People, products, conversations, and a few unexpected flavors from Amsterdam
Breakfast with the Head of Marketing. Lunch with the CEO. Dinner with the CTO.
Working for a company can mean very different things, but having colleagues, and especially a leadership team, you can sit down with, share ideas with, speak openly with, and have conversations that go well beyond work is something I really value at 24i.
Looking back at IBC 2026, I realized that many of my favorite moments from Amsterdam happened around a table. There were eggs and bacon before another busy day, a poke bowl that started a conversation about homemade hot sauce, a burger and Guinness after a long day on the show floor, and plenty of other meals shared with colleagues, customers, prospects, and partners.
But the story of this IBC started long before any of us arrived in Amsterdam.
Months of preparation for four days in Amsterdam
As part of the marketing team and Director of Brand Marketing at 24i, a big part of my responsibility around IBC was making sure the experience came together from a brand perspective. The booth needed to look right, the show needed to run smoothly, and we needed all the promotional materials, pictures, videos, and content around it to bring everything to life.
Preparation started months before the event. A four-day trade show might seem relatively short, but behind it are months of booth designs, messaging, graphics, promotional materials, logistics, meetings, videos, team preparations, supplier conversations, and countless small decisions. There is always something that changes at the last minute, and there is always something you suddenly remember when you think everything is finished.
For me, the moment when all of that preparation finally felt real came on Friday morning. We had finished setting up the booth, everything was almost ready, and Verónica and I were putting the last small decoration on one of the shelves. After months of looking at designs on screens, presentations, plans, and mockups, I looked around the finished booth and thought: this feels right.
We had gone in a different direction with the design this year. The booth was darker, with LED lighting bringing our indigo and lime brand colors into the space. The 24i logo was visible when entering Hall 5 and could be spotted as you walked along the long hallway towards us. We also gave the whole team bright lime 24i T-shirts, which made us pretty difficult to miss and gave this year's team picture a completely different look.
Seeing everyone together in front of the finished booth was one of the moments I was most proud of. Months of preparation had finally turned into something real.
Breakfast, lunch and dinner with the 24i leadership team
Anyone who knows Verónica López, our Head of Marketing, can probably confirm that she's a bit like a good shot of espresso, in the best possible way. She brings a combination of energy, expertise, ideas, and motivation that was visible throughout the preparation for IBC. From the bigger decisions to the smallest decorative details, she put her heart into making sure our presence felt welcoming and unmistakably 24i.
This year, I also discovered just how much of an eye for detail and decoration she has. From the wooden decorations to the tiny finishing touches carefully placed on the shelves, her taste helped bring warmth and personality to the booth. These might seem like small details, but together they made a real difference and helped turn a trade show booth into a space that felt considered, welcoming, and complete.
One morning, that energy was accompanied by eggs, bacon, apple juice, and a good conversation before another full day at the show. It might sound like a small moment compared with everything happening at IBC, but those are often the moments I remember most. You get a chance to sit down before the noise of the exhibition halls starts again and simply talk.
Lunch with Sebastian Braun, our CEO, brought another discovery. Over a poke bowl with some chilli on top, I found out that he makes his own hot sauce at home. Naturally, the chilli started the conversation, but it soon moved on to travelling, strengthening relationships with partners, meeting prospects, and the importance of being present with the people we work with.
That same attitude was visible throughout the show. Sebastian wasn't simply moving from one meeting to another. He was checking in with the team, asking how things were going, making sure everyone had eaten, and helping make sure people went home with a good experience from the show floor. Leadership can be visible in major business decisions, but sometimes you notice it just as clearly in these smaller moments.
Then there was dinner with David Brown, our CTO. After another full day at IBC, a great burger with Argentinian meat and a Guinness felt like a well-earned reward. During dinner I discovered that David brews his own beer, but during the day I got to see another side of his role. He was arriving at the booth before everyone else, checking that everything was working properly, making sure our demos were ready, and taking care of the technical details that visitors hopefully never notice.
When everything works, it looks easy. Usually, that means somebody made sure it did.
Three lives, a few kilobytes and 60 GB later
One of those things that definitely wasn't easy to get onto the booth was also one of my favorite additions to IBC this year: 24i DATA RUN.
The game was created by one of our colleagues and has a bit of a TRON-inspired feel. Players start with three lives and navigate through the game collecting kilobytes of data while trying to achieve the highest score. For IBC, we decided not to leave it as just a digital game. We turned it into a real, fully branded arcade machine.
Getting the physical machine ready turned out to be one of those projects that kept us busy until almost the last moment. There was definitely some stress involved, especially as the first day got closer, but once it was standing on the booth and people started playing, it was completely worth it.
It quickly became a source of some healthy competition. At one point, one colleague managed to take second place on the leaderboard, only for another colleague to decide that this situation was unacceptable and immediately play again to reclaim the position. By the end of IBC, our players had collectively collected around 60 GB of data.
The arcade brought people over, gave them something unexpected to interact with, and created conversations. It also happened to fit rather nicely with one of the messages behind what we were talking about at IBC: own your data and grow your business.
From the arcade to the real product conversations
Of course, the conversations at Booth 5.B36 went much further than DATA RUN. Some of my favorites were the ones that started by bringing back a memory from a previous year. There is something special about seeing someone again at IBC, remembering a previous conversation or shared experience, and then finding out what has changed since.
I equally enjoyed the conversations that looked towards the future. What is changing in streaming? What could we do differently? What possibilities are opening up? What challenges are media companies trying to solve next? Those discussions are one of the reasons being together at a show like IBC is still so valuable.
Our customer stories also helped make those conversations more tangible. Having RTVE represented among the customer logos on our booth brought attention to how our personalization technology works, while there was also interest around Advanced Advertising and the CMS, which my colleagues were demonstrating throughout the show. It was a chance to move from talking about capabilities to showing how the technology can support real streaming businesses.
A logo, a demo, a question, or even an arcade game might be what starts a conversation. The interesting part is seeing where that conversation goes next.
Fresh eyes on the IBC show floor
This year's team also included some colleagues experiencing IBC for the first time, including our Quality and Test Manager and Support Engineer. Watching their reactions reminded me why I think companies should give people from different parts of the business the opportunity to experience events like this.
When you've attended large trade shows before, it's easy to become accustomed to the scale of them. Then someone arrives for the first time and suddenly everything feels new again. The technology, the booths, the number of people, the conversations happening everywhere, and the feeling that almost everyone around you is connected to the same industry in some way.
That fresh enthusiasm is contagious. It brings a different level of curiosity and energy to the team, while also giving colleagues who might normally work behind the scenes a chance to see customers, partners, competitors, and the wider industry in a completely different environment.
Taking the conversation onto the canals
Some of the best conversations of the week didn't happen on the show floor at all. We also had the pleasure of bringing together customers, prospects, and partners for our 24i Happy Hour canal cruise through Amsterdam.
Amsterdam weather can be unpredictable, so we were lucky. We had a beautiful evening, a great sunset, drinks and bites on board, and a completely different setting from the exhibition halls we'd spent the day walking through.
Taking people away from the booth changes the dynamic. There is less rushing to another meeting, fewer screens competing for attention, and more opportunity to simply talk and get to know each other. Those conversations continued throughout the week over Italian food and great pasta, Japanese food, quick lunches between meetings, coffees on the go, and plenty of other meals.
Different people brought different backgrounds, ideas, interests, business models, and challenges to the table. And, apparently, plenty of different flavors too.
Strangely enough, that made me think about what we'd been discussing on the booth all week.
There isn't one recipe for streaming
Every streaming business is different, and there isn't one setup that works for everyone. That's also why the modular approach behind 24i Video Cloud makes sense.
Different businesses need different combinations of technology. One conversation might start with personalization, another with advertising, CMS, applications, video workflow, or audience intelligence. The important thing is being able to start with what the business actually needs and build from there, while maintaining control of the platform, audience, and data.
For me, that's one of the interesting things about working in this industry. Technology is important, but the conversation becomes much more valuable when you understand the business problem behind it. The objective isn't simply to add another feature. It's to find the right combination of capabilities to create a better experience for audiences and better outcomes for the business.
So no, I'm not trying to make you hungry with this blog. Unless you'd like a taste of what we're building at 24i.
What IBC looks like from behind the booth
Looking back at IBC 2026, what I'm most proud of isn't one particular booth element, video, meeting, or campaign. It's the team effort behind all of it.
Visitors see the finished booth, the demonstrations, the meetings, the branding, the videos, and hopefully a team that looks like everything is under control. Behind that are people from marketing, sales, product, technology, quality, support, and leadership, often coming from different offices, all bringing their own expertise to the same four days.
Someone is working on the messaging while someone else is checking that the technology works. Someone is demonstrating the product, someone is meeting a prospect, someone is reconnecting with a partner, someone is taking pictures or filming the next video, and someone is solving a problem that most people will never know existed.
And apparently someone is also keeping a very close eye on their position on the DATA RUN leaderboard.
IBC 2026 Wrap-Up Video
Leaving Amsterdam
There is always a certain amount of stress right up until the doors open on the first morning. Does the booth look right? Are the demos working? Is everything where it should be? Have we forgotten something? Is the arcade machine actually going to be ready?
Then the doors open, and suddenly you're in it. Meetings start, people arrive, cameras come out, demos begin, and the months of preparation turn into four very fast days.
By the time I left the RAI after IBC 2026, I felt a mixture of relief, happiness, pride, and, of course, tiredness. More than anything, though, there was that satisfying feeling of knowing we'd worked on something for months, brought it to life, and created an experience we could be proud of.
I also think the value of those four days continues after everyone leaves Amsterdam. When you spend that much time working side by side, solving problems, meeting customers, talking to partners, sharing meals, laughing, travelling, and competing for an arcade leaderboard, you get to know your colleagues differently. Occasionally, you even find out who makes their own hot sauce and who brews their own beer.
Then everyone goes home to different offices, meetings, projects, and the normal day-to-day work. But hopefully we come back knowing each other a little better and working together a little better too.
Ultimately, we're all aiming for the same thing: building great products, creating value for our customers, growing 24i, and coming back to many more successful shows together.
Thank you to everyone who visited us at IBC 2026, to our customers, prospects, and partners for the conversations, and especially to Team 24i for everything that happened both in front of and behind the booth.
Around 60 GB collected, countless conversations, plenty of good food, and one IBC to remember.
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