In an era where audiences expect connection, creativity and measurable outcomes, immersive experiences have become more than just a buzzword; they’re a strategic tool for business impact.
In this exclusive interview, Johanna Walsh, VP of Event Production at Encore, shares how her team is helping organizations move beyond traditional event formats to design experiences that both engage and drive results. In this article, we’ll explore how the most forward-thinking event leaders are aligning creative storytelling with data and measurable ROI, to create business impact across their organizations.
The word “immersive” gets used in many ways today. From your perspective, what defines an immersive experience in a corporate context?
Johanna: “Immersive” in a corporate context is about taking attendees out of their day-to-day lives, providing a bit of suspension of reality in order to create environments that can promote learning, motivate organizations, and drive core messaging. It is a tactic that allows attendees to focus on the events’ content for maximum absorption.
According to our Future-Ready Leadership Whitepaper, innovation still represents a small share of the industry’s focus, with only 8% of budgets dedicated to innovation and most teams implementing just 1–5 new formats in the past 12–18 months.
Why do you think creativity and innovation continue to be under-prioritized in corporate events, and how are you seeing leading organizations reframe them as genuine drivers of business impact rather than “nice-to-have” elements?
Johanna: There are probably an endless amount of factors that contribute to underprioritizing innovation and the Future-Ready Leadership Whitepaper provides valuable insight. This will be a familiar tune for most planning teams: Events are typically run by a small, but mighty team who are already overleveraged on driving PERFECT experiences whether it be in registration, line management, sponsor load in, meal service, bus coordination, emergency services – and planning each element of their event 3 times over for contingencies. We all get so close to the details to make our events function, having the runway to experiment and innovate can be a luxury. The clients that I see making bolder commitments are doing two things:
1 - Define what creativity and innovation means to them, their organization, and their attendees. Innovation without intension will land flat almost every time.
2 - Finding efficiencies from when they have the financial and support for creative and innovation for their larger events and simultaneously translating the scale for their smaller programs.
At Encore we have several clients that partner with us for their tentpole program scenic and staging. We simultaneously design modified versions of the annual event set that are modular and can be utilized in smaller ballrooms and meeting spaces. This provides continuity of branding and messaging for the year as well as a strategic investment in bolder elements for smaller programs.
How do you think event leaders should measure the impact of immersion strategically to achieve tangible business outcomes?
Johanna: The key indicator of a successful immersion strategy is attendee engagement before, during, and after your event – based on your goals for the program. While I was working at an experiential marketing firm, we designed a high-end immersive environment (theatrical lighting, custom fabrication, gorgeous floor to ceiling graphics that transported you to a different world) that was specifically a learning environment for developers. We had great participation statistics from all of the activations and labs but the most telling to me was from the RFID scanners we placed at the entrance – we found the attendees never left the space! The developers kept finding sessions, learning labs, demos, lectures, and games to play. Attending the event was a step on the developers wholistic learning journey on and offline. Being a part of that event was always a master class in holding the attendee journey completely aligned to the overall event goals – which justified the investment in creativity and innovation do drive increased participation from developers and administrators of the core product.
With so many tools on the market, how can event teams identify which technologies genuinely deepen audience engagement rather than add unnecessary complexity?
Johanna: There are a sea of tools and technology available to event teams. The best way to identify the tool best for your event is to be extremely clear on what you want the tool to accomplish. Write a comprehensive brief on your user experience goals, your back end management requirements, and (critical) your data and reporting must haves. You don’t have to speak programming language, but as the person who represents the corporation and the attendees, communicating your outcomes will clear out a lot of the noise. And make sure it integrates into your current systems. No one needs another manual data integration in their lives.
Our Future-Ready Leadership research also found earlier this year that while 69% of senior event leaders are using AI, 65% use it primarily for copywriting, with few applying it to ideation or operations.
AI’s potential goes far beyond copywriting. By leveraging AI for strategic analysis, ideation, and actionable planning, event leaders can unlock new levels of creativity and operational efficiency. Familiarity and intentional experimentation are the keys to realizing AI’s full value.
Johanna: Ha! I am using AI for a lot of copy writing! Including for this article. I think adoption is something that just takes time and muscle memory. I’m so programmed to Google everything and I forget that I have a tool available that can go to completely different levels of data gathering, analytics, and actionable summaries integrated into all of my workflows (shot out to Co-Pilot!). But I have started to use it more broadly – AI is removing the anxiety of starting with a blank page and instead presenting me with options for review and adoption to my specific needs. That saves me crazy time in building business cases or driving change management frameworks, things I’ve learned over time or at business school, that can take a little longer to unlock in my brain. I think the challenge is more “oh, I can ask it that?” and familiarity with the breath of information it can bring back to you. One of the most impactful things I’ve started to experiment with are asking AI to do SWOT analysis and draft out actionable timelines to improve the weaknesses, build on the opportunities, and take on threats. (shot out to Whitney L Barkley who spoke at my local MPI chapter luncheon with this concept). Input your website, your session abstracts, and attendee comments, ask it to also look at “all available information” give it a few minutes, and have it come back with an well thought out plan to drive your event to it’s next level of experience, creative, and innovation. My jaw dropped with the quality of assessment and next steps when I asked AI to do a SWOT of my personal brand.
As we look ahead to 2026 and beyond, what advice would you give teams aiming to better connect creativity and technology to deliver measurable business impact?
Johanna: My number one piece of advice when looking to connect creativity and technology to deliver measurable business impact is to be intentional. Be intentional about how you want people to think or feel when they leave your event. Be intentional about what you want to inspire them to do. Be intentional about your content. The creativity and technology are only vehicles or canvases for your message. When you start with the message, goals, desired attendee outcomes, we (or any production partner) can tailor experiences that bring your intentions to life. And then and on the innovation or trend that is right for your attendees. By being intentional you can communicate the investment clearly to your stakeholders and ensure your attendees have maximum engagement within your event.