Three-Way Merger Creates New End-To-End Experiential Agency

Three experiential agencies, High Output, L!VE, and Sardis, have merged under a new brand, Ansera, creating a research-driven platform to help clients better understand and design impactful live experiences.

Backed by Houston-based private equity firm Willistown Capital, Ansera will employ approximately 150 people and operate studio facilities in Chicago and Boston. The company positions itself as a single partner capable of supporting live, hybrid, and virtual experiences at national scale.

The deal comes amid a surge of private equity-backed consolidation in the experiential sector. Just a week earlier, Jack Morton and Impact XM announced plans to merge, creating a global experiential agency with more than 1,000 employees across 20 offices worldwide.

Earlier this month, Strata, a London-based brand experience agency group backed by private equity firm Ethos Partners, acquired Wonderland Agency, an experiential event production firm also based in the UK capital.

Combined Capabilities and National Scale

Ansera CEO Darren Fultz  said the merger was driven by a perceived gap in the market between small, local operators and large global agencies.“Clients want scale and consistency without losing care, creativity, or vision,” he said. “This wasn’t about growth for growth’s sake. Ansera was built to fill that middle space.”

High Output, founded in 1986 and headquartered in Canton, Massachusetts, is an entertainment technology company serving film, television, theater, and live events. 

L!VE, founded in 1974 as Sound Advocate and based in Columbus, Ohio, evolved through multiple mergers into a full-service event production agency. Its history includes the 2019 acquisition of Iacono Productions and fabrication division 3dx. The company reports producing more than 50,000 events for over 11,000 brands. 

Sardis, established in 1998 and headquartered in Gurnee, Illinois, has operated as an experiential marketing and communications agency, providing event production, creative services, video, and technical solutions. 

Competing With Distraction

Central to Ansera’s positioning is the idea of “crafting moments of awe,” to help brands grab attention. “Live experiences are no longer competing with one another — they’re competing with never-ending distractions,” said EJ Corporan, Ansera’s director of marketing and growth. “Clients are asking deeper questions about attention, memory, and meaning. Ansera was built to answer those questions through research, insight, and a more rigorous understanding of how people actually experience moments together.”

Supporting the positioning, the new company developed an internal research initiative focused on the psychological and physiological effects of live experiences, which the company refers to as the “study of awe.”

“For decades, this industry has relied heavily on intuition and anecdotal success,” said Darren Fultz, CEO of Ansera. “We’re moving beyond assumptions about what makes an experience work and toward understanding why certain moments resonate — and how to design for that intentionally.”

Ansera said the research will inform experiential strategy, creative development, and measurement, reflecting a broader shift toward evidence-based experience design as brands seek clearer ROI from in-person engagement.