As the Dallas-based senior creative director for Corporate Magic, Stephen Dahlem spearheads some of the company’s most innovative projects. Recent events included the Rose Parade’s opening kickoff production in Southern California, which focused on creating memorable and shareable moments; and the Los Angeles Music Center’s 50th anniversary gala, an evening of one-night-only collaboration performances.
Dahlem, 51, also helmed the Boy Scouts of America’s 100th anniversary, a weeklong series of events at Fort A.P. Hill in Virginia that included a two-hour live stage finale for 72,000 scouts as well as the largest theatrical fireworks display over a military installation. Dahlem also heads the Dallas Cowboys’ Thanksgiving Day live halftime show each year.
Last year, Corporate Magic took over a major sales conference and completely remade it. The team created a theatrical affair for Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices’ sales conference in Las Vegas, creating a custom event that rivaled the city’s other large-scale shows. The company came up with a two-hour rock-‘n’-roll-inspired blowout, deploying the largest video surfaces the team had ever produced for an event: two 150-foot screens and a 20-foot circular, rotating LED screen center stage. The big finale included a massive concert that took shape as a center-stage medallion was transformed into the nose of a G5 jet, and the two 150-foot screens became the wings.
Dahlem also oversaw the Salvation Army’s 150th anniversary’s convention in London last summer, which drew nearly 16,000 people from 126 countries. Producers worked for two years on the massive-scale program, which included seven general sessions, a grand march down the mall leading to Buckingham Palace, and performances by 40 international groups—exhibiting cultural traditions like hula and Chinese lion dancing. Producers even commissioned an original musical, and an exposition hall showcased an interactive heritage display.
“The key to inspiring audiences, for me, is connecting the message with emotion. I am constantly curious, seeking out novel ways to deliver a show’s story,” Dahlem says. “So in each project, I work to find those state-of-the-art technologies, new formats, new combinations of fresh inspirations that will elicit that visceral reaction from the crowd. Storytelling that resonates, engages, and delivers with heart is the best.”
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