What Collab is, who we work with, where we work, what an engagement looks like, and how we're different from a traditional experiential agency.
Collab Experiential is a strategic experience studio that designs and produces multi-year brand programs — the kind of experiential platforms audiences plan their year around. We work with brands building experiential as a long-term asset, not a one-off activation. Headquartered in Nashville, Tennessee, with a second office in New York City, we deploy nationally and internationally.
Collab was founded in 2024 by Matt Ford. Matt has spent seventeen years producing experiential programs for brands including HGTV, Cartoon Network, Red Bull, ESPN, NBC, Hulu, and Harley-Davidson. Prior agencies include Thinkwell, Pop2Life (now Condé Nast Studios), and OA Experiential — Collab is the rebranded successor of OA Experiential.
Collab was established in 2024. The studio is the rebranded successor of OA Experiential, founder Matt Ford's prior agency based in Los Angeles. The repositioning reflected a strategic shift away from one-off activations toward multi-year program design — what the studio now calls Designed Inevitability.
Collab is headquartered in Nashville, Tennessee, with a second office in New York City. We accept and produce work nationally and internationally. Past production locations have included Nashville, New York, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Atlantis Paradise Island in the Bahamas, and across fifteen US cities for touring programs.
Collab works wherever a multi-year program calls us. We have produced experiential programs across the United States and internationally. Cities and regions where we've delivered work or maintain partner networks include Nashville, New York, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Charleston, Austin, the Bahamas, and across fifteen US markets for national touring programs. New international engagements are accepted based on scope and partnership availability.
Collab specializes in strategic, production-heavy experiential work that is designed to compound. The studio is particularly recognized for:
Every engagement is strategy-first. We diagnose before we design, design before we build, and structure programs to return year after year.
Designed Inevitability is Collab's framework for engineering brand experiences that compound rather than expire. It is drawn from architecture, urban planning, ritual studies, and brand-love research. The framework operates across four pillars: Easy Collision, Open Loop, Steady Rhythm, and Built Equity. Read the full framework →
The Community Audit is Collab's diagnostic engagement and the most common entry point into a relationship with the studio. We apply the Designed Inevitability framework to a brand's existing experiential portfolio to identify which programs are compounding, which are decaying, and what to do about it. Engagements begin at $60,000. Learn more about the Audit →
Both — and strategy comes first. Collab is structured as a strategy-led studio with full production capability. Every engagement begins with a diagnostic phase (often the Community Audit), continues through program design rooted in Designed Inevitability, and ends with full production execution. The studio is deliberately built so that strategic intent survives all the way through to the build, rather than being lost in handoffs.
Yes. The team's track record includes touring exhibitions, festival-grounds activations, multi-city brand programs, and persistent platforms with audience scale in the hundreds of thousands per program. Production capacity is supported by an extended network of vetted production partners and specialist freelancers in addition to in-house team. Founder Matt Ford has produced flagship builds at Comic-Con, the Super Bowl, CMA Fest, and Atlantis Paradise Island.
No. Collab is structured for multi-year programs and persistent platforms. The studios that handle one-off activations exceptionally well are not us; we are deliberately built for the work that compounds. Brands that need a one-off campaign with no long-term horizon are typically better served by a production-only agency.
Collab's clients have included Pluto TV, ESPN, Tricentis, Vanderbilt, Banshee Wines, and 2XU. Founder Matt Ford's prior client work over seventeen years has included HGTV, Cartoon Network, Red Bull, NBC, Hulu, Harley-Davidson, Adidas, Fox, FX, Universal Studios, and ESPN. See selected case studies →
Collab works across most consumer-facing sectors. Past and current work spans:
The studio's framework is designed to operate across category — the principles of compounding programs translate to any consumer brand.
Yes. Collab is one of the few experiential studios in the United States explicitly built around the principle that durable brand value emerges from community, not from one-off awareness moments. The Designed Inevitability framework is grounded in research from architecture, urban planning, ritual studies, and brand-love literature — all converging on the same finding: communities form when environments are designed to make connection the path of least resistance. Collab's measurement model emphasizes return rate, owned-audience growth, and lifetime value of community members rather than launch-week impressions.
Our project minimum is $150,000. The Community Audit, our diagnostic engagement and most common entry point, begins at $60,000. We do not take production-only project work below the $150,000 threshold.
The first step is usually a thirty-minute call. Most engagements begin with the Community Audit, which is the cleanest way to determine whether Collab is the right partner for your program. Reach out directly at matt@collabexperiential.com or schedule a call via the Contact page.
Most experiential agencies are structured around the activation — the build, the production, the three-day moment. Collab is structured around the asset. We design multi-year programs that compound, brand homes that persist, and community infrastructure that survives a CMO change. The studio is strategy-first rather than RFP-driven, diagnostic before creative, and engineered for return rather than impressions. We do not compete on production scale alone; we compete on what the program produces after the build comes down.