Following her panel at Event Tech Live on 11 November 2026, Conference News sat down with Claudia Stephenson, managing director EMEA at INVNT to discuss..
The panel, titled ‘The Data Behind the Feeling: Shifting Audience Engagement’, which she sat on alongside Joel Steel, CEO and co-founder of Komo, Ian Cumming, CEO of Nteractive and Rob O’Siochain, head of growth at TRO, explore where technology genuinely earns its place in audience and fan engagement and what agency’s actually measure.
Stephenson said: “The panel was really focused on technology and its impact on experiences. For myself, Rob and Ian, as people leading businesses, we’re not necessarily in the weeds of technology. We’re thinking about the impact of audiences, and in my view that’s the most important thing to understand before we get into what the tech is.”
Start with the brief
For INVNT, the first question on any brief isn’t which technology to use, but what the client is actually trying to achieve and the tech partners only join the conversation once that’s been answered.
Stephenson said: “For us the technology comes after the fact. Once you understand what you’re trying to accomplish, that’s what the drives the experience and the return on engagement.”
She added: “At INVNT we’re focused on telling the best possible story about a brand. We wouldn’t necessarily bring in a technology partner while we’re coming up with ideas. First, we need to understand the brief and the strategy and create the idea.”
Once that’s done, the agency brings in its head of production and technology partners to develop the idea further, because they see things through a different lens. Stephenson said: “We’re thinking about the idea. Prouction are thinking about how we deliver it, and the technology providers are thinking, ‘I’ve got something really cool that could help bring that idea to life,”
So when a client asks for something like a really big screen, her answer is to hold on. She said: “I’ll tell them, don’t think about the execution yet. Let’s first understand what you’re trying to achieve. Then we can choose the best technology to bring that idea to life, rather than starting with the tech.”
She added: “Let’s first try and understand what are you trying to accomplish, what are you trying to achieve? The technology can come after the fact, and let’s name and assign the best technology to be able to bring that idea to life, as opposed to going to tactical execution and delivery of tech.”
Stephenson gave the example of an annual awards event INVNT runs for an investment banking firm. Around 500 people attend, and one of the client’s frustrations was that only those on the premium tables at the front felt as though they were really a part of it.
The solution was “a stage set that extended around”, so the content could be viewed whether guests were at the front of the space or further back. Stephenson said: “So that is one where, as well, tech comes much later in the idea and the solution. It was actually how do we create and make everyone feel as though they’ve got that front row seat.”
Every piece of tech needs a job to do
INVNT’s other rule for event tech is that it has to earn its place. It must deliver the outcome the client wants, and the agency must be able to measure it. Stephenson said: “It’s got to have purpose.”
She used facial recognition to illustrate the point. She wouldn’t recommend it unless it served a clear objective. If a client wanted 5,000 brand impressions, for example, and the technology could show that 5,000 people had looked at a piece of content, it would be worth using.
That matters to attendees too, who don’t want their faces tracked for no reason. For Stephenson, it comes down to scale. At a mass-participation event with 30,000 people, being able to show that 10,000 passed through a particular activation or demo proves the agency reached them. She said: “But for smaller conferences, there would be no point in that. But for mass audiences, there’s real value in that.”
Make it personal, make it invisible:
Stephenson believes that one of the best uses of technology within events is for personalisation. She explained: “The ability for it to be personalised ensures that it means something to that individual. I use the WIFN analogy – what’s in it for me. Am I going to get something out of it? Is it going to give me something that’s interesting and personal to me?”
She uses the example of stickers as event swag. If you just give people a random sheet of stickers to take home, they will probably just end up in the bin, but if you give them personalised stickers then it is much more meaningful.
Ask anyone what they remember from an event two or three years on, and it’s rarely a statistic on a slide. For Stephenson, that’s the whole point of building experiences around emotion – something that personalisation can help. She said: “You won’t forget a particular experience that you may have had.”
She used an example of an AI Music Factory at a previous event. Guests answered a couple of questions and walked away with a piece of music written just for them, pressed into a personalised LP sleeve. The song may have had nothing to do with what the brand was selling, but that didn’t matter. Stephenson said: “They remember being at that event and spending those two days, learning about whatever they learned about, but actually had this little fun takeaway that was a personalised piece of content they can refer back to. It means a lot.”
As well as technology being personal, INVNT also believe it should be invisible. Stephenson said: “The best use of tech, ensure that it feels invisible, that it doesn’t feel as though there is technology going on with it. I don’t want to know the hours of programming, the weeks of programming that happened that were required for that use of technology, but that it actually felt personalised and invisible. You just want it to be very seamless and simple.”
Find out what happens after people leave
The session description noted that while every brand wants a room to feel something, not as many can say what happens after.
When asked how agencies can capture what happens once attendees leave, Stephenson said it is usually in the follow up conversations. If an event has good lead generation, that can be passed to the sales team to make sure there is prompt follow-up.
Follow-up surveys can also help. Stephenson said that if there is a small incentive, such as a £5 voucher, and only three questions, brands are likely to be able to measure sentiment. She said: “If you’re going into a 20-question survey, you’re just not going to get it. People are not going to do it. Don’t bother. What are the most important three questions.”
She also pointed to the “happy to sad” gauge used at airport security, which asks people how their experience was. Brands are more likely to receive post event feedback if it is simple and quick for guests to do.
An example of an activation that INVNT have done is a simple activation at XeroCon called ‘Air Your Dirty Laundry’. At the end of the activation there was a phone booth that gave guests the opportunity to give feedback about the experience and the product. Stephenson said: “People felt so positive about the entire experience that they were happy to step into the booth and give honest feedback.”
Some told the brand it had made their day because they had learned something new. Others shared a “little niggle” they still had with the innovation on show, and something they wanted solved because it was “not quite hitting the mark”. This activation allowed for authentic follow ups from the team, which she believes is pretty critical.
For INVNT, even tech always comes back to the brief. Whether it’s a stage set, a facial recognition camera or a phone booth at the end of an activation, the technology only earns its place if it serves what the client is trying to achieve, and if someone follows up afterwards on what attendees said.