Event Productions

Erykah Badu Annual Birthday Bash

June 5, 2023

Erykah-Badu-Birthday-Bash-Deep-Ellum-Onstage-Systems-Event-Production

Erykah Badu kicked off her 2023 birthday bash at The Factory venue in Dallas with the famously-behind artist right on time this year—can you believe that? She took center stage, strutting her stuff, adorned in a mirrored top hat and fluffy white furs. But what made it all come together were the amazing people, props, and stellar sonic experience that laid the groundwork for an epic event.

Erykah Badu has enjoyed another incredible year. Heck, she even graced the cover of Vogue in March this year. And guess what? Her fan base continues to grow despite not dropping any new tracks in 2023.

Onstage Systems was a key player in Badu’s amazing 2023 birthday celebration, thanks to our resourceful solutions and guaranteed wow factor. It’s how we always roll, impressing the crowd with behind-the-scenes creativity. And the confetti explosion raining down from above, filling the air with a burst of multicolored happiness, that was us, too. And let us tell you, no one wanted to miss a beat on Badu’s 52nd cake day, and no one did.

Being in business for over 40 years, collaborating with other event professionals is natural to us. It’s why clients like Erykah Badu and others have us back for their performances time after time.

Committed to Creating Lasting Memories

You, too, can prepare for a wild ride of stimulating experiences and unforgettable memories. Onstage Systems is your go-to full-service live event production company, offering top-level turn-key solutions that guarantee to leave lasting impressions. From your initial concept to our flawless event presentation, we cover every detail, leaving you to take the credit and bask in the glory.

Onstage Systems’ Featured Work Speaks for Itself

Sometimes, Badu decides to improvise, switch things up, and take the production in a new visionary direction. This annual event is always off the charts with its eclectic vibes, spontaneous nature, and unexpected twists. It certainly keeps us on our toes, that’s for sure. But hey, Onstage Systems loves a good challenge; it’s what keeps the team’s creative juices flowing.

Onstage Systems has proven time and time again to be one of the go-to companies for Badu’s epic annual birthday bashes. In fact, we have been rocking the audio and backline support for her parties for the past several years, earning her unwavering trust in our unrivaled expertise for creativity. It’s what we do; pride ourselves on the ability to switch creative lanes and roll with the punches at the drop of a hat.

So when it comes to making Badu’s birthday bashes truly unforgettable events for all, Onstage Systems has her back. We make it our business to know exactly what we must do and how to deliver that magic.

See, Onstage Systems has a family-oriented culture, always putting people front and center of what we do. It’s why we can hold our heads high and deliver seamless, unforgettable big stress-free experiences for our clients every time—without expectation.

Discover How Onstage Systems Can Add Magic to Your Next Event

Cattle Baron’s Ball 2022 – A Rousing Success

November 1, 2022

The 2022 Cattle Baron’s Ball has been another rousing achievement, raising millions for cancer research. But a winning ball is not only the result of its VIP guest list or high-profile sponsors. Nor is success guaranteed with revered performers, luxury raffles, or silent auctions. Although these are critical components, successful fundraising events need something more.

Large live events, especially non-profit fundraisers like the Cattle Baron’s Ball, are complex machines with many moving parts that must work together to ensure success. Numerous vendors need to be coordinated, and the schedule of events needs to cross-reference with the venue’s capabilities and limitations. Event production has to find a way to adapt and overcome challenges so the event can go on.

That’s why an event’s production needs to be entrusted to a capable and well-experienced team. Our family-run, full-service event production house has been the go-to Cattle-Baron’s Ball event partner for over 40 years… And our seasoned team of industry experts ensure the annual event goes without a hitch every year.

A Brief History of the Cattle Baron’s Ball

The first Cattle Baron’s Ball was in 1974, some 48 years ago. It was a western-style Texas BBQ event that attracted over 500 guests. The aim was to raise funds for cancer research through the community-based American Cancer Society. The inaugural event raised $56,000 for research via ticket sales and an auction. Today, the Ball hosts more than 3,000 guests and raises millions of dollars each year.

AV Production Partner Throughout the Years

Onstage Systems has been a passionate partner of the Cattle Baron’s Ball for many decades. We support them with stage design, indoor and outdoor lighting, audio systems, and additional event production. It’s our mission to enhance the evening’s performances and make the Ball an unforgettable experience for every guest.

The 2022 event was the 49th ball, located at Southfork Ranch in Parker, Texas. Our team proudly supports spectacular performances by headlining talent on every occasion. This year’s live music performances were provided by Chris Young and Old Dominion.

Why Fundraising Events Partner with Onstage Systems

Onstage Systems has been providing event production services since 1978. We are a full-service audio-visual partner with a family-oriented culture. We treat all who work with us as extended family, which is reflected in our work. Our true grit, work ethic, and professionalism are unrivaled in the industry.

Being a full-service event production company means we take care of various needs for the annual Cattle Baron’s Ball. This year, more than 100 techs and assistants were involved in the setup, production, and event teardown.

Here’s a summary of Onstage Systems’ audiovisual services:

Audio	Video	Lighting
Wide range of innovative and superior audio technologies. These sound solutions guarantee to engage and enrich the guest experience. We own and maintain our own equipment, which guarantees not only the best tech in the industry, but also the best equipment to go with it.	Event production video shows stage actions on giant screens at events, broadcast to television, or streamed live on the internet. Multi-screen and complex corporate events need technology to produce results that the high. end client demands.	Tailored lighting solutions that give events a wow factor. Designs that ignite awe, and precision-oriented results that make the client and the attendee see what is meant to be highlighted. Perfected lighting strikes the ideal balance for optimal performance and joyous audience experiences.
AV Installations	Event Production	Stage Design
Custom, unique audiovisual installations are built to exact needs, specifications, and budgets.	Comprehensive event support from start to end. Includes full planning logistics, technical aspects, and additional services on request. Event production takes ideas from concept to seamless execution.	Unique, creative stage designs that serve the intent and aesthetics of a live event. They harmonize different elements and overall layout, thus fixating the eyes and ears of a captive audience.
Special Effects	Equipment Rentals	Staging & Rooftops
Special effects used to add excitement and elevate drama. Illusions, sounds, and visual tricks engage guests, leaving audiences with truly memorable experiences.	Top-of-the-line AV equipment rentals that add technical perfection to any event type. Think backline rentals, speaker systems, audio consoles, microphones, barricades, ramps and more.	Widest choice of mobile, custom staging in the Southwest. Along with rooftops, crowd control barriers, and more, vital to transforming any landscape into highly coveted venues.

Safe Event Solutions for Our Clients

No indoor or outdoor challenge is too great for the committed teams at Onstage Systems. Moreover, we hold certifications for Event Safety Alliance® Member and ESAT Core Safety Training. Our healthy obsession with rigorous safety means we always use approved, safety-compliant PPE, tools, and equipment.

Flexible Event Production Solutions

No two Cattle Baron’s Balls are the same, but every event is a memorable success. Whatever the demands, Onstage Systems rises to all challenges. In addition, we can seamlessly add live streaming support to your in-person live event on request. With over 40 years in the business, Onstage Systems guarantees a smooth-running, stress-free function at every event.

Exhilarating Experiences, Everlasting Impressions

Let us handle the details. And you can take credit for an exhilarating experience that leaves everlasting impressions. Discover how our creative, comprehensive event production can help your next live, virtual, or hybrid event succeed.

View Onstage Systems’ Work Here

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

Virtual Concert Event Production for Sonic Soul Tribe

July 1, 2020

Onstage Systems helped produce a 12-hour international, virtual concert event for Sonic Soul Tribe. The performance took place in April of 2020 and featured artists and performers from across the United States and abroad performing live on stage and remotely.

Sonic Soul Tribe is a not-for-profit electronic and experimental music and art experience based in Dallas, Texas, born from the Burning Man festival. The collective is a music, art, and production experience that seeks to gift dance, art, and community to those looking for a new way to connect, celebrate, and rejoice in the human experience.

Learn More About Onstage System’s Virtual Event Production Services

The virtual concert was a great challenge to bring together. Logistics demanded coordinating live streaming performers across the world. The event’s 12 hour duration required incredible stamina and discipline from the Onstage team to produce.

To keep the virtual concert entertaining, Onstage Systems mixed video graphics, picture-in-picture, and simultaneous performance feed switching of remote artists’ live streams. In addition to music and spoken word performances, the virtual concert also featured visual performances including body painters, flow artists, fire performers, dancers, and more. This allowed Onstage Systems to marry visually entertaining performances with auditory entertainment by combining performance streams.

Part of the virtual concert included a live, stage performance at the Onstage Systems warehouse in Dallas, Texas. The stage performance was set up and produced with a “safety first” approach. The Onstage team maintained social distancing during setup and live production. The staff followed the latest health safety guidelines and wore masks throughout. Additionally, Onstage coordinated the performers setup in shifts to minimize contact between all staff and performers.

The virtual concert event production was flawlessly executed by a team of camera operators, video technicians, audio technicians, and lighting designers. To bring the Sonic Soul Tribe virtual event all together, the Onstage team relied on premier equipment from Elation Lighting, L-Acoustics, DiGiCo, and Panasonic.

Watch the Sonic Soul Tribe Virtual Concert on Twitch Video on Demand (VOD)

Sports Event Production – A Closer Look Behind the 2019 BMW Dallas Marathon

January 21, 2020

For the last 20 years, Onstage Systems has provided a wide range of sports event production services, including audio, visual, and staging solutions for the BMW Dallas Marathon. Started in 1971, the Dallas Marathon is a massive event that draws international attention from countries like Kenya, Russia, and Mexico. A stellar finish at the Dallas Marathon can qualify runners for the Boston Marathon, which makes this event a critical checkpoint for all professional runners looking to secure a spot at the World Marathon Majors.

Since the Dallas Marathon happens every winter, event production can be a challenge given the unexpected weather conditions. In 2013, the Dallas Marathon was canceled due to an ice storm known as ‘Icepocalypse 2013’ but of course, dedicated runners who prepared for months still came to Dallas to compete.

The weather during the 2019 marathon was perfect for our winter runners and even better for Onstage Systems. After months of planning and careful engineering, we were excited to test out an innovative new design we made exclusively for the BMW Dallas Marathon.

Custom Stage Designs for Special Events

Armed with new custom structures and engineering, the team at Onstage Systems came into the 2019 BMW Dallas Marathon ready to unveil a new design. During a months-long back-and-forth with Marathon coordinators, city officials, race coordinators, and structural engineers, Onstage Systems brought an elegant solution for such a simple yet intricate problem.

Onstage engineered a custom 44-foot wide by an 8-foot tall pedestrian bridge made with a combination of trussing and BilJax decking. Pedestrians could now cross the street without interfering with the runners. To spruce up our custom bridge, we added some hardware so marathon organizers could mount banners and help offset production costs by offering sponsorship space on the most prominent banners.

Creating The Dallas Marathon

Behind the scenes, Onstage Systems providing audio, visual, and staging solutions for the BMW Dallas Marathon — Behind the scenes at 2019 BMW Dallas Marathon: Onstage System’s control room for audio, video, and lighting underneath the viewing platform

From a sports event production standpoint, there are dozens of elements that need to be designed and built if you want to produce a successful marathon.

The focal point of any marathon is the start and finish line. Similar to previous Dallas Marathon events, we created a custom start line truss support structure complete with a giant video wall for the runners and spectators in the plaza. This year, our video wall was equipped with video switching and cameras that interfaced with the WFAA live broadcast.

In 2016, BMW signed on as the official partner of the annual race, changing the name from the Dallas Marathon to the BMW Dallas Marathon. To display their latest fleet of luxury vehicles, we designed a BMW display platform.

Additional structures included a custom VIP viewing platform, custom structures for the Front of House (FOH) MC and Tech World, a full audio system for the start/finish line, and lighting accents for the BMW display.

Celebrating Half a Century of Dallas Marathons

Next year, the Dallas Marathon will celebrate its 50th anniversary, making it the longest-running marathon in Texas. We may not be able to predict the weather for next year’s race, but one thing Onstage Systems can guarantee is a commitment to providing the Dallas Marathon with the highest level of event production with the pinnacle of audio, visual, lighting, and staging solutions.