Bell Partners: Twenty Years of National Conference AV Production
How do you manage AV for a large corporate conference with multiple simultaneous breakout rooms — and deliver a production the planning team never has to think about?
Bell Partners holds its annual national leadership conference — a multi-day event that travels from city to city across the country. Most recently, the Gaylord Texan Resort in Grapevine, Texas. Before that, Washington DC and Florida. Wherever the conference goes, K2 Productions goes with it.
Bell Partners and K2 are both headquartered in Greensboro. That proximity started the relationship. Nearly two decades of annual conferences — each one larger and more complex than the last — built it into something different.
The Challenge
A conference at Bell Partners’ scale has significant technical ground to cover. A general session room for 900 people — screens and audio sized and positioned so every attendee has a clear view and clean sound regardless of where they’re sitting. Stage lighting that frames the program. Ambient and moving lighting designed to respond to the energy of the room as it shifts from keynote to recognition to award ceremony. Full video recording and photography of the live event.
And simultaneously, 14 breakout rooms running concurrently — ranging from 35 to 200 people each, every one with its own setup, its own AV requirements, its own presenter. Each room is its own production inside the larger one.
The Solution
Full conference AV for Bell Partners starts months before the Gaylord Texan sees a single piece of equipment. Jennifer Eller, K2’s Senior Producer, begins pre-production by working closely with K2’s technical team — mapping signal flows, accounting for every cable run, and working through the requirements of the general session room and all 14 breakouts against the venue’s specific infrastructure.
The Gaylord Texan is a complex property. Technical variables compound across a footprint that size. Every place where an unscripted moment could occur — a presenter who goes off-script, a transition that needs to shift on the fly, a lighting cue that has to respond to the room’s energy in real time — is worked through in advance, with a plan already in place before load-in day.
By the time the crew arrives, the technical side of the conference isn’t a question. It’s already answered.
On the ground in Grapevine, K2’s crew managed the full production scope simultaneously:
- General session — audio for 900 attendees, screens and video positioned for clear sightlines throughout the room, stage lighting for the program, ambient and moving lighting that responded to the energy of the event, and full video recording and photography of the live proceedings
- 14 breakout rooms — AV setups ranging from intimate 35-person sessions to 200-person presentations, each configured to the specific requirements of that room and that presenter
Jennifer served as the single point of contact across the entire production floor. When something shifted — and something always shifts — the call was made instantly, by one person, accountable for it all. Bell Partners’ planning team never had to step in and manage the production while it was managing itself.
What Nearly 20 Years Actually Produce
Bell Partners has grown significantly over the course of the relationship — and so has the scale and complexity of their annual conference. K2 has grown alongside them. What started as a one-size-fits-all conference is now a 900-person national event with 14 breakout rooms and a production scope that expands every year.
The knowledge that accumulates across that kind of partnership is specific. How the leadership program is structured. Which sessions carry the most weight for the attendees? What the room needs technically to support the moments that matter most. What Bell Partners’ planning team will ask for before they ask for it.
That knowledge changes what Bell Partners carries going into their own conference. The slide deck that swaps at midnight becomes a handled item. The presenter who runs long creates a quiet adjustment the audience never sees. The planning team walks into the Gaylord Texan knowing the production side is fully accounted for — because it was worked out months before anyone arrived.
Conference AV Production for National Corporate Events
What does it take to run full AV for a 900-person general session and 14 simultaneous breakout rooms — and keep the whole event feeling effortless to the people in it?
K2 Productions handles full conference AV production for national corporate events — general sessions, breakout rooms, stage and ambient lighting, event recording and photography — with the same senior team on every engagement.
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