ASTOUND Recognized on Event Marketer’s 2026 IT List and Fab 50 Top Exhibit Builders
Recognition that reflects the standard our clients can expect.
ASTOUND has been recognized by Event Marketer on both the 2026 IT List and the 2026 Fab 50 Top Exhibit Builders, making us one of only eight companies named to both lists this year.
Each recognition speaks to a distinct part of what ASTOUND delivers.
The IT List recognizes leading experiential marketing agencies for their strategic thinking, creativity, innovation, and ability to create memorable brand experiences.
The Fab 50 recognizes the industry’s top exhibit and event fabricators for excellence in engineering, craftsmanship, production, and execution.
Together, these honours reflect ASTOUND’s ability to guide an experience from the earliest strategic thinking through design, fabrication, production, and delivery.
For our clients, that means access to an integrated partner equipped to manage ambitious ideas, complex environments, multiple disciplines, and high-profile moments with clarity and precision.
What This Recognition Means for Our Clients
Every client comes to ASTOUND with a different opportunity.
Some are preparing to introduce a new product to the world. Others are looking to transform their presence at a major trade show, launch a flagship retail destination, activate a sponsorship, connect with a new audience, or create a defining moment for their brand.
Our role is to understand the business objective, identify the experience that can best support it, and assemble the right combination of strategy, creative, technology, fabrication, and production to deliver it.
Recognition on both the IT List and Fab 50 reinforces several qualities clients can expect when working with ASTOUND.
One Connected Team
Large-scale experiential programs often involve numerous disciplines, stakeholders, suppliers, technologies, and deadlines.
ASTOUND brings strategists, designers, architects, technologists, engineers, fabricators, producers, project managers, and onsite teams into one connected process.
That integration creates stronger alignment from the beginning. Creative decisions are informed by production realities. Fabrication teams understand the strategic intent.
Technology is considered as part of the experience rather than added later. Project teams maintain a clear view of the full program.
For clients, this supports faster decisions, greater consistency, fewer handoffs, and stronger accountability throughout the engagement.
Confidence Across Complex Programs
High-profile experiences carry significant expectations.
The experience must represent the brand accurately, engage the audience, operate reliably, meet local requirements, stay aligned with the budget, and open on schedule. Global and multi-market programs add further layers involving transportation, venue coordination, regional partners, permits, staffing, and local production.
ASTOUND’s teams are structured to manage these interconnected demands while protecting the strength of the original idea.
Clients gain a partner capable of seeing the full picture, anticipating pressure points, coordinating multiple workstreams, and maintaining quality across every stage of delivery.
Creative Thinking Grounded in Business Objectives
The strongest experiences begin with a clear understanding of what the brand needs to accomplish.
That objective may include generating awareness, increasing product consideration, attracting visitors, supporting sales, building community, creating content, educating customers, or giving audiences a hands-on understanding of a product or service.
ASTOUND uses those goals to guide the experience strategy and creative direction. Each design decision, interaction, technology, and audience touchpoint has a role to play.
The result is work designed to earn attention while supporting a meaningful business purpose.
Craft at Every Touchpoint
Audiences experience brands through details.
Materials, finishes, lighting, movement, digital content, spatial flow, sound, staffing, product demonstrations, and guest interactions all contribute to the overall impression.
ASTOUND’s fabrication and production capabilities allow the creative vision to carry through into the physical environment. Our teams consider how every component will look, feel, function, travel, install, and perform in a live setting.
That attention to craft helps clients present their brands with consistency and confidence, particularly in highly competitive environments where every detail is visible.
Bringing Integrated Capabilities to Life
The value of an integrated approach becomes clearest through the work itself.
Recent programs for Hisense and JD Sports demonstrate how ASTOUND combines strategy, design, fabrication, technology, production, and onsite delivery to address very different client objectives.
Hisense at CES 2026
Hisense’s CES 2026 presence spanned approximately 25,000 square feet, with experience zones covering home technology, theater systems, robotics, appliances, and global sports partnerships.
ASTOUND partnered with Uniplan to deliver the AI Your Home experience and key architectural elements within the larger booth. The environment needed to give visitors a clear and cohesive way to explore a broad range of technologies while maintaining a consistent Hisense brand expression throughout the space.
ASTOUND designed and built a fully functional kitchen and laundry environment where attendees could interact directly with Hisense appliances. Live cooking demonstrations gave visitors an opportunity to see products operating in a realistic setting, while food prepared onsite created an additional sensory layer.
Custom fixtures were colour-matched to Hisense’s brand standards, and a mirrored entrance canopy reflected surrounding signage and LED content to create a visually distinctive arrival moment.
The experience supported hands-on product exploration, longer dwell time, social sharing, and a stronger understanding of how Hisense technology fits into everyday life. The booth also received multiple CES Innovation Awards, including Best of Innovation honours for the 163-inch MX Display and X-Zone Master Laundry.
The program reflects the capabilities recognized by both Event Marketer lists: strategic experience thinking supported by architectural services, custom fabrication, product integration, and live event production.
JD Sports Las Vegas Flagship Grand Opening
JD Sports approached the opening of its new U.S. flagship store on the Las Vegas Strip as a major brand moment.
ASTOUND developed and produced a two-day launch experience designed to generate attention, attract visitors, encourage store traffic, and translate JD Sports’ high-energy identity into the physical environment.
The experience included a giant sculpture of the iconic JD Sports shopping bag at The BLVD, creating a recognizable visual landmark and social content opportunity.
A Human Claw Machine invited participants to be lifted into the activation to collect prizes. Custom poker chips with scannable QR codes were distributed by brand ambassadors throughout the Strip, connecting street-level engagement with store visits and purchase incentives. A live DJ maintained energy across the activation footprint.
ASTOUND managed concept development, fabrication, transportation, staffing, permitting, onsite logistics, and the integration of each creative and operational component.
The opening welcomed more than 5,000 visitors, generated $143,750 in sales, earned more than 19 million media and online impressions, and attracted over 620 participants to the Human Claw Machine.
The program shows how experiential strategy can support awareness, audience participation, store traffic, social visibility, and commercial performance within one connected launch platform.
A Standard Built Over 25 Years
For more than 25 years, ASTOUND has helped brands create experiences across trade shows, conferences, live events, product launches, sponsorships, mobile tours, permanent environments, retail destinations, and immersive digital programs.
Today, our work has reached more than 40 countries, supported by a global team of more than 200 professionals spanning strategy, creative, architecture, technology, engineering, fabrication, production, project management, and client services.
Our clients operate across technology, automotive, healthcare, sports, entertainment, retail, consumer goods, and financial services. Each sector brings its own audiences, regulations, commercial objectives, operational requirements, and creative possibilities.
That range of experience strengthens our ability to approach new challenges with a broad perspective while developing solutions specific to each client and opportunity.
ASTOUND by the Numbers
- 25+ years creating brand experiences
- 40 countries reached through our work
- 200+ team members across ASTOUND
- One of eight companies named to both Event Marketer’s 2026 IT List and Fab 50
- Integrated capabilities spanning strategy, creative, architecture, technology, fabrication, production, and delivery
- Experience across trade shows, live events, retail launches, sponsorships, mobile tours, permanent environments, and immersive brand experiences
Recognition Shared Across ASTOUND
These honours reflect the work of the people who develop the strategy, shape the creative vision, solve the technical challenges, fabricate the environment, manage the program, and deliver the final experience.
They also reflect the trust our clients and agency partners place in ASTOUND to represent their brands during some of their most visible and important moments.
As Dale Morgan, Executive Chairman and Founder of ASTOUND Group, shared:
“Being recognized on both the IT List and Fab 50 is incredibly meaningful because it reflects who we are as a company. For more than 25 years, we’ve brought strategic thinking, creativity, technology, fabrication, and delivery together as one connected system. Our clients trust us with ambitious opportunities and complex challenges, and our responsibility is to give them the people, capabilities, and confidence to bring those ideas to life at the highest level. This recognition reinforces the standard our teams strive to deliver every day and the direction we are continuing to build toward.”
The Growing Role of Experiential Marketing
Brand experiences are taking on a larger role within the broader marketing ecosystem.
A single program can support product education, customer acquisition, content creation, community engagement, partnership development, sales enablement, media coverage, and long-term brand building.
Audiences also expect greater participation. They want opportunities to explore, interact, personalize, share, and contribute. Physical and digital touchpoints increasingly work together to create experiences that can begin before an event, deepen onsite, and continue through content and follow-up engagement.
These expectations require teams capable of connecting the full experience.
Strategy establishes the purpose. Creative defines the idea. Architecture and design shape the environment. Technology enables interaction. Fabrication gives the idea physical form. Production brings every element together in the live moment.
ASTOUND continues to invest in the talent, capabilities, technologies, and global partnerships required to help clients navigate that evolution.
Looking Ahead
Recognition from Event Marketer reinforces the direction ASTOUND has pursued for more than 25 years and the standard we bring to every client engagement.
Our focus remains on helping ambitious brands address meaningful business opportunities through experiences built with strategic clarity, creative conviction, exceptional craft, and disciplined execution.
The bar keeps rising.
We are building for what comes next.
About ASTOUND
ASTOUND is a global experience design and fabrication company specializing in strategy, creative, architecture, technology, fabrication, and production.
For more than 25 years, ASTOUND has partnered with leading brands to create trade show exhibits, live events, product launches, sponsorship activations, retail environments, permanent installations, mobile tours, and immersive experiences across North America and around the world.
Planning your next brand experience? Let’s start the conversation.
