What It Truly Takes to Deliver Exceptional User Conferences
A look inside a few of the many events that defined a busy spring season.
Most seasons don't test whether a team is organized. They test whether that organization holds up when everything happens at once.
This spring was one of our busiest yet, with a full calendar of events running back-to-back across the globe.
Today, we're highlighting three conferences that represent just a few of the many programs our team supported this season: Daytona's Compute Conference, Dremio's Iceberg Summit, and LangChain's Interrupt.
Different audiences. Different brands. Different production challenges. The same commitment to delivering exceptional event experiences.
Here's a look behind the scenes at each one, plus what a season like this keeps reinforcing for us.
What This Season Reinforced
Preparation starts long before load-in. New venues and first-year shows go smoothly when the prep work happens weeks before load-in, not the day of.
Great attendee and sponsor experiences are intentional. They're designed, not left to chance – with tiered opportunities, clear expectations, and expo floors that stay actively supported throughout the day with intentional attendee experiences.
Hybrid requires its own strategy. The virtual audience needs a real experience, not just a camera pointed at the in-person event.
The memorable moments are part of the production plan. Mascots, games, sticker stations, and interactive activations may feel like the "fun stuff," but they're often what attendees remember most.
Daytona Compute Conference
📍 San Francisco 📅 March 7–11
The Ask: Turn an NBA arena into a home base for AI builders, on a single packed show day, with a brand-new production team and union labor for the first time.
Full main-stage production and branded scenic design
Tiered sponsor kiosks (Bronze, Silver, Gold) across the West Concourse and Ultra Club
VIP lounge, welcome reception, closing reception, and after-party
Registration, catering, and expo-floor logistics for 1,000+ attendees and 25 sponsors
Ivan Burazin, Daytona's Co-Founder and CEO, called it one of the smoothest events his team has run with any agency, on par with or better than any partner they'd used before. The expo floor turned out to be even more popular than expected, and that insight is already shaping next year's agenda and sponsor hours.
Iceberg Summit 2026 | In association with The Apache Software Foundation
📍 San Francisco 📅 April 7–9
The Ask: Run a two-day hybrid summit for a fast-growing open-source community, without letting the virtual audience feel like an afterthought.
607 attendees in person (an 88% show rate) plus 773 more joining virtually
33 sponsors and 101 speakers across five in-person tracks
Onsite operations run in parallel with a live virtual platform
Community and penguin-themed activations: narwhal mascot, hat handouts, a sticker station, a hallway snowball fight, and a pre-staged book signing that never missed a beat
Sponsors reported some of their strongest on-site engagement of the year, and the expo hall stayed packed from open to close – proof that a little theatrics goes a long way.
LangChain Interrupt 2026
📍 San Francisco 📅 May 11–14
The Ask: Bring The Agent Conference to life across two full days of mainstage and workshops, with sponsor and brand experiences as memorable as the content.
Registration and a branded Gallery Hallway, complete with LangChain's signature bird cutouts suspended overhead
Entire street build out with custom trellis, tenting, furniture – the works!
Space for 14 sponsors, led by premier sponsor Cisco
Two live activations built by LangChain and staffed by our team: a player-vs-player coding game and a voice-agent-powered claw machine
Custom built rooftop executive meeting spaces, along with branded boba and other food & beverage offerings – unique to the LangChain VIP priorities
A welcome reception, two days of programming, and a closing after-party for a crowd nearing 1,000
Attendees came in from major fortune 500 companies across the country, and the activations ended up being some of the most talked-about parts of the show.
Great Shows Aren't Built In The Moment
These three events looked nothing alike, and they were just part of a much fuller spring. But each one worked for the same reasons:
✔ The planning happened weeks before anyone walked into the room.
✔ Clear ownership of every workstream.
✔ A real plan for the parts people don't see, from union labor to virtual platforms to a pre-staged book table.
✔ Enough room built into the schedule to handle what a new venue, a new format, or a bigger crowd throws at you.
Thank you to Daytona, Dremio, and LangChain for letting us share their events this season, and to every client, vendor, temp, and crew member across the whole spring who helped pull it all off alongside us.
Looking Ahead
Spring may be behind us, but planning for 2027 is already underway. (Venues are already booking up!)
The strongest events don't come together in the weeks before show day – they're built through thoughtful planning, clear strategy, and the right partners months in advance.
If you're starting to think about your 2027 conference, user event, customer summit, or executive program, now is the time to start the conversation.
And with AWS re:Invent just around the corner, we're looking forward to another exciting season of helping clients create memorable experiences in Las Vegas.
On to the next ones! 💜
