Let’s face it – a lot of digital event activations disappear the moment the booth comes down.
You spent months designing an experience, launched it on the show floor, maybe got a few reposts on LinkedIn… and then it’s gone.
That doesn’t have to be the case.
Web-based interactive experiences aren’t just faster to develop and easier to deploy—they can stretch your event spend long after the badge scanners power down.
Why Most In-Booth Experiences Die After the Show
The problem is simple: most interactives are custom-built for a moment in time. They rely on onsite hardware, local installs, not connected to the internet, and often don’t even have a plan for life after the booth.
That means a killer user interface, engaging motion, or brand story that took weeks to get right is packed up and mothballed in a Pelican case.
What’s worse: post-event follow-up may fall flat, or gets lost in the mix of planning for the next event. A templated PDF or recap email can’t recreate the energy and interaction of what someone just experienced live.
Web-Based Interactives Are Built to Live On
If your interactive is browser-based, it can be reused, re-skinned, and re-shared.
Whether it’s a guided product tour, a gamified quiz, a story driven visualization, or a data capture flow—if it lives on the web, it doesn’t need a trade show floor to function.
Same UX. Same animations. Same story. Just delivered via hyperlink or QR code, not touchscreen.
This means:
You can use the same (or expounded) experience for reps to demo in follow-up meetings.
Embed it in an email campaign post-show for those who missed the in-person fun.
Host it on your site or microsite as part of your long-tail lead capture.
Real Work, Real Life: Houdini Examples
ResMed CES 2025 Booth We built a web-based interactive sleep persona quiz founded in actual science that linked a user to a cohesively branded landing page where the user could learn all about their sleep persona and play an AR filter game in browser. After CES, these same landing pages still lived and were available via email blasts.
Virtual City Sales Explorer Originally designed for in-event kiosk interaction, this branded explorer app was deployed off the trade show floor as a tool for the customer’s sales reps. Teams used it to walk buyers through the experience over Zoom, or even in person on any device they had handy because it was fully responsive.
Thinking Beyond the Booth Starts Early
The trick is not to tack this on after the fact. In our discovery process with our clients, this is one of the questions we ask, and is a direction we encourage our clients to pursue (as applicable).
If you’re thinking about doing a digital interactive experience, ask yourself upfront: “How could we use this beyond the booth?” “What other campaigns could we inject this into?”
Web-based doesn’t mean boring. It means flexible.
The ROI Isn’t in the Floor Space—It’s in the Follow-Up
At Houdini, we design interactive experiences that can outlast the venue.
Because the value isn’t just in the impact of the booth moment. It’s in being able to conjure that same feeling weeks later, when the decision-maker actually opens your email.
If you want a second life for your next booth build, let’s come up with some ideas for you.
In today’s fast-paced digital landscape, communication gaps can slow projects to a crawl. At Houdini, we were challenged by the complexities of gathering clear, consistent feedback from multiple teams using traditional methods like screenshots and lengthy issue logs. It was clear that if everyone couldn’t see exactly what was happening, progress would always be hampered. That’s why we developed
MagicMarkup. MagicMarkup empowers you to annotate your website directly, allowing team members to place simple pins on specific spots and add comments, complete with screenshots or video captures. This in-context feedback means all parties are literally on the same page—no more miscommunication or endless email threads trying to describe an issue. Plus, behind the scenes, MagicMarkup captures vital technical details like browser information, zoom levels, and aspect ratios to help quickly debug and reproduce issues.
With its intuitive admin dashboard, managing feedback is a breeze. You can export all comments to a CSV file and integrate with your preferred project management tools, ensuring full visibility throughout your QA process. And because MagicMarkup is a web-based platform, it even works on mobile—perfect for teams on the go or projects like Houdini’s permanent installations where mobility is key.
Whether you’re a Houdini client or part of any organization seeking to enhance digital project collaboration, MagicMarkup is designed to streamline your workflow and accelerate project delivery. Say goodbye to scattered feedback and hello to a more efficient, engaging way to bring your digital experiences to life.
Watch our video to learn how MagicMarkup transforms problem-solving into a collaborative, transparent, and speedy process—so you can focus on what truly matters: creating amazing digital experiences.
This is a line I learned from one of my previous employers, and it has stuck with me ever since. You’ve probably heard variations on the theme:
GETMO – Good enough to move on.
Make it EXIST first. Make it GOOD later.
Progress over perfection.
Perfect is the enemy of good. – Voltaire
Finished is better than flawless.
In a world overflowing with options, it’s easy to fall into analysis paralysis—and when you mix in anxiety, self-doubt, judgement, and perfectionism, you’ve got the perfect recipe for delay. Sometimes, you never even start.
When building products for clients (or launching anything), we regularly reinforce this mindset. Rarely do we have clients who want to move faster than us, and even more rarely is that a bad thing. Even in our internal reviews, we focus on getting aligned with strategy and requirements as quickly as possible. Without feedback and input, all you’re doing is guessing and pushing pixels around.
As entrepreneurs, we’ve had some incredible ideas over the years—fun products, a Houdini swag shop, productizing our solutions—but we took too long. We didn’t follow our own advice. It isn’t to say that the ideas won’t ever come to life, but the likelihood becomes lower and lower over time. I honestly can’t wait to bring some of them to life!
So, what’s the lesson? What is the strategy to Get it Done?
I once heard a business leader say that every new idea should be tackled as soon as possible—if it’s estimated to take two weeks, how could you do it in one? If it’s a week, how could you do it in a day? Even getting a basic prototype up can prove its worth.
I love this approach, and I have been working on adopting it in my own life. It forces you to strip things down to what actually matters and bring ideas to life faster. Because at the end of the day, progress beats perfection—every time. Even if it means being uncomfortable.
Let us know what your strategies to starting and completing ideas/projects/products are. How have you employed similar approaches?
While we work with a lot of very experienced teams around the world on digital experiences, activations and web-experiences, we work with just as many teams who aren’t regularly doing digital. For those clients, it can be daunting, and there is a lot of information out there that may or may not apply to you and your current situation for B2B and experiential marketing (and plenty of other scenarios, really). Here are 5 regularly consistent points that come up that can save a lot of time, heart-ache, and can seem like a magic wand waving over a project to get it to the finish line efficiently.
The Top 5 Things to Have Prepared
1 of 5: Privacy Policy / Terms & Conditions / Cookie Policy – “The Legalese,” as they say
Ensuring you have your legalese i’s crossed and t’s dotted is about the easiest thing you can get the ball rolling on early, and stay ahead of launching your website or experience. It is way more exciting to see your designs coming together, and playing around with the staging link and doing QA – it just feels like you are making progress and checking off tasks left and right.
But once we get right to the finish line, and the Privacy Policy isn’t ready, or the Terms & Conditions aren’t there, or a fully approved Cookie Policy isn’t sourced (assuming we aren’t the ones providing that), everything comes to a screeching halt and those seatbelts engage in full force. Youch!
So, as soon as you know you are doing a website, whether it is a simple landing page, a small interactive, a web AR experience, start getting these 3 things in motion and approved so that once QA is all done and the kit and kaboodle is ready to launch, you get to roll right into that launch and start cheersing some butter beer.
2 of 5: The Right People in the Room
Nothing is more disappointing than working on an activation that is ready to go live and have some stakeholder who was not included come in and shut the whole thing down, or introduce nearly insurmountable hurdles in the final hour. Sadly, this happens despite our best efforts to avoid this, even after establishing processes to hedge against this.
Some questions to ask as you get into a digital project or activation to help grease the wheels:
Who from the IT team do we need to include in this discussion/project during production to make this as smooth as possible?
Who has the veto authority over this project and any of its deliverables? How can we include them at the right times?
Is this the kind of project that the legal team needs to review? If yes, then get a debrief meeting set asap and get the guardrails defined.
Who from the Brand Management team needs to be included, or the Creative Directors who will have final say on look/feel? They need to be included at the outset of any interactive experience.
3 of 5: Brand Guides and Approved Assets (and the right file types!)
This is one of the first questions we ask when collaborating with an existing brand/IP/company when we are engaged to design an experience. True to having the right people in the room, if we aren’t starting with the right material, things get derailed and potentially shut down.
Every now and again, we encounter a brand/company that doesn’t have a fully fleshed out Brand Guide, or even a curated library of assets that is central to an organization. In these scenarios, lots of questions and check-ins with the Right People in the Room helps to smooth over any potential hangups this can introduce.
Similar to the Brand Guide, what are the approved assets that can be used, or the content that will be implemented into an experience? Who owns them, and are they in a sharable location with our team? This conversation can get started even before signing an SOW with us, and can be refined during a kickoff call so that any and all assets that could be used are prepped and ready for us to run with by the time we get to design.
Now, the prep part of approved assets is potentially a much longer conversation, but a few quickies to pre-heat the cauldron:
In the digital world, we are often trying to work with the largest versions possible, and then we can scale them down. Like a haircut, you can always take hair away, you can’t add it back.
Vector art is what we prefer for brand assets.
Powerpoint is not a design file…
Videos can be compressed/optimized on our end, but it is always helpful if they are compressed for us prior to implementation.
4 of 5: Necessary Access for Integrations
Almost all the web experiences we build have some degree of 3rd party integrations. Whether it is analytics through our partner’s/client’s accounts, CRM integration, or a career embed, we often need to have access to the platforms we are integrating to effectively implement and then test.
For our much larger clients, they have procedures that need to followed to allow either the proper access or the proper permissions to be able to set up the integrations, i.e. API integrations.
One workaround for this for some integrations is to set them up for our clients and pass them over/migrate them to our clients upon launch. That said, the note about procedures/permissions applies, and this approach can’t work for the majority of the integrations we work with.
5 of 5: PII – Who’s Responsible
We work in a lot of different industries, and one thing that is consistent across all industries is respecting PII and everything associated with it. For example, there have been quite a few pharmaceutical projects we have worked on where they strictly do not collect any contact information.
We may say it a lot, but it hasn’t changed: in today’s fast-paced, digitally-driven world, capturing attention is no longer enough for brands seeking to make a meaningful impact. Audiences are bombarded with content daily, and what leaves a lasting impression isn’t just flashy visuals or clever campaigns—it’s experiences that create genuine connections. At Houdini Interactive, we understand that building these connections is the key to driving loyalty, advocacy, and lasting brand success.
The Power of Immersive Experiences
At Houdini Interactive, we’re passionate about pushing the boundaries of immersive technologies like augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR). These tools aren’t just about wowing audiences; they’re about creating moments that resonate emotionally, bridging the gap between brands and their audiences in ways traditional methods cannot.
Our AR and VR solutions are designed to take your audience on a journey. Whether it’s stepping into a fully realized virtual environment, engaging with interactive 3D models, or experiencing the seamless blend of physical and digital—what we like to call “phygital” experiences—our goal is always the same: to forge connections that matter.
Where Innovation Meets Storytelling
Our story began with a vision to revolutionize how brands engage with their audiences. We saw a need for deeper, more meaningful interactions that go beyond mere transactions. By integrating cutting-edge technology with creative storytelling, we’ve been able to transform the way brands connect with their customers.
From permanent digital installations in museums to web-based experiences and gamified product launches, Houdini Interactive has continuously pushed the envelope. Each project is a collaboration, leveraging the strengths of our innovative team and the unique vision of our clients. Together, we create experiences that not only captivate but also inspire.
A Team Committed to Excellence
Behind every Houdini Interactive experience is a team of experts dedicated to delivering the extraordinary. Our team is a blend of creative technologists, designers, and developers who are united by a shared passion for innovation. We thrive on exploring the unknown and turning ideas into realities that exceed expectations.
But innovation isn’t just about technology—it’s about understanding people. That’s why our approach is rooted in empathy and collaboration. We listen closely to the needs of our clients and their audiences, crafting experiences that align with their goals while delivering unforgettable moments of engagement.
Looking Ahead: The Future of Connection
As the digital landscape evolves, so too does our commitment to staying at the forefront of immersive technology. We’re constantly exploring new ways to enhance the connection between brands and their audiences, from advancements in mixed reality to entirely new forms of interactivity.
We believe the future of brand engagement lies in creating experiences that feel personal, impactful, and lasting. It’s about turning passive viewers into active participants and building relationships that transcend the screen.
Let’s Create Something Extraordinary Together
At Houdini Interactive, our mission is to help brands create moments of connection that truly matter. Whether you’re looking to launch a groundbreaking AR campaign, develop a captivating VR experience, or explore entirely new ways to engage your audience, we’re here to bring your vision to life.
In an increasingly digital world, traditional marketing tactics are no longer enough to capture and retain the attention of today’s consumers. Brands need to find new and innovative ways to engage their audience, to create experiences that not only grab attention but also leave a lasting impression.
At Houdini Interactive, we understand the power of immersive experiences in capturing the hearts and minds of consumers. That’s why we’ve dedicated ourselves to pushing the boundaries of what’s possible with augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR) technology, web-based experiences and gamification (and so much more) to create experiences that are not just seen but felt.
Our journey began with a simple idea: to transform brand engagement through the power of interaction. We believed that by creating immersive experiences that blur the lines between the physical and digital worlds (insert buzz word “phygital”), we could forge deeper connections between brands and their audience, connections that go beyond transactional interactions to become meaningful relationships.
From the very beginning, our focus has been on innovation. We’ve invested in cutting-edge technology and assembled a team of creative minds and creative technologists who are passionate about pushing the limits of what’s possible. Together, we’ve developed a broad range of immersive solutions that are designed to meet the diverse needs of today’s brands, from digital interactive permanent installs at museums to virtual product experiences.
But our journey is about more than just technology; it’s about people. It’s about understanding the needs and desires of our clients and their audiences and using our expertise to create experiences that resonate on a deeper level. It’s about collaboration and partnership, working hand in hand with our clients to bring their vision to life.
As we look to the future, our commitment to innovation remains unwavering. We’re constantly exploring new technologies and techniques, seeking out new ways to create experiences that captivate and inspire and tell a meaningful story. We’re excited to continue our journey, to push the boundaries of what’s possible and to redefine brand engagement for the digital age.
So, if you’re ready to transform your brand engagement and create experiences that truly resonate with your audience, we invite you to join us on this journey. Connect with Houdini Interactive today and let’s create something extraordinary together. #BrandEngagement #Innovation #ConnectWithUs
commerical or professional procedures that are accepted or prescribed as being correct or most effective
🤔 Recenly, I sat in a meeting with a think-tank team made up of capable, invested and determined-to-get-things-right-this-time-people. The question for this particular session was: what are the blue-sky ideas that you would implement if you had the power, authority and resources to do so?
10 minutes into our discussion it hit me… we were over-valuing experience and under-estimating our imagination. All I was hearing were best practices. Simple, low-hanging fruit, easy win ideas that honestly could be implemented simply by someone choosing to do it at a regular rhythm, with follow-up that involved collaboration with at least one other person. That’s not to say they weren’t great ideas. I just wasn’t hearing them as original.
🧙 Then I tossed out what I thought was the first truly blue-sky idea I’d heard all meeting: we need a magic harry-potter sorting hat that helps guide people to where they should be based on more than just logistics, ie, time, place, etc.
What I was getting at is we need to lean into our creative strength and turn that weird but strangely accurate wizard hat into a digital product. That it needs to be so good, so precise and so well built for the long run that you can’t deny how spot on it was in leading you to where you needed to be.
We do a lot more reimagining of best practices than actually using our imagination.
Have you ever tried to Google a question like this:
Tips for building a great website.
How much does a mobile app cost?
Keys to marketing that works.
Ways to skin a cat.
What do you usually get as results in your search? Stuff like this probably…
7 Keys that Don’t Work for Business Today
12 Ways You Can Improve Your Website
19 Essentials to a Great Mobile App
(According to most, there are 50 ways to skin a cat.)
‘Best practices’ are simply the average of what everyone else has already done. Here’s the reality: you’re never going to find innovation rooted in a best practice.
So here’s the question for you this week: if you had the power, authority and resources — what would your blue sky idea be? Use your imagination.
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