Plywood People’s Black Box Sessions — a community-wide leadership event where Elevate took the stage to deliver content as surprising, intentional, and memorable as the theme demanded.
Plywood People is a nonprofit that supports entrepreneurs and leaders — creating environments for connection, collaborative creativity, and the kind of honest conversation that actually moves people forward. Their Black Box Sessions are community-wide gatherings built around a single theme. In 2018, that theme was how to wow.
They invited Elevate to take the stage. And we didn’t show up with a slide deck.
Billy Boughey walked out to a confetti cannon entrance — immediately making the point before saying a word — then delivered a speaking session built around three leadership principles that the audience of entrepreneurs and leaders could take back into their work and their lives:
Finding your voice — and the courage to use it in a way that’s distinctly yours.
Applying wisdom from other leaders — learning to borrow brilliance from industries and people outside your own lane.
Consistency on and off the mic — being the same leader in private that you are in front of a crowd.
The content was custom-built for this audience. Every element — every prop, every moment — was chosen to serve Plywood’s message and push their theme forward.
Speaking at a leadership event isn’t enough. The content has to be worthy of the room — specific to the audience, surprising in its delivery, and genuinely useful when people leave.
Deliver a speaking session that lived up to a “wow” theme for an audience of entrepreneurs and leaders who have seen plenty of speakers — bringing something fresh, memorable, and specifically crafted for the Plywood community rather than a repurposed keynote.
We built the session entirely around Plywood’s goals and audience — choosing props and elements that made the content tangible rather than theoretical. Billy rapped his personal story to illustrate finding your voice. He brought celebrity fat heads on stage to demonstrate applying wisdom from other leaders. He carried a microphone throughout to make the point about consistency. Every element earned its place.
A single speaker. Fully custom content. Maximum impact.
Entrepreneurs and leaders left the Black Box Session with something concrete — three principles they could actually apply, delivered in a way they hadn’t seen before. The confetti cannon got their attention. The rap made them lean in. The celebrity fat heads made the point stick. And the Q&A gave them space to go deeper.
That’s what custom content does. It doesn’t just land in the room — it travels home with the people who heard it.
For Elevate, getting to play a role in the Plywood community — an environment built for exactly the kind of connection and creativity we believe in — was a genuine privilege. We loved every moment of it.
Whether you’re planning for 50 or 5,000, we design, plan, and produce events that people actually remember.
We design, plan and produce remarkable experiences so people adn teams thrive.