Omar Colom is a U.S. Army Combat Veteran, AV industry leader, and founder of AV Educate, a nonprofit focused on equipping, enabling, and empowering the next generation of live-event professionals. With over 15 years in the field, Omar operates at the intersection of real-world production, education, and entrepreneurship. He holds dozens of industry certifications and manufacturer authorizations, but what defines his work is not credentials, it’s application. If he teaches a system, he’s used it under pressure. Omar is known for translating complex technical workflows into practical understanding, and for challenging the idea that access to information equals expertise. His approach emphasizes critical thinking, accountability, and mastery not shortcuts. Whether in the classroom or on show site, his mission is simple: build people who can think clearly, lead confidently, and perform when it matters most.

Allen Wu is the Product Specialist at PIXELHUE Technology.
As the Global Marketing Lead for the flagship Product Q8 and Technical Director for the U.S. Midwest and Canada regions, Allen holds the Certified PMA Silver Medal Trainer credential, having trained over 200 freelancers on PIXELHUE product solutions. He specializes in market expansion strategies and industry research within the video switcher sector.

Designed for students and early-career professionals, this foundational session introduces how LED walls are used in touring and live event environments. Attendees will learn the basics of LED wall construction, terminology, touring workflows, and crew roles, along with common challenges faced on show days. No prior LED experience is required—this session focuses on building confidence, understanding systems, and preparing participants for entry-level roles in live production.

 As live events continue to push boundaries, so do the demands placed on the technology supporting them. Join Megapixel as we discuss the unique challenges faced during recent large-scale projects, and how end-users are approaching LED displays with audience immersivity in mind. Discover how innovative solutions are breaking the 16:9 mold and reshaping the future of entertainment, art, and community. 

Touring travel is operating under a new set of constraints shaped by volatility, rising costs, and evolving crew expectations. This panel brings together leaders from touring, production, travel management, and transportation to examine how teams are adapting to these realities on the ground.

Featuring industry experts across touring and global travel brands, the discussion centers on real-world decision-making around routing, forecasting, cost pressure, and the day-to-day realities of moving people and production at scale. Grounded in lived experience rather than theory, the conversation explores how better workflows, shared visibility, and practical coordination can reduce friction and stress without removing human judgment, offering clear insights touring teams can apply on their next run.

In todays AV industry, networking is more than just a backbone—its the foundation for seamless, reliable, and scalable productions. This talk dives into the world of converged networking, exploring how audio, video, lighting, and control can coexist on a single network without compromising performance. Showing how converged networking optimises shows, increases flexibility, and making it easier to collect, inspect, and manage your network.

The global production landscape is undergoing a significant transformation, presenting both challenges and opportunities. In response to the ever-rising costs of production, there’s a growing imperative to explore innovative strategies that enhance efficiency and profitability.

To this end, we are hosting a focused discussion to gather and delve into the new realities of production. Our objective is to collaboratively identify and explore actionable approaches to:

• Maximize Utilization of Existing Technologies: How can we leverage our current tech stack more effectively to its full potential? What are the untapped benefits and best practices we can implement?
• Embrace New Technologies for Enhanced Output: What emerging technologies are poised to deliver greater value and advanced capabilities? How can we strategically integrate them to achieve more with less?
• Rethink Labor Modalities: Are there new or optimized approaches to workforce deployment, skill development, and collaboration that can lead to increased productivity and cost-effectiveness?
• Streamline Logistics: How can we improve the efficiency and reduce the cost of our supply chain and distribution networks?

This session will be an open forum for sharing insights, best practices, and potential solutions. We aim to foster a collaborative environment where we can collectively:

• Identify key trends and challenges impacting our production operations.
• Brainstorm innovative strategies for cost optimization.
• Develop a shared understanding of potential technological advancements and their applicability.
• Discuss practical approaches to evolving labor and logistics models.

We believe that by proactively addressing these critical areas, we can navigate the evolving production landscape effectively and build a more resilient and cost-efficient operational framework.

• Who is Stagetec?
• General overview of AXIO line and design
• Integration into existing tour workflow
• Comparison to existing system technology
  • Redundancy
  • Sound Quality
  • Integrated spitter w/ Independent Gain Control
  • Less rack spare, more functionality!
• Unique benefits from this workflow
  • Distributed Virtual Sound Check
  • Control all signals from a single GUI

Live production is under unprecedented strain. Tours are getting bigger, faster, and more complex at the exact moment the industry is facing a generational labor gap, fragmented communication, and runaway production expectations.

This panel brings together leaders from venue operations, large-scale festivals, and touring production to unpack what is actually breaking on the ground—and what needs to change next. From the disappearance of experienced mid-career crew after COVID to the inflation of production scale driven by democratized design tools and social media influence, the panel explores how misaligned expectations are colliding with real-world labor, venue, and budget constraints.

Panelists will share firsthand perspectives on why advancing has become harder than ever, how unreliable information creates downstream chaos, and why traditional “old school” production workflows no longer scale. The conversation will also examine emerging approaches to standardization, data-driven advancing, and shared systems that reduce cognitive load for venues, tours, and festivals alike.

With students and early-career professionals entering the industry alongside veterans navigating a rapidly changing landscape, this session offers a candid look at where live production is headed—and what it will take to build sustainable, professional workflows for the next generation.

Go behind the scenes with the touring team behind one of the world’s biggest arena acts as they break down how they use Master Tour to run an exceptionally tight global show operation. Led by Tour Manager Mark Oglesby and members of his core touring team, this session offers an inside look at real-world workflows used at the highest level of live touring.

The discussion dives into rapid-fire decision making, mobile usage on the road, crew coordination, advancing practices, and day-of-show execution across continents. Attendees will gain a rare, practical perspective on how elite touring teams operate inside Master Tour at scale—what drives efficiency, where challenges emerge, and how modern touring teams push technology to evolve alongside the demands of today’s global arena tours.

Join us for a focused preview of what’s next for Master Tour. Key members of the Master Tour team will share platform updates, workflow improvements, and a forward-looking roadmap, alongside high-level, data-driven touring patterns from 2025 that help frame how the industry is evolving.

The session will include updates on our rebuilt mobile experience and broader platform capabilities, designed to unlock new workflows and partnerships throughout 2026 and beyond. We will also highlight continued progress on our venue system, including growing venue adoption and endorsement from NIVA. Together, these advancements reflect ongoing efforts to improve efficiency, strengthen data flow, and support more connected workflows between touring teams and venues.

We will also introduce a community-focused partnership with Professional Tax Alliance through its Own Your Future initiative, reflecting a shared commitment to long-term sustainability and financial well-being across the touring community.

Chris Phillips has spent more than 20 years in the industry working in product management, market development, and project engineering roles after graduating with a degree in Commercial Music Business from Missouri Western State University. His integration experience has extended to all phases of project work including system design, DSP programming, and final commissioning for large venues. Chris is part of Sennheiser’s Global RF Experts team and works on the Technical Applications Engineering team for Sennheiser for the Americas.

Dan Scalpone is part of Sennheiser’s Technical Applications Engineering team which handles product training and supports project business in the US/Canada. He has been designing audio and wireless microphone systems for over 20 years covering house of worship, recording studios, broadcast and touring/live sound applications.

Touring productions today demand more than just high resolution. They demand reliability, repeatability, speed of deployment, and creative flexibility. This panel brings together three critical parts of that ecosystem: LED display manufacturing, LED processing, and media servers. Together, they represent the full signal chain powering today’s tours and events.