A pre-show experience that felt like entering another world, surrounding the audience with audio-visual experiences while they waited for the keynote to start. A beautiful matrix-like screensaver of raining "i"s and "o"s was on screen when doors opened. First was a digital Rube Goldberg machine, a linear chain reaction that unfolded across all 540 feet of screens. The last frame tipped over a bowl of water, and an animated fish appeared. The screens filled with water and the room became an immersive ocean scene. A life-size humpback whale swam across the screens to the sound of whale noises. A giant Pong tournament played across all screens was designed to add some theater and resonate with the audience of 5,000 young developers and designers who geeked out over such an epic representation of the classic computer game. An immersive fly through our galaxy to earth kicked off the Keynote Countdown video.

We custom-designed a room-within-a-room to execute our idea. We built a scenic tunnel system which people entered the room by. Practically, this provided nine separate lines with security points for badge scanning, but aesthetically, just not being able to see the room immediately, created anticipation, that something different was about to happen.

On the other three walls, we built massive muslin screens on the other three walls, taking them all the way to the back of the room so it was truly immersive. They comprised three 16:9 "hero" screens front and center for Keynote presentation content, with seamless curved screens following round the corners to the back of the room. This was the largest projection surface we’d ever worked with, a 540ft wide, 180 degree video wall.

We created a completely unexpected and unique experience, unlike any other large developer conference. It did not feel as if you were in Moscone conference center.

The audience posted and tweeted on social media, generating buzz and starting the conversation even before the keynote started.