The Vision
You know a partnership is special when your shared goal each year is simply: “How do we top this?”
That’s the magic Paradigm Productions Group has built with HealthTrust since 2017. Our shared vision is rooted in a relentless push for excellence—constantly redefining what’s possible to make the conference more immersive and engaging for every single attendee. For HTU 2026, the theme was “Elevating Excellence,” and we knew we had to take that mandate literally.
The Challenge: Breaking the Proscenium
Live event production is often a battle of geometry. For this year’s conference, our battlefield was the Bellco Theater.
The venue features a massive, built-in stage that typically dictates a very traditional, forward-facing proscenium look. However, HealthTrust didn’t want a traditional setup; they challenged us to create a deeply immersive experience that would pull attendees out of their seats and into the environment. The primary hurdle was figuring out how to break the rigid physical boundaries of a permanent architectural space to make the room feel boundless.
The Solution: Layered Immersion
You don’t fight the architecture; you transform it.
Our creative direction team looked beyond the standard screen real estate. To visually break the confines of the built-in stage, we utilized projection mapping on the theater’s massive “pillow walls” flanking the stage. This technique turned static venue boundaries into a dynamic, shifting canvas that wrapped around the audience’s periphery.
To create depth and dimension at center stage, we designed custom LED mountain structures that sat proudly in front of our massive center projection blend. The result—captured in the image above—was a sprawling, layered panoramic vista, complete with an LED waterfall that seamlessly integrated into the high-resolution mountain backdrop. It visually enveloped the audience, transforming a standard keynote address into a breathtaking Colorado mountain retreat.
The Heart Behind the Hardware
Flawless execution is essential, but the technology is only there to support the human moments. HTU 2026 was an especially poignant event for the HealthTrust community.
Honoring a 40-Year Legacy
We celebrated the retirement of CEO Ed Jones and his four decades of healthcare leadership. Naturally, we pulled off the ultimate event-pro trick during his opening keynote: sneaking his mentor, Bill, onto the stage unannounced to introduce a surprise tribute video. The flawlessly timed execution resulted in an incredibly moving, tear-filled moment in the room.
A Tribute to an Architect
Behind the scenes, our crew was honoring another monumental legacy—Lisa Spear, a brilliant meeting planner, dear friend, and the true architect of this event who led it for over a decade. Bringing her final vision to life was a profound honor. To keep her fierce energy on the floor with us, our entire crew wore custom enamel pins featuring her classic catchphrases. Because nothing snaps a production team into focus quite like a well-timed “Let’s go people!” or “That’s what the paycheck is for.”
The Takeaway
We live for the attendee experience, but sometimes the most profound insights come right from the stage. Ed perfectly nailed what it takes to produce something extraordinary in this wild industry of ours:
“…when you can take that chaos and find clarity, clarity of purpose in a chaotic world, that’s how organizations elevate themselves and go to the next level…” — Ed Jones
Here’s to turning chaos into clarity, honoring the legends who shaped us, and the absolute thrill of live events.