighttime event is a dazzle of music and live performance complemented with light and video shimmering through the water gardens and illuminating the National Landmark Fair Park complex with washes of vivid color against the night sky. A sight to behold, the Illumination Sensation combines high-energy pop music, fireworks, dancers, acrobats, and lights with synchronized pyrotechnics to create a delightful spectacle.

Onstage Systems provides the audio, lighting, and video projection for the show, with this year’s run being sponsored by Mattress Firm. The show was created by Onstage Systems’ long-time event partner, Interlaced Productions. Onstage Systems and Interlaced Productions have been working together for over 30 years to bring this performance to Dallasites and visitors all over the country.

This year’s Illumination Sensation had a few extra challenges for the team. First were the added safety parameters due to COVID-19. With the live event industry rebounding this summer and Onstage Systems having two certified COVID-19 Compliance Officers on staff, the extra precautions are now second nature for all Onstage Systems events. Also, due to COVID-19 and the canceled 2020 State Fair of Texas, event budgets were a little tighter for the 2021 State Fair of Texas. However, Onstage Systems and Interlaced Productions came together to create a brilliant light experience for the millions of fairgoers.

Shows happen each night of the State Fair of Texas’s 24-day annual run. The Illumination Sensation is a must-see for anyone attending future State Fairs. Just be sure to arrive early to beat the crowd and pick out a great spot to see the show!

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How to Turn Your Next Event Into A Successful Hybrid Event

September 10, 2021

Hybrid events aren’t going anywhere. The addition of virtual experience components to in-person events looks to be the continued future for the events industry. According to a survey from EventMB, 67% of respondents agree: hybrid is the roadmap for events going forward. In fact, 71% of the respondents said they will continue to employ a digital strategy after COVID concerns pass. So, consider how you are going to evolve your future events by adding a hybrid component.

The critical factor is making sure you are making your event a hybrid event in the right way. For example, a hybrid event is NOT an in-person event with a live stream or video-on-demand replays of the live event. Creating a successful hybrid event means taking both your in-person and virtual audiences into account during event development and programming.

Types of Events That Can Be Made into Hybrid Events

Awards
Career Fairs
Commencements
Conferences
Educational Courses, Training, & Workshops
Expos
Fundraisers
Galas
Networking
Seminars
Summits
Tradeshows
Panels
Parties & Weddings
Product Announcements, Launches, & Demos
Internal events
Kickoffs
Large Meetings
Townhalls

A virtual component can enhance nearly any in-person event to turn it into a successful hybrid event.

The Benefits of Hybrid Events

The biggest pushback about adding a virtual component to a traditionally in-person event is that it will split the event’s attendees, and fewer people will show up in person. But, what we have found over the years is that virtual events don’t split your event’s audience. Instead, turning your in-person event into a hybrid event through a virtual component increases your audience size. The majority of remote attendees to a hybrid event would not participate if the event were offered as an in-person-only experience. When event admission, travel expenses, or simply taking the time away from the office prevents in-person attendance, a virtual experience opens your event to a broader audience.

Hybrid Event Scalability

Another essential benefit of hybrid events is scalability. Many of the growing pains associated with growing an in-person-only event are bypassed by turning your event into a successful hybrid event. Scaling the virtual component of a hybrid event for hundreds or thousands of more attendees is significantly easier and more cost-efficient than organizing the same growth for an in-person-only event.

Improved Analytics

Getting accurate numbers and metrics for an in-person is a difficult and often costly affair. Digital platforms and spaces are built with analytics in mind from day one. Event producers have a much easier and accurate measure of a hybrid event’s digital consumption. Instead of counting people coming in the door of an exhibit hall, many digital platforms can tell you how many people participated, in some cases down to the minute. It is much easier to determine what parts of your event were hot and which were not. These improved analytics make it much easier to plan your next event and rely less on guesswork and gut feeling.

Improved Flexibility

Hybrid events give you increased agility to pivot your event to changing circumstances. Travel restrictions, natural disasters, inclement weather, and shutdowns can wreak havoc on an in-person event. Often these upsetting circumstances can force an event to be postponed or outright canceled. Adding a digital component to your event to create a hybrid event provides you the flexibility, if needed, to move would-be in-person attendees to the virtual programming you already have in place as part of your event with much less work.

What Makes a Hybrid Event a Success?

The primary factor that leads to whether a hybrid event is a success or not is if it is engaging for your audience, especially digital audiences. What can your event do to make it a more fulfilling experience for your virtual audience than watching a live or recorded video stream of the event? Unique elements like behind-the-scenes and virtual attendee exclusive content are an excellent place to start. Can you offer breakout rooms, live chat, polling, or Q&A sessions for your virtual attendees to enhance their experience? Think of how you can turn your virtual attendees from a passive audience into an active audience.

Design Your Event Programming for Hybrid Audiences

One of the best ways to ensure your hybrid event is a success is by designing your event for attendance for in-person and remote audiences. It’s crucial your virtual attendees don’t feel like second-class attendees who are can only access parts of your event. Virtual audiences understand they will not have the same event floor experience as someone attending the event in person. But, think of how you can make their event experience as close to the in-person experience as possible.

Alternatively, you can design your event from the group up as two different experiences. For in-person attendees, you may want to focus on the networking element, meet and greets, booths, and mixers. Those experiences all play to the strengths of the in-person attendee. Meanwhile, remote attendees can focus on speakers, panels, and digital-first workshops. Because nothing stops an in-person attendee from going to these events in person or taking a break from the event floor to participate in a virtual session from their hotel room, consider what exclusive content you can create that caters to the strengths of each audience.

Produce Your Event Like a TV Program

Think of your event as a television show filmed in front of a live audience. Try creating smaller, in-person audience experiences and focus your event budget on increasing the production quality of your video, audio, lighting, and effects for remote audiences. Enhancing production quality in this way will make your hybrid event a better experience for both virtual and in-person attendees.

With this in mind, it’s critical to choose a venue for your hybrid event that has the AV technology, support, and internet quality to support your hybrid event. Experienced, full-service event production companies like Onstage Systems can help you choose a venue and work around any limitations.

Keep Your Programming Fresh

As previously stated, engagement is the number one factor for hybrid event success and success for any event type. Look for opportunities to mix up your programming, keep it fresh, and avoid the bog-standard corporate keynote, breakout, and repeat tendency. New, engaging content is essential when you’re dealing with virtual audiences. Their email, social media, and the rest of the internet are just a click away.

Digital attention spans are shorter than those of in-person attendees. Keep your programming focused and be concise. Keeping your content shorter and liberally structured with small breaks can help keep your audience fresh and engaged for a longer period of time.

Hybrid Event Pitfalls to Avoid

Creating a hybrid component for your event can lead you into some unexpected pitfalls, especially if you’re new to building an event to service in-person and remote audiences. Here are some common pitfalls to avoid when planning your successful hybrid event.

Not Treating Your Audiences as Equals

It cannot be overemphasized how important it is that both your in-person audience and virtual audience feel like they’re getting a fantastic experience from your event. That means you need to go out of your way to ensure each audience has special moments of experiences that give them that sense of fulfillment. To craft a unique and memorable experience for your virtual audience, you can’t just set up a camera and mic and record what’s going on for the live audience. Include parts in your event programming that provide an experience that cannot be duplicated or better executed for other types of attendees.

Scheduling Your Event Without Thought to Timezones

It can be easy to forget that your virtual attendees may be tuning in from a different timezone. If you have a keynote speaker that starts at 8 AM EST, that’s 5 AM for your attendees on the West Coast. This problem is compounded further if you need to consider a sizable overseas audience. Assess the geographic distribution of your attendees and give priority to the most-anticipated parts of your event, scheduling them in the most convenient time slots for the majority of your virtual attendees. You might also consider some early-morning or late-night programming for your event that your faraway attendees to access according to their schedules.

Spending Your Budget in the Wrong Place

Overspending on food and beverage budgets or an oversized venue is not uncommon. Introducing a virtual component to an in-person event can allow you to spend your event budget in new and different ways. Conversely, you must avoid skimping on your A/V budget. A sizable portion of your hybrid event’s audience is dependent on good video, sound, and lighting to get the most out of the experience. People are not going to be happy with a subpar virtual event experience.

Complicated Technology and Tech Problems

Technology issues can be a death knell for the virtual component of your hybrid event. You need the resources to handle complicated technology, tech gremlins, and other logistical issues. These issues can range from picking a venue with subpar internet capabilities, a difficult-to-use virtual event platform, or an amateur event partner. That’s why it’s best to partner with a capable, full-service event production company like Onstage Systems, which has a successful history of putting on in-person, virtual, and hybrid events of all types. A great events partner can help you plan for a successful hybrid event from the start and assist you in picking the venue, software platforms, and equipment to create a successful hybrid event.

Successful Hybrid Events with Onstage Systems

A recent GBTA study found that the number of hybrid events is expected to double compared to last year. Creating your successful hybrid event means partnering with a company you can trust to help bring your event to life. Work with a professional event production company with decades of experience producing all manner of events: from helping put on concert tours across the US for some of the biggest names in music to black-tie galas, corporate conferences, virtual holiday drone shows, and more. Let Onstage Systems help make your next event into an unforgettable hybrid event.

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Finding an Event Production Company for Your Concert, Tour or Music Festival: What To Look For, How to Vet Them, and What You Need To Know

April 30, 2021

2020 was a challenging year for event production. Many event production partners had to pivot and change their businesses to survive, and others had to shut their doors. Now, as the live events industry begins to spring back to life, there are many pop-up shops and new, inexperienced production companies flooding the market and making it more challenging to find a qualified vendor. That’s why we put together this article with our decades of live event experience to help you know what to look for in an event production partner for your concert, tour or music festival.

Start With The End In Mind

Before searching for your ideal concert, tour, or event production company, make sure you set the relationship up for success. This preparation includes starting early. Pre-production meetings for your event should begin roughly three months prior to the event’s date. You should also take this time to develop a clear vision for your event. Even a veteran event production company can have difficulty bringing out the potential for an event if your vision isn’t clear. You also need to make a checklist of the needs for your concert, event, or tour production. Items for your checklist include:

Sound & Lighting
Crew Size
Interactive Components
What equipment is being provided by the venue
What equipment needs to be rented
Will the event be broadcast, live-streamed, or need to be professionally recorded?

AV Company vs. Event Production Company: Make Sure You Understand What You Are Looking For

Once you have the idea and the rough needs of your event outlined, you should start looking for an event production company. The first thing to identify in your research is that your prospective partners are professional event production companies. Sometimes an audio-visual company likes to stretch its offerings and moonlight as an event production company. An AV company is competent in running event equipment and can help you set up said equipment for your event, but that is where their expertise ends. They are not an event production company.

An event production company does provide equipment setup and operation, but also much more. A full-service event production company can help you design your event from the ground up. Onstage Systems has helped many clients early in the event process with tasks like venue selection and permitting. Beyond setup, an event production company will help bring your event vision to life. They can help you with the design and coordination of your stage, audio, lighting, and multimedia, turning your event idea into an extraordinary audience experience. That’s in addition to providing the nuts and bolts of offstage event production like crowd control and security. Events are far more than running lights and sound. It’s essential you work with an event production partner that can provide the full scope of services your event needs.

Event Planning, Event Management, and Event Production Companies

You also want to make sure you’re looking for the correct type of event production partner. Though they may sound similar, there are differences between an event planning company, an event management company, and an event production company. An event planning company helps on the front end, assisting clients in finding venues, finalizing event dates, hiring caterers, manage budgets, etc. In contrast, an event management company handles the project management side of event production. These companies help with event registration, managing event staff, and resolving onsite conflicts, to execute your event. An event production company focuses on the live, stage presentation of an event. They often work with the presenters/acts, AV crews, and technology vendors to produce and deliver the amazing live experiences at an event, concert, or tour. Generally, the event production company handles all production aspects of the stage production for the client.

Consider Event Production Companies or AV Companies Outside of Your Search Radius

Online research will skew towards your location. That can keep you from finding great event production companies that are outside your metro area, who would be an excellent fit for your event, and who are willing to travel. For example, Onstage Systems is based in DFW, but we help put on events, concerts, and tours from Nashville to Albuquerque. You could miss out on a great event production company partner by centering your research on your current location.

Establishing a Budget For Your Event

One of the biggest questions for a group planning an event is price. Look for an event production company partner whose pricing seems fair and reasonable for what you ask them to deliver for the event. To determine what is right and fair, consider what all your event entails. An event production company provides labor but also may provide equipment, staging, furniture, crowd control, security, and transportation. In addition to those costs, there are creative design, insurance, permitting, and taxes. An event’s costs can quickly balloon, especially if you begin involving multiple event partners like an event production company, event planner, and event management. The more moving parts in your event production, the more expensive it will become.

Sticker shock can drive some groups to search out budget solutions and low bids. But, if the price seems too good to be true, it probably is. Often a budget price translates to a budget production. The last thing you want for your event is to spend less and feel like you didn’t get your money’s worth. Remember, your event’s success is determined by its impact on the audience and how memorable it is. So spend your money where it will have the most impact, in the event’s production. Engage a full-service event production company early in your event timeline. A good, full-service event production company can help review your budget and suggest ways to use it to provide the best production, “bang for your buck.” They may be able to help you negotiate discounts and uncover additional cost savings to help your event production budget stretch further.

Vetting Event Production Companies

One of the first things you should consider when culling your list of potential partners is event production company specialties. Some event production companies specialize in corporate events like trade shows, conferences, seminars, and product launches. That company is likely not the ideal partner for your summer concert festival. Similarly, you may forego working with an event production company that specializes in broadcast if you’re not planning to broadcast, stream, or record your event. Many 2021 events have transitioned from full virtual to hybrid events, featuring in-person production, crowd control, and live-streaming. So you may be looking for an event production company partner like Onstage Systems that has been doing hybrid events for over a year now, and producing live events for over 40 years.

Experience & Licensing

Once you’ve assembled a shortlist of potential partners, you can start investigating them to find your best partner. One of the best hallmarks to look for is experience. How long have they been in business? Does their track record of work fit the type of event you’re producing? In addition to experience, ask about an event production company’s certifications, licenses, affiliations, and ensure they have general liability coverage and workers compensation coverage.

Online Presence

Delving into an event production company’s social media, website, and old event footage is a great way to get a feel for their event production. You can also learn a lot about the company’s core values, the quality of the people they have on their team, and the quality of service they provide. For example, looking back through our social media, you can learn about some of the challenges we needed to overcome to help produce a 1,000 drone open-air light show in December.

Also, check online for feedback, reviews, and referrals. You should also consider asking vendors, venues, and other event producers if they know or have worked with an event production company. This feedback can help you quickly discover less desirable event production partners.

Creativity

How do the events your prospects produce look and sound? At the end of the day, this is how event attendees and concert-goers will judge your event. Look for an event production partner that is bringing something unique to the event. Look for photographs and videos of their events across the internet to see if they have a wow factor that can benefit your event.

Event Production Company Questions

Once you’ve winnowed down your potential partners, it’s time for direct questions. These questions are in the final step to help you determine if an event production company is right for you.

What are your core services?
What equipment can you provide, and what will you need to rent?
Are you able to travel?
Can you source local labor on the road?
Can you hire/coordinate your own AV labor?
Can you provide a show flow or cue-to-cue document?
Can you tell me about the latest event production trends and technology?
Choosing Your Ideal Event Production Company

Like any good partnership, you have to like and trust the people you work with. In your gut, do you trust an event production company can bring your vision for an event to life? Even after your interviews, if your potential event production partner checks all the boxes but your gut says otherwise, it may be best to trust your gut and keep looking.

Now you are ready to find your ideal event production company for your Spring and Summer event, concert, or tour. In your search, consider Onstage Systems. We have more than 40 years of experience in live events and offer full-service live event production with audio engineers, lighting experts, and technicians ready to bring your vision to life.

Learn More About Onstage Systems Event Production Capabilities

How to Create Successful Virtual Fundraising Events

September 9, 2020

COVID-19 has thrown non-profit fundraising for a loop in 2020. Many not-for-profit organizations that rely on fundraising events to fund their mission are scrambling to move their fundraising online. If you are one of those organizations, take a deep breath. With a little preparation, planning, and the right fundraising event partner, your next virtual fundraiser will be a success.

Tailor Your Fundraiser to Your Audience

One of the secrets to hosting an effective virtual fundraiser is having a well-defined audience. The better defined your event audience the more focused you can make your fundraiser to drawing donations from your audience. The easiest way to accomplish this is to make sure the WHY of your fundraiser is front and center. Don’t get distracted by transitioning to a virtual event. You can find success in this new medium by keeping your organization’s WHY at the center of your event.

Virtual Fundraiser Ideas

With your event’s WHY and target audience at the front of your mind, it’s time to determine what sort of virtual fundraiser will work best. What type of event best suits your audience and allows you to reinforce your event’s WHY? Below are few example types of virtual fundraisers you can run for your event.

Online Auction
Online Class
Online Contest
Online Open Mic
Online Raffle
TED-style Virtual Speaker
Virtual 5k
Virtual Concert or Festival
Virtual Tour
Watch Party

Drive Engagement Through Audience Participation

Without the stimuli of an in-person event your audience may feel disconnected to the content presented. There are many ways to stimulate an interactive connection. One of these ways is by encouraging audience participation. Ideas to add audience participation to your event include creating quiz questions for the audience to answer, operating online polls, or encouraging the audience to submit questions on social media for you to answer during the event.

How to Achieve Your Fundraising Goals

With the transition to virtual fundraising many organizations are worried about falling short of their fundraising goals. The first thing you can do to increase your donations is to make sure to follow up on potential attendees and RSVPs. Treat your virtual fundraiser like you are organizing an in-person event.

Another thing is to make sure you choose a donation goal that’s achievable. The silver lining of virtual events is they tend to have lower overhead compared to in-person events. This means you will keep a larger percentage of each donation. This helps to counterbalance the stigma from attendees that they don’t “get as much” out of a virtual event.

The single best advice to avoiding falling short of your fundraising goal is to make it easy to donate. This ensures you capture 100% of the donations people want to make. Make sure to choose a donation avenue that accepts many types of payment. Payment types your want to be prepared to receive include credit card, Apple Pay, Google Pay, PayPal, etc.

What Makes for a Successful Online Fundraiser

Planning is the key to online fundraiser success. The earlier you start planning your event, the better. You should begin planning a one-time event at least four weeks before the date. For more complex virtual events, like multi-day simultaneous channel fundraisers start your planning 12 weeks out. Because virtual fundraisers live online, it’s important you create a well-designed event page with registration, agenda, and donation capabilities. Your virtual event also needs to be optimized for mobile. It’s likely a significant percentage of your attendees will be interacting and donating to your fundraiser via phone.

And of course, to ensure your online fundraiser goes smoothly, spend the time to pick out the right platform, tools, and event partner.

Virtual Fundraiser Additional Considerations

Additional considerations for your fundraising event should include event promotion. For your fundraiser to be a success people have to know about it and show up. Get your event information out early and often. You can reach out directly using email, social media, and SMS. You should also create a press release to generate media interest and coverage of your virtual fundraiser.

After the event make sure to follow up and thank attendees for their participation. This is a good time to solicit feedback to improve your next virtual event.

Virtual Fundraiser Example: March for Babies StepUp!

For an example of a large non-profit changing their fundraiser see the March of Dimes, March for Babies StepUp! The March of Dimes annual walkathon “March for Babies” was transformed due to COVID-19 concerns into March for Babies StepUp! The virtual fundraiser allowed participants to track their steps individually through a pedometer phone app. They also created a TikTok dance challenge and hashtags to share individual progress on social media.

Virtual Fundraiser Event Production Partner

Just like producing an in-person fundraiser, there is a lot of technical work that goes into producing virtual events. Virtual fundraising events also have the added difficulty of making sure your fundraiser looks and sounds great over broadcast.

Trust an experienced, virtual event production partner to make your online fundraiser a success. Onstage Systems has 30 years of event production experience, including virtual event and live streaming expertise. Onstage Systems can help you with lighting, stage design, audio, and multi-feed setups.

Onstage Systems Virtual Event Production

See how Onstage Systems can help make your virtual fundraiser a success: Sonic Soul Tribe Virtual Concert. Onstage Systems produced the 12-hour international, virtual concert event. The event included on-location concert production and coordinating remote, international performances over the event’s 12-hour duration.

More Virtual Experiences by Onstage Systems

Boxing Events
Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra’s America Strong Concert
DAS Ultimate Typing Championships
Stitch House Dallas
And More

There is still time to meet your 2020 fundraising goals with a well-planned virtual fundraiser and the right event production partner. Visit HERE to see more of Onstage System’s featured work. Or, CONTACT US to get started with planning your next successful virtual fundraising event.

FWSO America Strong Televised Concert, Virtual Event Audio Visual

July 24, 2020

Onstage Systems was honored to be a part of the creation of the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra’s 4th of July concert, virtual event. The “Celebrating the Best of America in a Trying Time” concert event took place at the Dickies Arena in Fort Worth and featured guest appearances from various Fort Worth feature performers with a special guest appearance by Fort Worth native and Broadway star Major Attaway.

Featured Performers

Major Attaway (Broadway’s Aladdin)
Fei-Fei Dong (The Cliburn)
Megan Koch (Fort Worth Opera)
David Schrenk and Andre Silva (Texas Ballet Theater)

The Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra has performed their 4th of July concert performance at the Fort Worth Botanical Gardens as part of its Concerts in the Garden (CITG) series for over 20 years. Onstage Systems has had the pleasure of supporting the FWSO and their collective of truly majestic musicians for over 25 years.

Watch the Virtual Event Concert

This year the CITG event was canceled due to COVID-19 public health concerns. Instead the performance virtual event production was pre-recorded in the closed Dickies Arena on June 26th and broadcast on July 4th by ABC-affiliate, WFAA. The pyrotechnics display was provided by Pyro Shows of Texas. The recorded concert was then hosted online for viewing by the FWSO and WFAA.

2019 George Strait Concert, Dickies Arena — Photo from Fort Worth Star-Telegram

The event’s 100 person attendance of performers, building, and technical crews was in vast contrast to the last Dickies Arena event that Onstage was a part of. The last time Onstage Systems provided production services at an event at the Dickies Arena was George Strait’s 14,000 capacity crowd per night with two sold out performances in 2019, less than one year ago.

Virtual Event Audio

Onstage Systems provided virtual event audio design, multi-track recording, post-editing, and mixing through a Digico SD10 console with over 90 individual channels. A major challenge facing the FWSO musicians was the ability to hear each other. To comply with social distancing the usual two foot span between musicians was increased to over six feet. Additionally, the arena lacked the familiar acoustic sound shell. To compensate Onstage Systems provided various monitors (IEMs, wedges, hot spots) and L’acoustics Syva for fill.

Virtual Event Lighting for Concerts

In addition to the event’s audio production, Onstage Systems provided all the stage lighting design, programming, and operation. The 75’ square performance area was lit by Varilite stage lighting fixtures. The fixtures were selected for their intensity and features to properly cover the performance area. Onstage further collaborated with WFAA to optimize the stage lighting for video recording.

Event organizers hope the recorded performance to be a one time affair and the FWSO will be able to resume their Concerts in the Garden event production in 2021. Learn more about Onstage System’s audio visual services or see more featured work.