Texas DECA
2022 State Career Development Conference
Texas DECA is the largest state association within the DECA organization. Their 2022 State Conference was intended to welcome members back to in-person events with an experience they'll not soon forget. The annual Texas DECA State Career Development Conference included an Opening Session, Entertainment Session, Business + Election Session and Awards Session. Our team was responsible for all things production: scripting, stage design, a custom motion graphics package, and on-site audio-visual production execution.
Complete Event Production
We received the client-provided show outline and our team went to work, focusing on
scripting while simultaneously building show moments and stage movements. This allowed our
full team to keep the big picture in mind while each individual department focused on the
details. Inevitably, as the production evolved, the team was able to rearrange sections of
the shows for a seamless final production.
Our stage managers acted as on-site liaisons, scheduling rehearsal times around the client
and talent's schedules, ensuring everyone looked and sounded great and were comfortable throughout
the event. A custom greenroom was curated close to the stage for talent holding that included
seating, beverages and snacks.
Creative Media Design
Every production at White Tie begins with a stage design concept. This process unites our
producers, creative team and technical architects from concept to reality. For Texas DECA,
we knew the centerpiece was going to be an LED wall design that would both intrigue the
audience and also support the sophisticated movement of talent on stage. We were
challenged with the U-shape layout of the venue’s seating as it limited the effective
viewing angles for many audience members.
Our designers settled on a symmetrical, three screen design that pitched outward to face audience
members on all sides. By positioning the openings behind the main screen, we created an illusion
of one continuous screen for much of the audience.
With three individual 11.5' x 16' LED screens, the LED wall allowed our stage managers to welcome
VIPs onto our stage through strategic passageways between the screens. This helped to give
audience members a seamless show, as the on-stage talent could move seamlessly and discretely
around the set.
The LED wall became the perfect canvas for our creative team to build immersive and thoughtful
content throughout the show. With over 500 individual graphic cues, this set piece became the
perfect backdrop to support the on-stage messaging.
Audio Visual Services
Our client's need to maximize seating in the venue presented our audio team with a unique
challenge. With seating fully spread in a U-shaped, bleacher-style configuration, it was
critical we deploy a system that ensured every seat had great, intelligible sound.
To achieve this, our audio engineering team captured laser measurements on-site with a 3D modeling
tool to calibrate the exact angles and placement of every speaker in the room.
The perfect product for this was our newest line array system: a VUE Audiotechnik al-4 line
array, supported by VUE’s flagship hs-28 dual 18" subwoofers. This system, owned and maintained
in-house, delivered outstanding immersive audio while maintaining incredible clarity for dialogue.
This balance was critical for this client's awards show, which relies strongly on full-range
music beds with clear voice-overs on top.
Event Logistics Management
The most unique and critical innovation came from our client's desire to have a scripted
awards session built from information available only hours before the awards show. In
total, this involved 743 individual award finalists across 50 competitions.
We were tasked with finding a way to invite award recipients to stage and, later, recognize
them individually with a live award presentation. Each of these moments required our announcer
to read their names live and display animated graphics on-screen for each individual award
recipient.
To achieve this, our team utilized our custom-built, web-based application to ingest our client's
raw database export, which then generated a complete and seamless script document, along with
every graphic needed for the show.
By integrating with Google's Cloud SDK, our tool successfully rendered hundreds of graphics
in a matter of seconds, with 100% content accuracy. This allowed our client the comfort of
providing content to us on their timeline while being confident that the script and graphics
would be generated by showtime with no errors.
