Visit Fort Worth
Annual Meeting
A cowtown worth visiting
Picture where the West begins. Honky-tonks over cocktail bars. Stockyards over skyscrapers. Fort Worth is the original “cowtown,” a city with its own identity and swagger.
Every year, the Visit Fort Worth Annual Meeting is where the people who champion that identity gather — civic leaders, hospitality partners, city builders — to celebrate what makes Fort Worth a special destination.
That’s the story Studio Blue was brought in to tell. And this year, the stakes were higher than usual.
Farewell to a storied venue
The 2026 meeting would be one of the last events held at the Fort Worth Convention Center Arena before the venue was repurposed. This wasn’t just any arena. This was the room where Paul McCartney played his first post-Beatles solo show. Where rock legends filled the rafters and the city showed up. A venue woven into The Fort’s cultural fabric for decades.
It deserved a proper send-off. Studio Blue worked to make sure it got one.
The Challenge: Capture the spirit of a city in 70 minutes — with 70 minutes of programming, 20+ speakers, live band performances, real-time content (live IMAG and pre-produced) fed to multiple 360° large-scale projection displays, and custom lighting — all running simultaneously.
The Fort Worth Convention Center Arena holds 20,000 people. The Annual Meeting had 1,200. The challenge wasn’t just scale — it was soul. How do you fill a huge arena with the warmth, classic country energy, and civic pride that defines this city — for a group that’s a fraction of the venue’s capacity?
Visit Fort Worth delivered all show content internally, meaning our team had to integrate client-owned assets into a live, multi-stage environment in real time. Seamlessly. And while our crew knew the venue, this was their first time producing the AV for this specific event.
Arena scale, intimate feel
The Fort Worth Convention Center Arena holds 20,000 people. The Annual Meeting had 1,200. The challenge wasn’t just scale — it was soul.
Client-owned content
All show assets delivered by Visit Fort Worth. Our team had to integrate them into a live multi-stage environment in real time. Seamlessly.
Historic final event
One of the last events held in this arena before repurposing — a venue woven into Fort Worth’s cultural fabric for decades.
First-time event partnership
First time producing AV for this specific event — in a legendary arena with 70 minutes to capture the spirit of a city.
Make the arena the star
The insight that unlocked everything: don’t fight the arena. Embrace it.
We placed the stage at the center of the arena floor — an in-the-round design that turned the venue’s iconic rafters, girders, and storied bones into the backdrop. Every seat faced the history of the room. Every attendee felt like they were in the heart of something bigger than a meeting.
Working alongside Alford Media, a fellow brand of The Freeman Company (TFC), the team took full creative and technical ownership from concept through execution — no handoffs, no surprises on show day.
Using 95+ rigging points and a five-camera system, the production infrastructure was invisible to the audience and bulletproof behind the scenes:
- 3 manned cameras + 2 PTZ cameras for complete, seamless coverage from every angle
- Lighting calibrated to the tables on the floor, not the empty upper deck
- Main screen positioned as the room’s centerpiece, not a backdrop
- Sponsor reveals timed to audience energy
- Sightlines mapped across all three stages for better viewing
“Your crew made it all work.
You helped create the perfect environment.“
— Robert L. Jameson, President & CEO, Visit Fort Worth