Our team just got back from one of our biggest conferences this year, Experience Conference in Orlando. As we are dragging our weary bones back to the office this week, we wanted to take a look back at one of the most spiritually impactful, uplifting, exhausting, and encouraging weeks we have ever spent at a conference.
Each year we help run the production of the conference in the main sessions, so we typically know what we are getting into: 18+ hour days of setting up, troubleshooting, sound checking, dealing with last minute changes to slides and songs, more sound checking, and our bodies trying to normalize a diet consisting primarily of snacks, hamburgers (when we can sneak away), and iced hazelnut lattes.
This is our story.
Day 1 – Sunday (Arrival)
Half of our team scooted over to the Tulsa airport in the mid-afternoon on Sunday, heading to the conference with three travel cases, brimming with everything we needed to integrate with the rest of the complicated setup at the conference.
After two fully booked flights, (most of) our team made it to Orlando and grabbed some late night McDonalds before storing their bags, checking in, and passing out.
Day 2 – Monday (Setup)
After a quick coffee break first thing in the morning, we got to work getting our setup put together behind the stage. We were working alongside some other awesome powerhouses of church technology, namely TRG and Thor.
Setting up for a massive production is pretty complicated, especially with (minimally) three different companies with three different technologies, all trying to work together to get things set up and functioning correctly on a two-day timetable. Our participation in production is managing the lyrics, slides, and video content for the entire conference, which I will get more into later.
Nothing else too noteworthy happened on setup day, other than getting to know the other production players, finalizing our schedules, and double/triple checking all of the media for our speaker notes and presentations.
Day 3 – Tuesday (Reinforcements)
Tuesday is the first day of the conference proper, with doors opening to the conference hall at 2pm, so the other half of our team hopped on a flight from Tulsa early in the morning and arrived just in time to get our booth set up. Thankfully, our partners for this conference, Vanguard LED, were also there to help set everything up and get our booth looking beautiful. Also, a huge shout out to them, and if you are ever looking for an LED wall, please give them a call (URL).
We got to meet awesome vendors, churches, and current users and we got the chance to connect and pray with them over their week at Experience conference. In the meantime, the rest of our team was doing sound-check for the first main session, which included an amazing performance by Thrive Worship and Matt Redman. Production went pretty well, and the folks over at CRG did a fantastic job with both front and back of house. Thankfully, we (the full production team) didn’t suffer any major hiccups on night one (or any session for that matter), which is a huge win when working with a new production crew.
Day 4 – Wednesday (Worship in the Round)
Wednesday night is always special at Experience Conference because we do what is called “Worship in the round”. Now keep in mind that Experience is a conference mainly focused towards worship leaders and tech leaders in the church, so a VERY good portion of these people know how to praise. Instead of a normal evening session with a full production, band, speaker, and the works, the room is switched around to center on a small, upright stage of about 10-12 worship leaders from around the country. They dim the lights, and MAN, God’s presence just penetrates every corner of that space as over one thousand voices just ring out in unbridled praise. It is by far the coolest part of Experience.
Day 5 – Thursday (The Long Night)
Thursday featured some incredible performances by Jonathan Traylor, Shane & Shane, Red Rocks Worship, Lizzie Morgan, and Matt Maher. It was an absolutely star-studded lineup this year for sure. Chandler and Dan, our two slidemasters (who also happen to both be worship pastors for their respective churches) both said it was a powerful experience. Chandler may have cried basically the entire time; he was pretty moved.
I (Jared) had an awesome chance at the booth to pray over and speak life into several attendees that I had met the previous days and had made a meaningful connection with.
Day 6 – Friday (Departure)
There isn’t honestly too much to say about Friday, just mainly tearing down both the conference and production setups and travelling home after one last morning session.
It was the best year of Experience conference thus far, and we are so grateful to be able to serve the Church and our community of users (and future users) by participating each year.
See you next year!
