FORT WORTH, TEXAS— The National Cowgirl Museum & Hall of Fame is preparing to celebrate more Women of the West through new immersive storytelling experiences powered by Hippotizer MX Series Media Servers from Green Hippo, an ACT Entertainment brand. Established Fort Worth-based integration specialist Electro Acoustics & Video Inc. led the design with the award-winning Hippotizer Meuse MX Media Server.
The project forms part of the museum’s significant 16,000-square-foot expansion project, which centered around refreshing its immersive projection-driven attractions. “We focus heavily on video and projection elements throughout the museum,” explains Hunter Atchison, Associate Director of Operations at the museum. “Our new space will feature nine projectors surrounding the room projecting content in a panoramic format.”
Previously, the space featured looping panoramic ranch footage from Texas and Colorado alongside horse show visuals. While popular with visitors, the legacy system offered limited flexibility and proved difficult for the museum team to maintain and customize.
“Our goal with the new system was to create something far more fluid and adaptable,” says Atchison. “We wanted a space that could transform depending on the experience we want to create. Hippotizer is giving us the ability to fully customize the room and use it however we want, depending on the event or experience.”
For Electro Acoustics & Video Inc., ease of use and flexibility became central to the project from the outset. “The client was using a solution that was very hard to change content within,” explains Ryan Walker from Electro Acoustics. “The objective they gave us was to find a product that could support their needs and be simple to use.”
The museum’s existing external video contractor first recommended looking into Green Hippo solutions, leading the Electro Acoustics team to connect with Green Hippo’s Scott Kehoe. “Scott was very helpful and even set the client up with a demo system for a few months to make sure they liked the system,” says Walker.
That collaborative approach continued throughout the installation and integration process. “The project went very smoothly,” Walker adds. “The system was being controlled by an outside control system, and Green Hippo was willing to meet with our programmer to discuss how everything was going to work together. They worked with us every step of the project.”
The decision to implement Hippotizer Meuse MX now affords the museum’s team better management of visual content across the nine-projector environment while opening up new possibilities for exhibitions, events and donor experiences. “The ability of Meuse to support so many projectors across a very large space while allowing us to blend and manage all of those outputs effectively is fantastic,” adds Atchison. Walker agrees: “It has worked seamlessly.”
During the daytime, the panoramic environment supports the museum’s immersive exhibitions and interpretive storytelling experiences. In the evenings, the same space transitions into an events venue for weddings, donor receptions and private functions. Museum staff can transform the room with projected visuals ranging from mountain landscapes to coastal scenes, while also incorporating custom event-specific content. “It allows us to think creatively about how we use the room instead of being locked into one specific experience,” says Atchison.
The panoramic event space is part of a broader expansion project designed to seamlessly connect the museum’s original building with newly developed galleries and attractions. Across from the projection space, the expansion includes a fully functioning 18-horse carousel installation, while adjoining gallery areas host rotating exhibitions including costumes from Miranda Lambert’s recent tour.
“One of the major goals of the expansion has been creating a seamless experience between a 20-plus-year-old building and a brand-new addition,” says Atchison. “That definitely comes with challenges, especially considering how much technology has evolved.”
Although the expansion space is not yet open to the public, the Hippotizer system is already being used extensively for donor tours, presentations and internal events. Current content includes looping ranch footage from Texas and Colorado alongside customized visual experiences created for visiting groups.
One recent donor event demonstrated the system’s ability to deliver personalized immersive moments with minimal setup time. “During the tour, I took a group photo of the guests at the start and uploaded it into the Hippotizer system while they were walking through the building,” says Atchison. “When the group entered the event space at the end of the tour, they were greeted by their photo and museum branding displayed across the panoramic projection walls. It created a really memorable experience and was incredibly well received.”
For the museum, these interactive visual moments are becoming an important part of engaging donors and building excitement around the institution’s ongoing capital campaign. “Immersive moments like that go a long way,” adds Atchison.
While the museum is still in the early stages of exploring the full capabilities of the Hippotizer MX Series platform, the team already sees significant long-term creative potential and plans to collaborate with external content creators to develop more elaborate visual shows and immersive storytelling experiences tailored to exhibitions and special programming. For Walker, the project has also demonstrated the platform’s wider value for future installations. “I think this is a good product; now that I know about it, I will use it where appropriate,” he says.
As a long-established and familiar platform for immersive experience creators, Hippotizer will continue to play a central role in how visitors experience the stories, landscapes and personalities of the American West. “I would say the overall flexibility and ease of adapting content to the space has impressed me the most,” concludes Atchison. “I’m looking forward to discovering even more possibilities.”
The National Cowgirl Museum & Hall of Fame honors the Women of the American West through exhibitions, archives and immersive storytelling. While video and projection have long been part of the visitor experience, the museum’s expansion aims to significantly elevate the flexibility and creative potential of its visual environments. The museum’s archives currently house more than 4,000 artifacts and information on more than 750 remarkable women.