Check out video from Glenn's speech above - he begins at the 51 minute mark
Friday night at Osceola Heritage Park in Orlando, Florida, Glenn Beck once again delivered the keynote speech for FreedomWork’s FreePAC. Working with a dedicated staff from his company Mercury Radio Arts as well as a mix of musicians and artists, Glenn experimented with a new type of live event that would inspire and entertain the attendees.
Rich Bonn, VP of Live Events for Mercury Radio Arts, has been with Glenn for years, but was presented with many new and unique challenges when developing and producing Glenn’s keynote speech.
Following Restoring Love, Glenn sought to scale the format of the show down into something that could be done by a smaller team at a smaller venue, but still maintain the mix of speech, video, and music that made the event at Cowboys Stadium such a unique and innovative show.
Bonn said that the biggest challenge of the FreePAC events has simply been the timeline that Glenn gave him and his team: three weeks to produce two keynote speeches. And not only were they speeches, they were underscored and intermixed with music from two different performers, which would all be accompanied by video behind Glenn as he spoke.
Elizabeth Hurley, Producer for Live Events at Mercury Radio Arts, joined Bonn in the Live Events division during Restoring Love in Dallas, Texas. She explained that this event was very different from the one at Cowboys Stadium because they were partnering with FreedomWorks. The organization was responsible for securing the venue, handling the back-end of the business, and bringing in the guests.
Both Bonn and Hurley have been working with several outside artists who have been part of the development of the new style of live events that Glenn has been working on. These include the composer Clyde Bawden, singer/songwriter Kalai, artist and videographer Ben McPherson, and artist and photographer Mark Mabry.
During the speech, Glenn’s words are underscored by Bawden on a keyboard, and at moments in the speech Kalai takes to the stage to perform songs that tie in thematically to the speech. On the screen, video and images display behind Glenn. All of these elements combine to tell the story of “dreaming and doing” in America. The speech thus becomes more than just words, but a collaborative and innovative multimedia live event where the sum is more than it’s individual parts.
Many of these artists will be working with Glenn’s American Dream Labs, developing new ways to tell stories that educate, inspire, and uplift through video, photography, live events and more.
While many of the speeches at the event focused on politics, Glenn focused on individuals and personal responsibility.
“Tonight I want to talk to you about our plan to move ahead. Past all the partisian bickering, past the anger and division. It is the change most of America meant when they say hope and change. A change from Washington power to the hope in our towns, communities and neighbors. But to get to the big picture we have to start small. With you. And me. We the people. It never is the Utopian people. It is just a collection of us and what we dream and do,” Glenn said.
He continued, “We can afford to explore. We can dare to dream. We just have to restore our faith in ourselves! We just have to make the right choices! And encourage the free market to step in and step up. And those dreamers, engineers, scientists, and entreprenuers that take that risk – some will fail and some will not. Some will lose everything, and others will get rich beyond their wildest dreams. But celebrate, that’s America. Let the best man win. And let their failure be the seeds of the next great success. Failure is a right we must fight for as well.”
Glenn’s speech was similar to the one he delivered in Phoenix. Read more about Glenn’s speech at FreePAC here.
Backstage photos from the event are below:
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