An AI interactive game for an exhibition is a branded game played on a large screen, a projection surface or a touch wall, where the player is tracked by camera-based pose estimation, gesture recognition or touch input rather than a controller. The game is short by design, scores each play, and writes a record — play time, score, language, opt-in and any captured contact detail — that can be joined to the visitor's registration and pushed to a CRM.
Built as two things at once: an activation that earns a queue, and an instrument that tells you who stood in it.
- 60–120 second play, designed for show-floor traffic
- Gesture, motion, touch or RFID input — no controller
- Arabic and English in the same build
- Every play returns an engagement record
Why most stand activations under-perform
A show floor gives a stand about three seconds of peripheral attention. Most activations lose in those three seconds because there is nothing to see happening — a screen showing an idle loop reads as signage, and people walk past signage. The activations that work show a person visibly doing something, because a body in motion is what the eye catches from ten metres away.
The second failure is the debrief. The agency reports a play count and a photo set; the marketing director is asked what it was worth and has no answer, because the game never knew who was playing. Play count is attendance, not engagement, and it cannot be joined to the pipeline. The third failure is operational: a game built for a demo video needs a technician standing beside it all day, and a five-minute play length means the queue that made it look successful is the same queue that turns people away by 11:00.
- An idle screen reads as signage; visible motion is what stops traffic.
- Play count is not engagement — it cannot be joined to a pipeline.
- Play length above about two minutes converts a queue into abandonment.
- Calibration that drifts under show lighting means a technician babysits the game all day.
- Arabic added after the build usually breaks the layout rather than the language.
Solution overview
Swedish Technology builds the game and the data layer as one system. The mechanic is chosen against the stand's real constraint — floor depth, ceiling height, ambient light, expected footfall — and the play is deliberately short, typically sixty to ninety seconds, so the queue keeps moving and the visible motion never stops.
Input is whatever suits the space: camera-based pose estimation for full-body play, hand and gesture recognition for a wall the visitor never touches, capacitive touch for a table, or an RFID or NFC tap where the visitor already carries an event credential. Inference runs on an edge machine at the stand, so the game does not depend on show-floor Wi-Fi and no video leaves the stand. Score, duration, language, prize outcome and any opt-in are written to an engagement record that can be joined to the visitor's registration and pushed to your CRM.
How the solution works
- 1Attract An attract loop shows a previous player's silhouette or a live leaderboard, so the screen always displays motion rather than a static brand panel.
- 2Detect and onboard The system detects a person entering the play zone and starts the flow, prompting for language first. No queue manager or staff member is required to begin a play.
- 3Calibrate A three-second pose or touch calibration adapts to the player's height and reach and to current lighting, which is what keeps accuracy stable from morning setup to evening spotlights.
- 4Play Sixty to ninety seconds of scored play. Difficulty adapts within the round so a child and an executive both finish with a score they are willing to show.
- 5Score and reward The result posts to a leaderboard and, where a prize mechanic is used, draws against controlled prize inventory rather than a random number.
- 6Capture and hand off The player is offered their score, photo or prize by QR, and the opt-in and any contact detail are written to the engagement record and pushed onward.
Key capabilities
Reference architecture
The game runs at the stand, not in the cloud. That is a deliberate constraint: show Wi-Fi is congested by definition, and camera input should not leave the stand.
Deployment options: Edge-first: a single mini-workstation at the stand runs sensing, inference and the game. Cloud is used only to sync engagement records and leaderboards, and the game keeps running when that link is unavailable.
Hardware options
Specified against the stand drawing, not from a catalogue. Ceiling height, throw distance, ambient light and floor depth decide the answer more than the mechanic does.
| Device | Where it is used | Selection notes |
|---|---|---|
| Large-format display or LED wall | Primary play surface | Brightness matters more than resolution under show lighting. LED for high ambient light, LCD where the viewing distance is short. |
| Depth or RGB camera | Above or beside the display, facing the play zone | Mounting height and angle define the play zone; the survey fixes both. Backlight from a hall entrance is the usual cause of poor tracking. |
| Edge GPU workstation | Concealed within the stand | Runs inference and the game locally. Needs ventilation — a sealed plinth in a Gulf exhibition hall will thermally throttle. |
| Touch overlay or interactive table | Where the mechanic is touch rather than motion | Suits detailed product interactions and quizzes; needs a cleaning routine during a multi-day show. |
| RFID / NFC reader | At the play position | Lets a visitor start a play by tapping their event badge, which links the play to a known visitor without asking them to type anything. |
Swedish Technology supplies and integrates equipment from established manufacturers. Specific models depend on the stand design, the hall's lighting and availability at the time of build.
AI capabilities
The AI here is what removes the controller and the technician, not a talking point on the panel.
- Pose estimation — Tracks body keypoints so full-body play works for a range of heights and builds, with automatic re-acquisition when a player is briefly occluded by a passer-by.
- Gesture and hand tracking — Recognises pointing, grabbing, swiping and holding, which is what allows a touchless wall — useful where hygiene or scale rules out touch.
- Adaptive difficulty — Adjusts within the round so the play lasts a predictable time regardless of skill, which is what keeps queue throughput stable.
- Generative brand imagery — Where the mechanic ends in a personalised visual, a generative model produces it on the edge machine in seconds, in a fixed brand style rather than an open prompt.
Integrations
The activation is only worth its cost if the record leaves the stand. These integrations can be designed and built within project scope.
| System | Integration point & data exchanged | Direction |
|---|---|---|
| Event registration platform | A badge tap or QR scan identifies the player, so the play joins the visitor's existing registration record instead of creating an anonymous one. → Exhibition & Event Visitor Management System | bi-directional |
| Salesforce / HubSpot / Dynamics 365 | Opted-in players with score, language and prize outcome can post to the CRM as leads with activation attribution. | outbound |
| Lead capture app | A play can be attached to a lead already captured by stand staff, so the sales note and the engagement record describe the same person. → Exhibition Lead Capture System | bi-directional |
| Digital signage / CMS | Live leaderboards and winner announcements can publish to other screens on the stand or across the hall. | outbound |
| Prize and voucher systems | Redemption codes can be issued against a controlled inventory and reconciled with the fulfilment partner after the show. | outbound |
| Power BI | Engagement data exposed alongside registration and footfall so the activation is measured next to everything else the show produced. | outbound |
The integrations above are designed and implemented within project scope using vendor APIs, webhooks or standard connectors. They do not imply partnership, certification or endorsement by the system owner unless stated on that vendor's official pages.
Dashboards & analytics
- Live stand view — Plays in progress, plays per hour, average duration, current leaderboard and device health.
- Engagement quality — Completion rate, repeat play rate, language split, and how many plays converted to an opt-in.
- Prize control — Prizes issued against inventory, redemption rate and outstanding codes.
- Post-show report — Total unique players, plays by hour against hall footfall, opt-in conversion and the leads delivered to CRM.
Security & deployment
Camera frames are processed on the stand's edge machine and discarded; only derived keypoints and the resulting score leave the sensing layer. Nothing that could identify a passer-by who never chose to play is retained. The engagement store holds a local buffer so the game keeps running without network, and stand staff have an override screen to pause play, reset a session or close the activation without a technician.
Data privacy
A game is a soft entry point for data collection, which makes explicit consent more important here rather than less. Playing is never conditional on giving contact details: the visitor plays, sees their score, and is then offered the result by QR — the point at which they choose whether to identify themselves. Where the play is started by tapping an event badge, the screen states that the play will be linked to their registration. Under UAE Federal Decree-Law No. 45 of 2021 the exhibitor is the controller of the leads produced, and retention and lawful basis are agreed before the show rather than after it.
Industry use cases
UAE & GCC considerations
Content review matters in this region and is planned for, not discovered. Imagery, music, gesture prompts and prize mechanics are reviewed for cultural appropriateness before build, and prize draws are designed to avoid anything that could be read as a game of chance without the appropriate permission — the usual approach is skill-based scoring with a guaranteed reward tier rather than a lottery.
Arabic is a build requirement, not a translation task: RTL layout, Arabic typography at display sizes, and numerals that stay readable when a score counts up beside Arabic text. Practically, UAE halls also run bright, and stands are often open on three sides, so backlight management and camera placement decide tracking quality more than the model does.
Implementation approach
- 1Objective workshop What the activation is for — dwell, leads, education or share — decided first, because it changes the mechanic, the play length and whether data is captured at all.
- 2Stand and mechanic design Mechanic chosen against the stand drawing: floor depth, ceiling height, lighting, expected footfall and how many plays per hour the objective needs.
- 3Build and content Game built, brand assets applied, bilingual content produced, prize logic and data capture configured.
- 4Lab test and calibration Tested against realistic lighting and a range of player heights, including the awkward cases — a child, a wheelchair user, two people entering the zone at once.
- 5On-site install and dry run Installed during build-up, recalibrated under the hall's actual lighting, and run against stand staff before doors open.
- 6Show support and handover Engineer on site or on call for the run, then the engagement report and CRM handover after close.
Why Swedish Technology
- We build the game and the data layer together, so the debrief has a number in it that a marketing director can defend.
- Inference runs on the stand, which means the activation does not fail when show Wi-Fi does.
- Arabic and English are one build, with RTL and Arabic typography designed in.
- Prize mechanics run against real inventory with an audit trail, not a random number.
- The same team integrates the play record with your CRM and with the show's registration system.
Limitations & prerequisites
- Camera tracking degrades with strong backlight, reflective flooring or a crowd inside the play zone; placement is fixed at survey, not by a software setting.
- Throughput has a hard ceiling: at ninety seconds a play, one station serves roughly 30–35 people an hour including changeover. More reach means more stations, not a shorter game.
- A custom mechanic needs six to ten weeks including content and testing; shorter timelines mean re-skinning an existing mechanic.
- Engagement data only becomes lead data where the visitor opts in, and opt-in rates vary widely by audience.
- Facial recognition is not part of this design; players are tracked as anonymous skeletons within the play zone.
FAQ
Most usefully as the input method and the measurement. Computer vision lets a visitor play with their body or hands instead of a controller, adaptive difficulty keeps play length predictable so a queue moves, and generative models can produce a personalised image at the end. AI then reads the engagement data against footfall.
A camera or touch surface detects the visitor, a short calibration adapts to their height and the hall's lighting, and a scored game of sixty to ninety seconds follows, with inference running on a machine hidden in the stand. The score posts to a leaderboard and the play is written as an engagement record joinable to the visitor's event registration.
Sixty to ninety seconds for a show floor. Below that the play does not register as an experience; above about two minutes the queue becomes long enough that people leave, so a longer game usually reduces total engagement rather than increasing it.
No, and they should not have to. The visitor plays and sees their score, then chooses whether to receive it by QR — that is the consent point. Making data capture a condition of play depresses participation and produces poorer-quality contacts.
Yes, as one bilingual build rather than a second version. The visitor picks a language at the start; the interface flips to RTL with Arabic typography, and scores, timers and names use correct bidirectional handling so numerals stay readable beside Arabic text.
Yes. Integration to Salesforce, HubSpot or Dynamics 365 can be designed within project scope so opted-in players post as leads with score, language, prize outcome and activation attribution. It is built against the CRM's documented API.
Rent or re-skin when the timeline is under about six weeks or the objective is footfall alone. Build custom when the mechanic has to carry a specific product message or the activation runs across several shows — a custom build is reused across a season, which changes the arithmetic.
It restarts itself. Sessions time out and recover when a player walks away mid-game, stand staff have an override screen, and the system reports its own health remotely so a fault is known before a visitor reports it.
Discuss your site with an engineer
Tell us the venue, the expected visitor volume and the systems you already run. We reply with a technical view, a realistic scope and the next sensible step — a site survey, a working demonstration, or a full technical and commercial proposal.
Sources & evidence
- UAE Federal Decree-Law No. 45 of 2021 — Personal Data Protection Law — Governs collection, retention and cross-border transfer of visitor personal data in the UAE.
- Dubai World Trade Centre — organiser and exhibitor information — Venue context for stand build and activation planning in Dubai.
- UAE Ministry of Economy — commercial promotions and prize draws — Context for how prize and promotional mechanics are permitted in the UAE.
Vendor and product names are trademarks of their respective owners; references are for technical context and do not imply partnership, certification or endorsement.