Nick Carter, AJ McLean, Howie Dorough, Brian Littrell, and Kevin Richardson walked into our studio, stepped in front of the camera, and made Action Flipbooks. And yes — it was exactly as good as you're imagining.
The Backstreet Boys have been selling out arenas since 1996. They've released some of the most recognizable songs in pop history — "I Want It That Way," "Quit Playing Games (with My Heart)," "Everybody (Backstreet's Back)," "As Long as You Love Me." They've sold over 100 million records worldwide, making them one of the best-selling music artists of all time. And three decades into their career, they are still touring, still performing, and still packing rooms with people who know every single word.
That's not just a music career. That's a masterclass in creating experiences so powerful they become part of people's identity. And watching the Backstreet Boys make their own Action Flipbooks — loose, laughing, completely in the moment — reminded us exactly why we do what we do.
Why Some Experiences Become Part of Who You Are
Ask anyone who went to a Backstreet Boys concert in the late '90s or early 2000s what they remember about it. They won't describe the lighting rig or the setlist structure. They'll tell you about the specific moment — the song that came on, the person they were with, the feeling of being in a room full of people all experiencing the same thing at the same time. They'll tell you about it like it happened last week, even if it was 25 years ago.
That's the hallmark of a truly great experience: it doesn't just stay in your memory. It becomes woven into your story. You don't just remember it — you are shaped by it.
This is what the best brand activations and corporate events aspire to, and what almost all of them fall short of. Most events are pleasant enough. Some are impressive. Very few become the kind of thing people talk about at dinner a year later, reference in meetings, or bring up unprompted when someone asks what the best event they've ever attended was.
The Backstreet Boys have been engineering those moments for three decades. Here's what event planners and brand marketers can take from them.
Lesson 1: Group Energy Is the Most Contagious Force at Any Event
One of the things that makes a BSB concert so electric isn't any individual song or performance moment. It's the collective experience of being in a room where everyone is fully present and fully engaged at the same time. That shared energy is self-amplifying — it feeds on itself, builds on itself, and creates something that no individual could generate alone.
The best event activations understand this and design for it. When one person steps into a green screen video activation and something amazing happens, the people watching don't stay observers for long. They want in. The line forms. The energy builds. Before long you have a crowd that's generating its own momentum, and your booth or activation space becomes the beating heart of the room.
This is why the visual spectacle of the experience matters so much. A 360 photo booth doesn't just create great content for the person on the platform — it creates a live show for everyone watching. A flipbook printing in real time draws people in from across the room. The experience is designed to be witnessed, not just had. That's how group energy gets ignited.
Lesson 2: Nostalgia Is One of the Most Powerful Emotional Levers Available
Part of what makes the Backstreet Boys' continued success so remarkable is how expertly they navigate nostalgia. Their shows don't just play the hits — they resurrect a feeling. For millions of fans, hearing "I Want It That Way" live isn't just enjoying a great pop song. It's being transported back to a specific moment in their life, a specific version of themselves, a specific feeling of possibility and joy.
Nostalgia is one of the most powerful emotional forces available to event designers, and it's chronically underused in corporate and brand event contexts. People are wired to respond deeply to things that feel familiar in an unexpected place — the tactile surprise of something physical in a digital world, the delight of a format that feels retro but is completely new.
This is exactly the emotional territory that flipbook photo booths occupy so effectively. There's something about holding a flipbook — a printed, physical, flip-through-able mini-movie — that triggers something genuinely nostalgic. It feels like a toy from your childhood and a piece of premium branded content at the same time. People light up when they get one. They show it to strangers. They bring it home. That response isn't random — it's the same nostalgia engine that BSB has been running for 30 years, applied to a brand activation context.
Lesson 3: The Biggest Stars Know How to Make Other People Feel Like Stars
The Backstreet Boys have a reputation — one that's followed them for decades — for being genuinely good to the people around them. Fan interactions. Backstage moments. Charity work. The stories that follow them aren't just about their music. They're about how they make people feel.
When Nick Carter or AJ McLean takes a moment with a fan, that fan doesn't just feel seen by a celebrity. They feel important. Valued. Like they matter to someone who matters to a lot of people. That feeling is extraordinarily powerful, and it's one of the core reasons BSB's fanbase has remained so fiercely loyal across three decades and multiple generations.
Great event activations work exactly the same way. The entire design principle behind everything we build at Action Flipbooks is making every single guest — regardless of who they are or why they're at the event — feel like the star of the moment. Our green screen video experiences put them inside their own cinematic scene. Our flipbooks hand them a physical, branded keepsake starring themselves. Our AI photo booth experiences transform their image into something remarkable in real time.
The guest isn't watching a show. They're in one. And that shift — from audience member to protagonist — is the same magic that the best performers in the world have been using forever.
Lesson 4: Staying Power Comes From Consistent Quality, Every Single Time
The Backstreet Boys didn't become one of the best-selling music groups of all time by occasionally delivering great performances. They did it by delivering consistently — night after night, tour after tour, decade after decade. The production is always tight. The harmonies are always on. The energy never phones it in. That consistency is what built the trust that turned casual listeners into lifelong fans.
This is the standard we hold ourselves to at every event we produce. Whether it's a Fortune 500 corporate activation with thousands of attendees or an intimate private event with fifty guests, the experience is staffed by professionals, the equipment is top-tier, and there's always a backup plan in place. We've worked with Disney, Netflix, Google, LinkedIn, and Sony PlayStation — brands that have zero tolerance for execution failures — and we bring that same standard to every event on our calendar.
For event planners evaluating activation partners, this is the question that matters most: not just what the experience looks like in a sales deck, but how it performs at 7pm on a Friday when the venue WiFi is struggling and the room is at capacity. Consistent, professional execution is what separates a great activation from a great idea that fell apart at the event.
Lesson 5: The Best Performances Create Content That Outlives the Room
BSB music videos from the late '90s are still being watched, shared, and referenced today. The content they created in support of their live performances had a life that extended far beyond any individual concert or tour stop. That's not an accident — it's a fundamental principle of how great entertainment properties are built.
Every activation we produce is designed with this same principle in mind. The green screen video gets shared on LinkedIn and Instagram, carrying your brand into networks you didn't pay to access. The 360 clip gets posted on social media and racks up views from people who weren't at the event. The flipbook gets photographed and posted, shared in a Slack channel, brought to the next meeting. The green screen photo ends up as a profile picture or a holiday card.
The event ends. The content doesn't. That's the multiplier effect that transforms a great event experience into an ongoing marketing asset — and it's the same logic that's kept "Everybody (Backstreet's Back)" in rotation for almost 30 years.
Ready to Create Something People Never Get Over?
The Backstreet Boys made their flipbooks with the same energy they bring to everything — fully committed, completely present, having the time of their lives. That's the standard. And it's the standard we bring to every event we produce, whether you're planning a trade show activation, a corporate celebration, a product launch, or a private event.
Action Flipbooks serves clients across Los Angeles, San Francisco, and nationwide. Let's build something your guests are still talking about next year.
Explore Our Packages | See Our Work | Corporate Events | Get in Touch
