ONE PRODUCTION PARTNER FOR THE WHOLE WEEKEND.
Fat Fish Media is an event production and experience design company based in Salt Lake City. We produce commencements, conferences, and brand events end to end, with our own crew, our own gear, and one producer accountable for the whole show.
Tara saw our work at WGU's Seattle commencement in July. That is the shape of what we provide: cameras and the livestream, LED walls, graphics and lower-thirds, live captions, audio, lighting, rigging, comms, show calling, and the run of show, delivered by one team under one producer. We also take on the coordination of the partners you already trust, so the week in the Chiles Center runs through one phone number instead of six. Everything on this page is built from our September 22 call and the schedules, run of show, rigging plot, and CAD you sent after it.
Nothing on this page is a quote. The quote is being built line by line and follows separately.
SEVEN DAYS IN THE BUILDING.
Four days of build and rehearsal, then six ceremonies in three days, with one outdoor moment in between. Each show has its own shape.
| Day | What happens | Where | What it means for production |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monday | Stage build, carpet | Chiles Center | Your crew sets the 4x8 decks. Floor plan and rigging call locked before this day. |
| Tuesday, Wednesday | Production setup; tents and chairs Wednesday | Chiles Center, Academic Quad | Cameras, LED walls, audio additions, comms, stream path. Quad PA staged for the Toast. |
| Thursday | Speaker rehearsals, 8 am to 5 pm | Chiles Center | Full technical run with graphics, captions, and the name feed. No student rehearsal, so this is the only full pass. |
| Friday | First Generation pinning. School of Nursing pinning. | Chiles Center | Two shorter shows. The upstage truss currently blocks seats behind the stage; that gets solved before 2027. |
| Saturday | ROTC commissioning (two podiums, under 500). Graduate ceremony (under 300). Baccalaureate Mass. Senior Toast. | Chiles Center, then the Quad | Choir, winds, and strings at the Mass need their own audio. The Toast is a five-minute speech, a music bed, and an hour of something worth photographing. |
| Sunday | Undergraduate Commencement | Chiles Center | The big one. Names read live, a lower-third for every graduate, two walls, captions, full stream. |
Order follows the 2026 weekend (May 1 to 3) and the proposed 2027 schedule Sean sent. Dates to be confirmed with the Provost's office.
SIX THINGS THE ROOM IS ASKING FOR.
Every one of these came up on the call. They are listed in the order they change the show.
UP has no camera crew; your staff are committed to baseball that weekend. Every ceremony streams, so the picture is the first thing to fix. A multi-camera package with a director, a stream path the streaming partner can take or we can run, and clean program feeds to both walls.
The current jumbotron is square and the graduates cannot see it. Two walls sized to the east-end stage put the picture where students and families actually sit.
A live human captioner, not AI. Captions ride the top of both walls on purpose, so nobody has to hunt for them. Aberdeen keeps Spanish and ASL.
A lower-third for each graduate as the name is read live, the Provost's request. Cvent check-in already carries the data on arrival; we feed it to graphics.
Keep the in-house Dante PA you are happy with. Add stage monitors, front fills under the stage lip for floor seating, and mic the choir, winds, and strings for the Mass.
Six units. Sean and the Provost on discreet IFB-style earpieces, the rest of the team on belt packs, one channel for the show.
ONE PARTNER. ONE CALL. THE LOAD COMES OFF YOUR OFFICE.
Today your office runs a vendor hub. We take that over. One accountable team owns the technical show from the first site visit to strike, and coordinates every other partner so you are not.
| Who | Owns |
|---|---|
| Fat Fish | Cameras and stream, LED walls, graphics and lower-thirds, captions, audio additions and ensemble mics, comms, show calling, run of show, Senior Toast production |
| University of Portland | Stage decks and drape, rigging points and power, in-house PA, student and platform logistics, name readers, Cvent check-in, schedule and approvals |
| Partners we coordinate for you | Hollywood on power, lighting, drape, and stagehands. Aberdeen on Spanish and ASL. Grad Images on photography. The streaming partner if you keep one, or the stream comes to us. We book them, schedule them, and run them. You get one phone number. |
Anything you would rather keep in house stays in house. The point is that you choose, and we carry the rest.
WHAT'S YOURS STAYS YOURS. THE JUGGLING STOPS.
You own more of this show than most schools do, and none of that goes in our quote. What changes is who manages all the pieces around it.
If it makes sense to fold lighting, power, or audio directly under Fat Fish, we will show you that option in the quote. Keep what works. Hand us the rest.
BUILT AGAINST YOUR NUMBER.
You spent $67,998.12 on production elements in 2026. The 2027 quote is being built in our system now, line by line, against that figure.
The only figure on this page is yours. Nothing here is a quote.
YOUR PRODUCTION TEAM
Bubba Palmer is your point of contact and runs production, the quote, and the week in the building. Isaac Gonzalez leads the creative and the show design. Richard Payson signs off on the plan and Cynthia Wainscott owns the look of the room.
Production pro with a talent for immersive tech, turning big ideas into events that land. Former Head Carpenter for the Lindsey Stirling Tour. Bubba is the one who picks up the phone.
Built Fat Fish into a standout in experience design for clients like Adidas, Meta, and Amazon. Leads the creative, the screens, and how the room feels.
10+ years in AV, including 8 years as lighting designer for The Piano Guys. Sets the bar for visually engaging environments and signs off on the plan.
8 years making scenic dreams real across every medium. Owns the graphics package, the lower-thirds, and what the walls look like on the day.
Three things, then a number.
Thirty minutes to close the open questions, a walk of the building, then the quote arrives with the run-of-show draft so you can read them side by side.
Sean, Tara: tell us what we missed.
If any of this reads differently from the call, say so and we fold it in before the quote goes out.
EVERY GRADUATE SEES THEIR NAME.