Software and production tech
that goes off without a hitch.
Show-grade event technology — built, tested and run by a team that has spent 25 years
on the show floor when thousands of feet and grubby mitts flood all over your work.
Interactive installations. Audience apps. Competition control systems.
Custom hardware. Network and AV. Built to survive opening night.
Our build team is trusted by startups, agencies, and enterprises alike
Our teams have collected, between them:
- Cannes Lions
- The Webby Awards
- BIMA Awards
- Campaign BIG Awards
- D&AD Awards
- Creative Circle Awards
This is for you if…
You're the person who has to stand at the back of the room when the doors open — and stay there until the last guest leaves.
Show day is non-negotiable
The date doesn't move. The venue doesn't care. Software that "mostly works" in staging is a career-limiting move when the room is full and the brand is watching.
Hardware and software have to talk
Tablets, screens, LED, sensors, custom rigs, networks, ticketing, capture, broadcast — and no two events use the same stack. Most agencies don't have anyone who can own that integration end-to-end.
It's never in one place
Competitors in 50 countries, audiences in multiple rooms, judges on the move, simultaneous performances. Coordination is the product. Off-the-shelf tools were not built for this.
The freelance roster is fragile
You stitch each show together from a different cast of contractors. Knowledge walks out the door after every project and you start from zero on the next pitch.
Tech eats the margin
Bespoke software, custom fabrication and on-site engineers usually come from a panicked, late line item. By the time the brief firms up, you're absorbing risk instead of pricing it.
There is no second take
If the registration system dies, if the LED goes black, if the competition control crashes between rounds — you can't reboot the audience. Recovery is invisible. Failure is not.
The reason most event tech projects feel chaotic is that they're treated like events — not like software shipping to production. The build window is short, the integrations are bespoke, and the rollback plan is "the audience will notice."
The approach
Show-grade production technology
Event tech should be engineered like a product, rehearsed like a show, and run like an operation.
Comprehensive live event systems don't have to be expensive — but they do have to be designed for the brutal reality of the show floor. That means custom software when off-the-shelf won't survive, real redundancy where the audience can see, and a tiny operations team that has done it dozens of times before.
With experience, you can prepare for all of the common eventualities so you don't have to fly everyone out to Shanghai. The result is fewer engineers on site, lower risk for the agency producing the show, and a system you can reuse to grow the future experience.
Engineered
Custom software with versioning, CI/CD, automated tests and a real rollback plan — not a USB stick on the night.
Rehearsed
Full integration testing with the real hardware, the real network and the real failure modes — before kit ever leaves the warehouse.
Operated
A small, senior on-site team that has done this dozens of times, with remote support behind them. Show calls instead of fire drills.
Meet our event tech team
The Actually production technology practice — built on 25 years of show-floor delivery.
End-to-end, not just "the dev bit"
Strategy, UX, software, fabrication, network and AV, on-site delivery, data and post-event analysis. We can lead an entire production or slot in alongside your production partner where you need specialist tech firepower.
Bespoke when bespoke is the only honest answer
Competition control systems. Audience apps that hold up at peak. Custom delivery mechanisms (yes, including the kind that dispenses a sausage roll through a fake cash machine). When off-the-shelf will fail in front of the audience, we build the right thing.
Production technology, properly
Immersive experiences, VR, audio, video, LED systems, network infrastructure, event management, special effects. Recent deployments include Tommy Hilfiger and Calvin Klein's virtual studio in White City, and operations across multiple Paris 2024 sites with thousands of devices.
White-label partnership with creative agencies
Many of our event projects ship under another agency's name — we work seamlessly behind Inca, NVE, Imagination and others. Your client relationship, your creative, our tech engine. No badge wars, no surprises in the credits.
The transformation
Show-day tech assembled from contractors you've never worked with, glued together in the build week.
A senior team that has shipped dozens of shows together, with reusable building blocks instead of bespoke chaos every time.
Software that worked in the office and surprises you at the venue.
Full integration testing with real hardware, real network, real failure modes — rehearsed before kit ever leaves the warehouse.
Fly a dozen engineers to site and hope for the best when something breaks.
A tiny team on-site, remote support behind them, and a runbook for every realistic failure. Lower cost, lower risk.
Every show built from scratch — nothing carries forward, no compounding value.
Reusable systems for registration, audience apps, competition control and capture — tailored per show, but never re-invented.
Tech is a panicked, late line item that eats your margin.
Tech is a quoted, designed, project-managed workstream — priced honestly, delivered predictably.
Data from the show evaporates the moment you strike the set.
Registration, engagement and behavioural data captured cleanly — ready to brief the next campaign and prove ROI to the brand.
Shows we've already shipped
Real event tech, in the real venues, in front of the real audience. No staged demos.
Diageo World Class Shanghai
Competitors from 50 countries competed live to be Mixologist of the Year. Full venue takeover, hundreds of screens, central competition control across competitor and audience participation, and a silent-disco-style audio/video experience across multiple rooms and simultaneous performances. A tiny team on-site, delivering a bewildering array of tech without a hitch.
Thousands of drinks mixed against the clock. Zero down time. Zero failures.
Monzo x Greggs ATMmmm
To celebrate the disruptive challenger bank's partnership with the country's favourite baker, we designed and built a mock cash machine that dispensed sausage rolls and Greggs-for-life prizes. UX and admin software, full system build, custom fabrication including a bespoke pastry delivery mechanism — engineered to hold up under thousands of hangry guests.
Thousands of sausage rolls dispensed. Zero downtime. Millions of social mentions.
Paris 2024, Tommy Hilfiger, Calvin Klein and more
Immersive experiences, VR, audio, video, LED systems, network infrastructure, event management and special effects for major global brands. Recent work includes a virtual studio installation for Tommy Hilfiger and Calvin Klein in White City, and teams deployed across multiple Paris 2024 sites managing hundreds of lounges and thousands of VR headsets and devices — plus ongoing work for Samsung, Jaguar Land Rover, LG, War of the Worlds and the Royal Air Force.
Hundreds of lounges. Thousands of devices. One operationally calm production team.
How we work with you
Strategy → Design → Build → Show. The same four phases every time — with the depth and team size dialled to the production.
Strategy
We work back from the show date and the brand objective. What does the audience experience? What has to be true on opening night? What's the honest risk picture? You get a costed, sequenced tech plan — not a wishlist.
Design
UX, software architecture, hardware specification, network and AV design, fabrication drawings where needed. Everything signed off before anything gets built. We'd rather rework a Figma file than rework a stage.
Build & rehearse
Software built in sprints with CI/CD and automated tests. Hardware integrated and load-tested in the warehouse. Full dress-rehearsal of the integrated system before anything goes near the venue.
Show
A small, senior team on-site, remote support behind them, runbooks for every realistic failure. Calm show calls, clean data capture, and a debrief after strike so the next show starts ahead of where this one began.
Common questions
Both. A lot of our event tech ships under another agency's name — we work seamlessly behind production and experiential agencies like Inca, NVE and Imagination. We also work direct with brand teams who need specialist event tech without going via an agency. White-label or co-branded, your call.
Live competitions, brand activations, experiential installations, exhibitions and exhibition stands, multi-site coordinated events, immersive and VR experiences, and broadcast-adjacent productions. If the show has software, custom hardware, networked devices or coordinated multi-room delivery, it's in our wheelhouse.
The earlier the better — ideally during the response or scoping phase, so we can shape what's actually deliverable. That said, we frequently come in mid-flight on shows where the tech has slipped or a contractor has fallen over. We're honest about what can and can't be rescued.
A small, senior team — the people who designed and built the system, not handover engineers. Behind them is a remote support team with full access to logs, deploy keys and the dress-rehearsal runbook. The on-site footprint stays deliberately small; the depth sits behind it.
You do. Once the show is delivered and payment terms are met, the code, design assets and documentation are handed over with a clean repository and deployment setup — so you (or your next partner) can run, fork or extend it for future activations.
Most production companies are brilliant at staging, AV and physical build — and treat custom software as a panicked subcontract. We're a software and product team that grew up on the show floor, so the bespoke tech is engineered with the same rigour as the rest of the show. We'll happily partner with your existing production company on the tech workstream.
Have a show coming up that has to work?
Tell us about the brief — what the audience experiences, what the venue is, when the doors open. We'll come back with an honest read on the tech risk and what it would take to ship it cleanly.
Prefer email? Drop us a line directly