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nonprofit

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

Category: Featured Work, Special Events Production

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.

successful-hybrid-event-header

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.

Contact Onstage Systems

Category: Special Events Production, Concerts & Tours, Corporate Events, Music Festivals, Worship Events, Sporting Events, Trade Shows

How to Create Successful Virtual Fundraising Events

September 9, 2020

virtu-fundraising-credit-card-paymentCOVID-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.

Category: News, Special Events Production, Music Festivals, Worship Events

AV Production and Decor Lighting for the 2018 Petroleum Ball

April 3, 2018

Dallas Petroleum Club wanted to shake things up a little more this year!

For years we have provided AV production, design, and technical support to include decor lighting, audio, and staging.

Each year the Petroleum Ball host one or two bands, usually a headliner followed by a party band on a separate stage. This year, however, our client wanted something different.  They wanted no downtime and two national acts!

To accommodate a growing crowd, the decision to reduce the number of stages to one main stage was made. The logistical challenges of doing this with two bands were further increased with the client's request of one band to immediately follow the other without interruption. Our av production and creativity had to be at its best to pull off this exciting challenge.

The momentum of the event would continue after the headliner to the party band was solved by Onstage Systems to provide a 48’ diameter rotating stage this year to achieve that goal.

After dinner, the Petroleum Ball's main stage lit up with Pat Green and his band keeping the audience entertained. With both bands on the stage back to back and separated from sight by a drape, the guests were treated to not only a seamless performance but a creative transition as the real magic happened.

Huey Lewis and the News drummer took to the stage and started the sound of a heartbeat with his kick drum as the stage slowly turned. The band entered to the roar of an amazed crowd. Huey Lewis and the News moving performance electrified the crowd to an out of their seats experience for their entire set.

In addition to the great stage production and av production, Onstage Systems worked hand in hand with the decor design to help create exactly what the client was looking for.

Teamwork, across different companies involved in one project, is integral to a cohesive and well delivered overall product. In these cases, you know the left hand is talking to the right hand — and it shows in the final overall outcome!

The many challenges that we faced in presenting such an event push us to technical resolves and creative options that fuel us. These and other types of events are truly what drives us to the best at what we do.

The satisfaction of our clients in being able to take an abstract thought and transcend past even their greatest possibilities is what separates the good from the great.

Category: Featured Work, Special Events Production

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