Back in the day, Scott Schoeneberger had an idea for a kind of outdoor festival that wasn’t really a festival, but was more of a family friendly event. He never really did anything with it, because it would have tied up a lot of the equipment of his event-producing company, Bluewater Technology Group, for a good part of a season.
But then a silver lining came along in a very dark cloud known as the Covid pandemic. In 2020, the government came along and shut down most events. But Schoeneberger “dusted off” this idea that wasn’t really an event, and suddenly Glenlore Trails was born.
“Uncle Sam said, ‘You can’t do events anymore,’” he recalled. “Half our business dried up overnight, and I didn’t want to fire people, so what am I going to do?”
He presented the idea to his wife, who runs Bluewater with him. She was skeptical at first – “She said, ‘that’s crazy. You’ll need ticketing and security, and she’s rattling off all these things, because she’s a Type A.”. But Schoeneberger, ever the creative one, decided he was going to go ahead and do it.
In July, they sketched out the concept and by August Glenlore Trails – there are walks open for Halloween and then for the winter season, including Christmas – was open for the first season. It takes about three months to set up. The team starts working in February or March to determine what the content is going to be, the theme, the design., etc.
Turns out the people reacted to it.
“They really liked it,” Schoeneberger said. “It’s definitely a labor of love. It’s my baby.”
Schoeneberger talked with Corp! Magazine about his “baby,” about Bluewater and about other issues:
Corp!: So, reaction to Glenlore was pretty good?
Scott Schoeneberger: We had the state of Michigan came out and they were like, ‘we’ve got to check this out.’ They kept sending people to say, “if you want to do an event during Covid, check out what Glenmore Trails is doing. They’re the benchmark.’ I mean, they were on board fully and totally supported it. They used to post our stuff on the State of Michigan website, and it was really cool.
Corp!: Talk about Bluewater a little bit. What is it?
Schoeneberger: Bluewater is kind of an interesting anomaly of a company. We specialize in events, trade shows, and then sponsorship, brand activations. We build out really cool unique engagements that get consumers interacting with brands in meaningful ways. And then the other half of the business is audio visual integration. So we do a lot of boardroom, conference room, digital signage, technology for the workplace, workplace of the future-type stuff along with large venue entertainment venues and stadiums, all the systems, the LED walls, the multimedia light shows all the lights up and makes noise is usually we’re involved in some way, shape, or form.
Corp!: So the client gives you the content for those and then you coordinate it and make it work?
Schoeneberger: No, no. So that’s where I say we’re a bit of an anomaly. Most audio-visual integrators in the space will just do the system design, select the technology based on what the client’s looking to do and then install it. We’re very consultative, so we’ll actually ideate, design, sketch, render. We will build out these spaces; we’ll create the content that goes on the canvas that we install. We’ll then install the hardware. We’ll then put the content on it, make sure it’s running right, we’ll train it. So, we’re very much an agency in the sense of start to finish from whatever the seedling of an idea is. And a lot of times it’s not even an idea, it’s just, ‘Hey, I have a challenge.’ I want to engage with my employees a little bit deeper, in a more meaningful way. Or I want my clients to have a really cool experience when they come into my facility, and I want to be telling the same story to everyone that comes through. And then we’ll dream up what that vehicle for delivery looks like.
Corp!: What’s the management setup like?
Schoeneberger: My title is managing partner. I’m one of the owners; it’s a family business. I’m blessed to work with my wife and then my mother and my father and my uncle. And then we have a management team here that runs the day-to-day for the most part. So I focus on future vision, growth, what’s next, what markets are we going to serve, how are we going to package it? Spend a lot of time with our marketing team. And then just new ventures. We have a thing called Glenlore Trails that I launched during the pandemic.
Corp!: Why continue after the pandemic shutdown?
Schoeneberger: So, things opened back up and we thought, ‘OK, do we still have to do this?’ And my wife and I are there a lot. We stand at the exit most nights and just wait for people to come out and we will chat with them. What’d you think? How was it? And probably the most common thing, this is our favorite family tradition. This is our new family tradition, and I’m like, we’ve got to keep this thing going then, because you can’t become somebody’s family tradition and then take that away.
Corp!: How big are the Halloween and winter trails in terms of business?
Schoeneberger: We need that for Bluewater. Our Q3 has historically been slow. We do corporate events, which they all fall off in the summer. People are on summer vacation, kids are home. Trade show worlds aren’t happening, but the entertainment business picks up. And so, we were kicking around how do we get more revenue in Q3? It was one of the ideas I had was like, well, all these festivals, like Rothbury and whatever, you see all these festivals, everyone, I bet we can make a linear story driven thing that makes it feel like you’re walking through a movie or something like that. That was kind of the thought.
Corp!: When did you establish Bluewater? How old is the company?
Schoeneberger: My daughter was born in 1985, so this is our 40th year. My parents started it. When we started, it was TVs and VCRs on carts. I mean, it was pretty nerdy. It was primarily Ford Motor Company, and we were just TVs, VCRs strapped to a cart and we were renting them to them. And then a year in, they said, can you install this? Yeah, sure, we can install this. And we started installing it. So that’s how we had the rental and the install, and then the rental turned into just, hey, we’re renting parts, but can you stage an event thought? Yeah, sure, why not? We could probably do an event, and then next thing you know, we’re doing auto shows and massive events. So, then I joined, I started working there young. I was probably 12 years old when I started working in the summers. I just had a passion for stuff. I played in a band. I was the sound guy for the band, so I learned how to use it.
I learned how to mix and route audio … and I got a kick out of it. So then when I figured out what the family did for work, I’m like, ‘oh, I’m definitely going to be doing that.’ And they tried to get me to go do anything but work for the family, but ultimately, I just kept being annoying and showing up and this is what I’m doing. So, I got to work in the warehouse. I got to work as a truck driver. I got to work as an install tech, a lot of event tech, worked in marketing. And so, every summer I’d come back and do another different job.
Corp!: Why the focus on sports and entertainment?
Schoeneberger: So, it’s one of the markets that is really aggressively investing in consumer experience or experience in general. So, there’s, for example, you have a stadium and you have the field. Everyone’s going to sit and look at the field, they want to see the game, but you have the parking lot to the field. Everything in between is just kind of green space. What do you do? There’s plenty of time before, during breaks after to try and engage in a meaningful way with these brands. And so, a lot of the sponsors of the stadiums, a lot of sponsors of the team, they’ll want to set up some kind of interactive thing. Lemme pull this up really quick. It’s weird. For Ally Bank, we do this, I think we’re doing it again this year should be set up already, but we do share. There we go. The soccer activation. So, this is set up in the concourse of the North Carolina soccer stadium, and it’s this just interactive, you kick the ball, there’s a sensor we have under the ball. It knows when the ball leaves, as soon as the ball leaves, the 3D goalie will dive towards one of the four markers there, the dollar amounts you see.
And then we do fun stuff. We did all the LED walls at the International Motor Speedway or Indianapolis Motor Speedway. We did the pylon, the new pylon. We put the LED at the top of the Ren sign in Detroit just recently. So, some of the stuff is still just very tactical and kind of construction based, and others is a lot more fun and intriguing. Still do a lot of these core, these big meetings and stuff. So, this whole LD wall all the way around, it was a giant half circle or three-quarter circle of LED all the way around. That was their stage for their dealer meetings.
Corp!: Do you have an educational background? Did you go to school for this?
Schoeneberger: I went to Grand Valley and was actually going to go into film and video. And day one, class one, they’re like, this is the camera. This is how you use the camera. I’m like, oh, I can’t, I already know how to use. I’m doing this commercially. I don’t want to sit through this. And so, I looked at the track and saw I didn’t want my credits to not be valid. I didn’t want to have to go to school for longer than I had to. So, I stayed in the communication track, but then a marketing advertising emphasis or program.
So, I ended up switching to that, and I really, really, really enjoyed it. And then I went and got my MBA at Wayne State. I again, kind of marketing focus, and then I went and got an executive MBA at Kellogg, which was really strategy management. So yeah, I mean, a lot of what I do day to day is marketing and strategy and vision, and then I’d say the four Ps or whatever, more traditional marketing stuff wasn’t so relevant for what I’m doing. But majority, I got lucky with my education for sure, the majority of what they focused on. But all the schools that I went to was more strategic and less tactical, less about product placement promotion. They touched on it, but it was like, that’s not going to be meaningful for what you’re looking to do.
Corp!: So, is this something you’ve always wanted to do? You didn’t want to be a doctor, a fireman or a superhero or something?
Schoeneberger: No, oddly enough, I was always kind of nerdy. As I mentioned, I ran the audio for our band, so I taught myself. And I’m like, ‘oh, so how do I get the monitor mix to sound right and how do I get more? So, I figured all that out. And that was cool, was into computers early and networking. I just thought it was fascinating. There was maybe a period where I thought I actually wanted to be a plastic surgeon, of all things. I like the artistic nature of it, the goodwill, and I wanted to go and help people that just had issues that they needed help with. And I thought I could serve the world well for that. And then somebody laid out the trajectory. I’m fairly certain I’d still be in school right now had I gone that path. So that was a hard no. Once I understood how long I had to go to school for that, I was like, yeah, I’m out.
Corp!: What does excite you about what you’re doing?
Schoeneberger: Still? The people. It’s still the people and the reactions to the environments that we create, the experiences that we create, the connection that we create. I so many people are just face, face down in this all day and just it’s, oh, I’m connected. I’m connected. No, you’re tethered. There’s a difference. Connection happens.
