Mad, the award-winning audiovisual and interactive system designer and integrator, will be present at IAAPA Expo, where it has taken a meeting room at the TEA booth, #S805, rather than a product stand.
The company invites designers, owners, integrators, and media producers to join them for a focused conversation on one key challenge.
Limited sessions are available from 17 to 20 November and can be booked here.
Maris J. Ensing, founder of Mad Systems, says: "Continuity, personalization, and accessibility are our daily work, and the next layer is already in development.
"We want to spend the week talking about your project. Bring us the problem that has seemed difficult to solve, and let's talk about how our technologies and your creativity can create the extraordinary experiences of the twenty-first century."
See also: IAAPA Expo 2026: the innovations, ideas and experiences to watch
One specific problem
IAAPA Expo attendees can book a meeting with Mad to explore a specific problem from a project planned for 2027 to 2029.
When considering a session, the company recommends focusing on five particular conversations: continuity, a second reason to return, one show for every visitor, infrastructure an IT department can keep running, and what happens when an AI-directed system is wrong.
For many attractions, each character or interactive starts from scratch, with no continuity of information about what the guest has done previously.
With CheshireCat® recognition, an experience recognises a guest across scenes using tokens such as RFID tags, NFC via phones, and facial recognition, among others, so each stop can pick up where the last one left off. Recognition-driven continuity is well established in Mad client venues.
The company also welcomes conversations around reasons to return. When characters are equipped with a controlled Body of Knowledge, the same collection can be explored with a different guide on each visit. The conversations can change, without the exhibit needing to.
Mad will showcase how Alice® can carry that knowledge across characters and interactives, and onto the visitor's own phone.
The team will also share how the Lory® technology delivers languages, captions, and hearing assistance in sync with shared presentations. The channel, which can also provide sign-language content and Braille, brings translations, captions, and hearing assistance together in a single show rather than as separate versions.
With Alice, the content can adapt by age and interest, embedding accessibility into the experience.
Furthermore, delegates are invited to bring a problem connected to the reliability of their audiovisual infrastructure. To address AV hardware that cannot be sourced when it fails, Mad's AV++® architecture shifts audiovisual processing and show control onto standard, off-the-shelf computing hardware.
This can be maintained without specialist skills, and capabilities can be added as they mature without rebuilding the installation.
Finally, the team invites conversations on what happens when an AI-directed system is wrong. Giving a command does not ensure that it achieves its purpose. The aim is an intelligent environment that knows what it is authorised to do, what it can verify, and when a person needs to decide.
Mad will discuss WorldModel™ and Mad Intelligence™, which are in development.
It expects that the same architecture will soon connect to ticketing, building management, and other systems that often stand alone. This seeks to deliver fully integrated solutions through a single architecture, creating a consistent visitor experience from arrival to departure.
Attendees visiting #S805 can also experience a head-tracked spatial audio demonstration of Hatter™ (Beyond DSP), Mad's latest technology, which surpasses the capabilities normally associated with digital signal processing.
Last month, Mad Systems Inc. revealed a new identity, Mad, which positions forward-thinking architecture for intelligent venues at the heart of its work.
Rebecca Hardy has over 10 years' experience in the culture and heritage sector. She studied Fine Art at university and has written for a broad range of creative organisations including artists, galleries, and retailers. When she's not writing, she spends her time getting lost in the woods and making mud pies with her young son.
