Great Success: Sixteen:Nine Mixer Well-Received (But I Need Pix!)

February 3, 2023 by Dave Haynes

The curious element of the digital signage industry “mixer” events that I have been doing since forever is that as they have grown in size and scope, I experience less and less of the event.

I spent most of last night’s event in Barcelona outside the venue entrance, welcoming people and taking advantage of relative quiet, so I could hear people. I hired a classical guitarist, so the background music was not loud, but put 200 people drinking and chatting into a pavilion and it will be unavoidably loud.

This road trip has cemented the need for me to suck it up and get hearing aids. I blame my time covering rock music in the early 80s, and a Johnny Winter concert I was sent to write about – which had amplifiers that went past 11 (Spinal Tap reference for the older readers).

The venue was lovely, picked out by the signage awards people we shared the venue with for the evening. It was in a park on a mountain overlooking the city, and across the road from the 1992 Barcelona Olympics pool venue. But the taxi drivers did not know it, so people were getting dropped off above the site, well below it, and so on. A couple of guys squirted out of the woods and onto the plaza, having been let off at the wrong spot.  If that site gets used again, I’ll organize instructions and get someone to pre-order some cabs for people spilling out after.

We had a red carpet, though that was – I think – for the awards. But it looked nice.

One of the things we tried this time around – and this will sound nuts – is we used digital signage hardware, software and custom creative in the venue for the evening.

Sponsor Videri – an interesting NYC company that has a very supportive “whale” client in Red Bull – brought in dozens of its “Canvas” screens that were then positioned around the circular room, plus two tall ones at the entry. Some were in matrix set-ups, others standalone.

Screenfeed pulled together, with Videri, sponsor recognition content and more general event messaging. We even did a domination creative piece that signalled to those who were there for the mixer AND THEN the awards to head upstairs to the dining hall.

Screenfeed founder Jeremy Gavin asked me weeks ago if there was a way to maybe put the faces of key people from sponsoring companies on the screens – so attendees could find them more easily in the crowd.

I roughed out the idea and Jeremy’s team used its data-driven Connect platform to pull it together. So each sponsor had a content piece that cycled through a logo, key statement, and then headshots, names and titles of key people from sponsors.

The pic here shows what one of the segments looked like (ignore the tech stuff in the corner that was on there just during set-up).

It looked great and something I will do going forward with events like this.

Thanks one more time for the support of these companies. These mixers don’t happen without their financial support, and in the case of Videri, a lot of tech. They had a bunch of people there last night and when the event shut down, even the execs were helping with tear-down (their custom screens are specifically tuned to the needs of clients like Red Bull to go up and come down quickly.)

I took almost zero pix because I was too busy greeting and chatting, but there was a pro photographer there and lotsa people taking their own shots. I’ll post more as they come in.

For those who attended, thank you.

Final note: even my legendarily cranky British friend Adrian liked the event! High praise, indeed, though he noted he particularly liked the well-made G&T from the bar.

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Eight companies have stepped up to sponsor (thank you!) – with those funds covering a variety of costs like the venue, food, booze and staffing. The sponsors for the 2023 Mixer are: