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Case Study · VisuAIse Futures

How MAD//Fest turned a keynote audience into qualified traffic for its exhibitors.

MAD//Fest London · The Truman Brewery · July 2026
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100+ marketers were asked to sketch the AI tool or solution that would make their work more human. AI turned every sketch into a concept – providing a unique snapshot of what the industry wants from AI. But then we went one step further, matching every idea to the exhibitors on the MAD//Fest floor already building it.

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The Problem

Every event floor has the same broken handshake.

An audience full of problems on one side, exhibitors full of solutions on the other – and a surprisingly poor track record of getting the two to actually meet.

1

Events need exhibitors.

Sponsors and exhibitors underwrite the whole show – the floor, the stands, the economics of the thing. But they buy that space on a promise: that the right people will walk up and start a conversation. Applause in the keynote room doesn't pay that invoice. Footfall at the booth does.

2

Audiences don't want to be sold to.

Nobody wants to sit through another "sponsored keynote" – or, worse, a platitude-filled panel. The moment a stage starts to feel like an ad, the room checks out.

3

Traditional matching is blunt.

Everyone ignores the matches that amount to "you work at Company X, so are you interested in Booth Y?" Badge-data targeting knows your employer and your job title – it has no idea what problem you actually walked in trying to solve.

A World First

Nobody had connected a keynote audience's imagination to a show floor before. So we built the loop.

Every sketch named a problem – and AI found who in the building was already solving it. Each doodle became a concept on the big screen, then got matched to the exhibitors closest to solving it: a personal guide, on the sketcher's own phone, before they'd left their seat. Matched on the problem they'd drawn sixty seconds earlier – not the job title on their badge.

The Experience

Every sketch became a concept. Then a reason to visit a stand.

Real, unretouched sketches, drawn by hand in the room at MAD//Fest London. Every one became its own AI concept – and its own exhibitor match.

Vision wall, live

The room watched its own imagination take shape

Every sketch was scanned by QR code and returned as a polished AI concept on the big screen – the room's collective imagination, filling up in real time.

Personalised guide

AI matched the idea to the floor

Each concept was read against the MAD//Fest exhibitor list and matched to the stands most likely to solve it – no generic directory, just a shortlist worth their time.

Seat to stand

The match landed on their phone

Attendees left the keynote already knowing which booths to walk to first – and why, in their own words, sketched sixty seconds earlier.

Three real results pages from the room – watch each one scroll down to its "go say hi" shortlist of exhibitors, matched to that idea.

How The Loop Closed, Live

From first sketch to a reason to walk the floor, inside one session.

Most keynote content peaks on stage and fades by the coffee break. This one kept working after the applause – all the way onto the show floor.

On stage

100+ marketers sketch the AI tool they wish existed

One shared prompt, framed by the keynote: the AI tool or solution that would make their work more human. Pen and paper, no artistic skill required.

Seconds later

Every sketch becomes a concept, on the vision wall

A QR scan analyses each doodle, turning it into a rich image gallery and business plan – on participants' phones and on the big screen – so the room could watch its own ideas flowing in.

Before they stood up

AI matches the idea to the exhibitors already in the building

The world-first step: each concept is matched to the MAD//Fest exhibitors closest to solving it, and sent as a personal guide to the sketcher's phone.

Same day

The signal report and comic go live

A read of all 76 ideas – themes, tensions, white space, a crowd-powered manifesto, and an eight-page comic drawn from the room's own sketches.

Read the Signal Report
Watch it happen

Just over a minute inside the room.

Sketches, the vision wall, and the match landing on people's phones – the whole loop, live at MAD//Fest London.

From the stage and the floor

What the festival's founder and an exhibitor made of it.

“An innovative way to take people from the stage to a place where we can work out if we're the right supplier for them.”

Tom Ollerton

Tom Ollerton

Founder, Automated Creative · MAD//Fest exhibitor

“An incredible live experiment – taking stage content, getting the audience involved, using AI in a completely frictionless way to drive connections in a way that's very difficult to achieve.”

Dan Brain

Dan Brain

Founder, MAD//Fest

The Reaction

What the marketers in the room actually felt.

52responses
96%rated it positively

He spoke truthfully and addressed the elephant in the room about the data and how we deal with it.

Very responsive with ideas and creative feedback to personal thoughts on your work and job role.

Super fun and interactive.

Very insightful! Loved it.

Great talk with supporting info.

Engaging and fun.

He spoke truthfully and addressed the elephant in the room about the data and how we deal with it.

Very responsive with ideas and creative feedback to personal thoughts on your work and job role.

Super fun and interactive.

Very insightful! Loved it.

Great talk with supporting info.

Engaging and fun.

Feedback collected via Talkadot, unfiltered. See the room's full feedback →

The Deliverables

Leaving MAD//Fest with far more than just a PPT deck.

The session itself sent qualified attention to the show floor. But it also left the room – and MAD//Fest itself – with content worth publishing.

01

Signal report

A strategic read of all 76 ideas: themes, tensions, the white space, and a crowd-powered manifesto for more-human marketing.

02

"The Human Touch" comic

The room's ideas, inked as an eight-page comic – strategic doesn't have to mean dry.

03

A bank of data to query

Every idea consolidated into a single .md file, ready to drop into any LLM and interrogate for insights.

View the signal report
Your Event

Can we send your next audience to the floor, too?

Most keynotes end when the applause does. Yours doesn't have to.

I built VisuAIse Futures because an audience's own imagination is the most powerful asset you have at your shows – and MAD//Fest proved it can be worth more to your exhibitors, too.

This idea emerged out of the idea-to-agenda session matching we launched at SXSW earlier this year – it's so exciting that we can now build almost anything that you can imagine, and in days not months.

If you'd like your next keynote to send qualified people to your sponsors' stands, or something else that solves your biggest pain point, then I'd love to hear from you.

Henry Coutinho-Mason
henry@coutinho-mason.com
Henry Coutinho-Mason

Ready to turn your next keynote into show-floor traffic?

If you're planning an event with exhibitors, sponsors or a commercial floor to prove right, let's talk about what a VisuAIse Futures session could deliver.

See how it works →