Whole Foods Market Tribal Gathering 2008

Whole Foods Market is one of our oldest and favorite clients. We travel all over the country working with them on everything from All*Star Awards and Vision Days to filming bananas and coffee in Costa Rica. The opportunity to share in their success and help share the many incredible things they are doing in the world is a very rewarding experience that continually challenges and excites our team.

Every two years we work with them to help produce an event called Tribal Gathering. This massive undertaking brings all of the leadership from the entire company together to be inspired and think together as a group about where the company is headed. This year, that meant nearly a thousand people attended the event which was held in Austin, Texas.

From a technical standpoint, it was about as massive as anything we have ever taken on. Three days of solid all-day keynote presentations, an enormous and technically challenging national All*Star Awards dinner, and many months of pre-filming content. The result however, was fantastic.

The event started on Friday afternoon and we worked to develop a round stage flying all lighting, video and sound above the stage. We flew 8 plasma screens above and placed 4 additional traditional screens around the room which offered an all encompassing media experience. When the music, lights and video hit the screens, the energy in the room was absolutely fantastic.

Saturday night brought the highlight of the show for us. With Whole Foods, we are allowed to experiment which is always a very rewarding experience creatively. This night had the University of Texas marching band, our hosts entering on segway scooters and everything from green screen reporters coming from all over the country to a piece about Wild Oats we have worked on since last October. It was an amazing event, and one we will not soon forget.

We have worked on every Tribal Gathering since 2004 and it is one of the most grueling events on our calendar. At the same time, it is also one of the most rewarding as it allows us a peak into the soul of one our countries best companies. Whole Foods Market is literally moving our world forward through their inniatives and environmental goals. You can check out more about the work they are doing here, here and here.

Tribal Gathering ended a six month run of tremendous growth for our company and while we are all thankful for the opportunity to grow, learn and help produce creative work, it will be really nice to come home, spend some time outside sans computer and catch up on refilling our creative “tanks” reading, watching movies and maybe even sleeping!

I you want to check out the Tribal Gathering Flickr stream, click here.