Running the Show for 1,500 AI Engineers, 11 Rooms, and Hundreds of Live Changes
The AI Engineer World’s Fair brought the biggest names in technical AI to San Francisco:
More than 30 companies on the exhibit floor, over 100 speakers giving talks and workshops, about 1,500 people in the building, and thousands more watching online.
Talon AV was brought in to oversee all of the audiovisual technology and to keep the whole thing moving.
A Talon Audio Visual breakout producer preps a session room ahead of doors at the AI Engineer World’s Fair.
Photo courtesy AI Engineer World's Fair 2024
The Challenge
This was a show with a lot of moving parts, and the parts kept moving. Eleven breakout rooms ran alongside a General Session that split apart and came back together twice a day. Speakers and content changed mid-show, which meant the run-of-show was being rewritten while it was happening. And because this was a technical audience, the stage was full of live demos that needed rock-solid network connections, complex AV routing, and custom audio filters. When your speakers are demoing the product on stage, “it usually works” isn’t good enough.
Talon put in hundreds of hours of pre-production planning, then led the team on the ground. That meant technical production for the entire event, serving as Show Caller for the General Sessions, and managing a dozen breakout producers and more than 40 union technicians and stagehands across all 11 rooms. When changes came in, producers, graphics technicians, and presenters stayed in close contact so updates landed without interrupting the show already in progress.
The Details
Client: AI Engineer World’s Fair
Location: San Francisco Marriott Marquis, San Francisco, CA
Event Type: Technical AI Conference
Headcount: ~1,500 in-person attendees, thousands online, 100+ speakers, 30+ exhibitors
Duration: Multi-day conference
Services: Technical production, AV oversight, General Session show calling, breakout production management, live demo support
Talon Audio Visual’s production team runs show control backstage at the AI Engineer World’s Fair, managing live demos, slides, and video across 11 rooms running in parallel.
Photo courtesy AI Engineer World's Fair 2024
How We Solved It
A show this big only works if everyone knows their part and can adjust quickly when it changes.
Spent hundreds of hours in pre-production planning before load-in
Oversaw all audiovisual technology across the General Session, 11 breakout rooms, and the livestream
Called the General Sessions, including the twice-daily split and recombine of the main room
Managed a dozen breakout producers and more than 40 IATSE Local 16 technicians and stagehands
Coordinated producers, graphics technicians, and presenters to push last-minute speaker and content changes into the run-of-show without interrupting the live show
Worked directly with speakers on their last-minute needs, including network connections, AV routing, and custom audio filters for live demos
Photo courtesy AI Engineer World's Fair 2024
The Outcome
The show held together across every room, every schedule change, and every live demo. Argus HD and their partners brought strong leadership and expertise, the IATSE Local 16 crew showed up with skill and dedication all week, and the banquets and event services teams at the Marriott Marquis went out of their way, adjusting room setups and reset times, crew meals, and security schedules to support the production. The complexity and scale pushed everyone to grow, and the team left with a stronger sense of what they can do together and a real excitement to build an even better show next year.