Photos courtesy of Sparks
LAS VEGAS — CES® 2025, produced by the Consumer Technology Association®, took over Las Vegas once again Jan. 7-10, bringing together the most influential voices in the technology world. As a show that spans more than 2.5 million square feet, CES welcomes a large cohort of exhibitors — this year reporting more than 4,000 exhibitors across its 12 official venues. One of those exhibitors, Siemens, partnered with Freeman’s AV team and agency, Sparks, to bring its exhibit to life at the Las Vegas Convention Center’s North Hall.
Trade Show Executive was on the ground at the show and met with Adam Charles, Chief Growth Officer of Sparks, and Stacey Gromlich, Senior Director, Audience Engagement and Global Events at Siemens, to talk about what goes into bringing a vision as grand as Siemens to life on a show floor where innovation and wow-moments are the norm.
Meeting Exhibitor Goals with Exhibit Features
“Siemens is the leader in engineering software and manufacturing and are a European household name, and that is not the case in the United States. They [U.S. consumers] may not be recognizing Siemens because they don’t know the innovations created utilizing our products and services, which impact them personally, locally, and globally,” said Gromlich. “Our goal is to create the wow and awareness in how Siemens is giving our customers the confidence to take leaps in their industries by fundamentally transforming how industry operates, the impact industry has and the products that are revolutionizing our lives. We’re creating the technologies to enable an adaptive future.”
In order to bring more awareness to Siemens in the U.S. market, Sparks helped bring customer stories to life along with Freeman A/V delivering seamless audio-visual solutions, and a journey through the exhibit that demonstrated how products leveraging Siemens technology are already impacting them on a personal, community and global level.
This year’s exhibit also included a 270-degree immersive theatre that used video to give an overview of the Siemens brand, its goals and a preview of the customer stories featured in the exhibit. The theatre allowed exhibit visitors to get a taste of the brand before diving deeper into the case uses, allowing them to understand the brand with minimal effort on their part.
Related. CES 2025 Dives In on Innovation and Progress in Las Vegas
Intentional Design and Flow
This year, the Siemens exhibit moved from a more center position to closer to the front entrance of the show floor in the North Hall. Along with positioning themselves in a stronger location, the Siemens and Sparks team took feedback from last year’s visitors to update the configuration of the exhibit, ultimately trying to create a clearer and more seamless path through the exhibit.
“If you approach [the exhibit] from the main side, it’s open and inviting to come in. You can see into that theater area, so we draw people in that way,” Charles said. “But the biggest difference, I think, is that Siemens is selling their product stories from the perspective of the user, from the story that’s happening where the technology gets in. That’s very different [from other CES exhibitors]. They’re not telling any story about the widgets and technology in there, it is how it gets utilized. And people can choose how deep they want to dive into this technology and these stories with this design.”
Charles also said that having a separate space for one-to-one meetings is also important for the staff to meet with B2B visitors and sectioning off where people check in and can wait for meetings gives a more intimate feeling compared to the rest of the exhibit. The meetings area included a water station and comfy chairs, separated from where the meetings take place.
Depending on who the exhibit visitor is and what their priorities are, the Siemens staff is able bring them to a specific point in the journey that applies best to them. For example, if someone is a grid engineer, they would start their exhibit experience in the community’s area because their work is impacting on a community-level.
“Another key component to our strategy was ensuring we incorporated dimensional engagement as everyone consumes information differently. In each scenario you could engage with a tactile, visual, auditory, or personal expert (one on one) experience which really immerses you in these experiences” said Gromlich.
Walking the Walk on Sustainability
From a sustainability perspective, the Siemens exhibit reused a lot of existing materials and signage to cut down on their consumption — and cost. By reconfiguring the exhibit, rather than rebuilding it, they were able to successfully reuse digital screens, customer meeting space and other components, saving $1 million on exhibiting costs from 2024, according to Gromlich.
“We started with the outcomes we wanted to achieve with this years’ experience and then assessed what we had and how we could reconfigure to meet our goals. This saves us all time, effort, resources and most importantly spend, she said.
The exhibit leaning into sustainability is on-brand for Siemens, when so many of the customer stories revolve around the topic of sustainability and a more circular economy.
“For me what I love about Siemens is the way they have the courage to tell the stories that matter, and we can bring that to life. Their stories are world changing, and these businesses and products are incredible. [It aligns with Sparks’ own values because] we’re all here to make the world a better place,” Charles said.
