We haven’t written this part of our website up yet.  Too busy focusing forward!  Check back later.  One of these days, we’ll find time to be in an retrospective mood.  Until then, we’ll just tell you that there is a long and interesting history to our involvement in the entertainment and corpcomm industries, dating back to the late 1960’s.


Fort Production Management was incorporated in 1984 in Illinois.  We’d been working for years in Chicago before incorporation. 

History, for the Historically inclined...

A few clues can be found for Keith at LinkedIn. 

FROM FIRST TO LAST:

Many of the programs we’ve produced have either broken new ground or provided a historic punctuation point.  Here are a few examples. 


First event permit for a corporate promotion, closing a street in Times Square NYC (Nintendo worldwide Wii Launch, Nov 2006).  The permit was denied three times, but we succeeded, and the event made news worldwide. 


World’s largest brainstorming session.  In 2001, Singapore’s Productivity and Standards Board was celebrating the 20th anniversary of their successful transformation of Singapore into the tech powerhouse that it is today.  They invited 30,000 residents to the stadium, and Gerald Haman facilitated the world’s largest Thinkathon brainstorming session, generating half a million great ideas for the next step in Singapore’s governmental focus. This event made international news, especially in the Pacific rim and SE Asia. 


Last Ticker-Tape Parade on this planet.  In 1981, the Space Shuttle Columbia made its historic maiden voyage into space.  Upon returning, the astronauts did a victory tour, starting in Chicago.  Mayor Jane Byrne wanted to have “a real ticker-tape” parade.  Ticker-tape was already obsolete, but we made it happen.  Because that’s what our client wanted to happen.  Not shredded paper, ticker-tape. 


First Chicago SuperBowl Victory Rally (Super Bowl XX, 1986).  First such event to be broadcast worldwide. 


First ever private engagement for Ringling Brothers Barnum & Bailey Circus (McDonald’s Worldwide Owner-Ops, New Orleans SuperDome, 1997), in the 125 year history of this Circus.  They hung up on me three times... but in the end they did the gig, and for the first time ever, allowed the attendees to participate in Circus activities in the Three Rings.  This is now a standard feature of the Circus, called “The Ringling Experience”.  It was our idea...


Largest tour on the road, summer season 2014: Riot Fest Tour (Toronto, Chicago, Denver). 


First Private event to use the mainstage of Taste of Chicago as its site (CNA Centennial, 1997). 


First Chicago Blues Festival, first Gospel Festival, first Viva! Chicago.  All in the mid-1980’s. 


Produced the Inaugural (1983) for the first African-American mayor of Chicago, Harold Washington.  Produced his Memorial service (1987), when he died in office on Thanksgiving weekend. 


We don’t take “no” for an answer, when our clients have a strong desire to make something that’s groundbreaking happen, we are the most vociferous advocates.