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A speaker at the podium beside a wide LED wall reading Welcome to Mindshare 2022 with the Zilliant logo, seen across the seated general session
Deep Dives

Zilliant Mindshare · Austin, TX & Amsterdam

Mindshare: Through the Years

Zilliant's user conference has been ours to produce for years, on both sides of the Atlantic. It grew from filming the CEO's opening remarks in the virtual years to resort-scale general sessions run by a crew that knows the room before it gets there.

By the numbers

8
Mindshare editions
2
Continents
3
Texas host venues
11 × 6 ft
GS LED wall
66
LED tiles, GS wall
8
AV & LED techs on site
5
Sponsor booths, 2023
2020
Earliest documented

A standing partnership

An earlier Mindshare general session with a speaker on stage between two large projection screens and a seated audience at round tables
Before the LED walls: dual-screen general sessions.

Mindshare is Zilliant's user conference, the week they bring their customers together to talk pricing, strategy, and what is coming next. For years, the production behind it has been ours. Two Jax has built the general session, wired the breakouts, lit the rooms, and run the sponsor area, show after show, in Austin and across the Atlantic.

We have been at it longer than our paperwork goes back. It started with the original Jacks and IBM. The planners at IBM's exhibit house liked working with Two Jax on those booths enough that they started bringing us onto their other shows, and Mindshare was one of them. What began as a slice of the production has grown into us running most of the event.

The brief has barely changed as the show has grown: make the main room feel like an event, keep every breakout and meeting room running clean, and give sponsors a space worth what they paid for it. What changes is the scale.

A Mindshare general session in a chandeliered ballroom, a speaker between two screens running a live audience poll, with a Zilliant podium A Mindshare session room set with draped tables and chairs, a red Zilliant banner along the windows, and cameras and a side monitor on truss A Mindshare session room from the side with a projection screen, a flat-panel monitor on truss, cameras, and a MindShare banner along the window wall

2020 and 2021: the virtual years

Zilliant's CEO recording the pre-recorded Mindshare opening remarks to camera, the orange Zilliant logo and wordmark on the wood-panel wall behind him
The CEO's opening remarks, filmed and cut for the virtual show.

For two years, Mindshare could not gather in person, so the show went virtual. Our part was the open. In 2020, we filmed and edited the CEO's pre-recorded opening remarks, the piece that set the tone before the online sessions began.

In 2021 we shot and cut them again and added the animation, building the motion graphics that framed the remarks. A small role in a bad couple of years for live events. When the rooms reopened in 2022, the scope grew back with them.

2022: the room comes back

A speaker at a podium beside an orange Welcome to Mindshare 2022 LED wall with the Zilliant logo, audience seated in front
Doors open on the general session.

In June 2022, Mindshare returned to the Fairmont Austin, and it came back big. The general session in Palm Park A ran on an LED wall framed in beMatrix, with confidence and side-fill monitors, a ten-pack of wireless mics, a multi-camera package, and a switcher feeding it all.

Around it, the whole conference lit up. Workshops in Park View got their own monitors, mixers, and mics. Meeting rooms ran their own A/V. The Palm Park foyer carried a second LED wall and vertical LED panels on an archway truss, and the sponsor kiosks got their screens and media players. We added the lighting, branded gobos, and uplighting, shot b-roll through the week, and managed the show graphics end to end. One crew, every room.

A speaker at a podium on stage beside a large LED wall reading Welcome to Mindshare 2022 with the Zilliant logo A speaker in a dark suit pointing to the side in front of a bright orange LED wall showing the Mindshare welcome graphic A wide symmetrical view of the general-session ballroom with a coffered ceiling, twin side screens, a central stage, and a large seated audience A wide general-session room with large drum chandeliers, a distant lit stage and two screens, and a full seated audience A wide ballroom view with a coffered ceiling, purple uplighting, a speaker on the lit stage, and a seated audience at round tables A side view of the darkened general session with the lit stage at left, blue and orange uplighting, and rows of attendees A moderator at a podium and three panelists on stools on stage in front of a Mindshare 2022 Question and Answer Session screen A speaker at a podium on stage beside a slide titled Former Pricing Process, with the Zilliant logo on the stage front A speaker in a gray jacket gesturing on a dark stage in front of a slide about trends that accelerated before COVID A tight shot of a bearded speaker in a gray jacket presenting, with a green slide blurred behind him A speaker in a gray suit on stage in front of a blue LED slide reading Three Digital Accelerators A speaker in a blue suit pointing toward a screen showing a pricing software interface, on a dark stage A presenter in a navy blazer in a breakout room beside a screen with a red Mindshare 2022 banner and tan curtains Attendees at a table in a breakout room facing a wall-mounted monitor showing a solution and process landscape slide A breakout room with a presenter at left and attendees seated at round tables, a man in a red shirt in the foreground Two attendees at a Zilliant demo kiosk with an illuminated logo header, one gesturing at a wall monitor showing software Two attendees at a kiosk with a wall monitor reading Share Your Feedback and two iPads on the counter below A Zilliant feedback kiosk with a Share Your Feedback monitor and three iPads, beside a vertical Product Feedback banner near windows The registration desk with red Mindshare 2022 panels, staff and attendees, and branded giveaways on the counter A wide marble foyer with attendees mingling, the registration area and an orange balloon column at right under chandeliers Attendees in a marble foyer walking past the registration desk and a large orange balloon wall under chandeliers A foyer entrance flanked by two vertical Mindshare 2022 agenda banners with a central screen and a couple talking near the doors A man in profile beside a tan Thank You To Our Expo Sponsors sign listing the event sponsors A vertical Mindshare 2022 Keynote Sessions banner in the foreground with a blurred ballroom of attendees and chandeliers behind A sunlit outdoor terrace with a red Mindshare 2022 window banner, blue lounge sofas, white tables, and a palm tree Attendees mingling in a glass-walled lounge with a red Zilliant Mindshare 2022 logo on the partition glass Attendees seated at small tables in a window-lit lounge with two orange balloon columns and a city view behind them A server holding a tray of red Zilliant-branded sparkling lemonade cans as attendees reach for them An attendee in a Zilliant lanyard reading a Mindshare 2022 program booklet next to a coffee cup A tray of cocktails topped with foam printed with the orange Zilliant logo, held by a server A white Zilliant Powering Intelligent Commerce sign mounted above a lounge furniture display A blue Zilliant slide on a wall monitor titled With the Same Old Methods, listing business objectives

2023: dialed in, and across the Atlantic

The 2023 Austin show, back at the Fairmont in June, was the same scope run tighter. The general session moved to 2.85mm LED, the foyer carried its own wall, and a GrandMA3 console drove the lighting. Audio went fully digital on a Yamaha QL5, the sponsor area grew to five booths, and we packaged the build cleanly by space: general session, breakouts, foyer and registration, sponsor booths. Eight AV and LED techs traveled in to run it. We modeled the room in 3D before load-in, so the client could walk the space before a single case hit the dock.

The week also moved offsite. We branded the evening venue, a downtown restaurant, wrapping the bar in Mindshare graphics and running banners across its decks.

2023 was also the year Mindshare crossed the Atlantic. We produced a European edition with two LED walls, full audio, video, lighting and staging, and flew a crew over to build and run it.

A darkened hotel ballroom with seated attendees at round tables facing a stage flanked by screens displaying 2023 graphics A hotel ballroom panel session in progress with people seated on a lit stage, a camera on a riser, and attendees watching from round tables The street-level exterior of the two-story restaurant venue with a Zilliant Mindshare 2023 banner across the upper balcony Wooden exterior steps and the deck of the two-story restaurant venue with a Mindshare 2023 banner on the railing and string lights overhead A long restaurant bar with rows of beer taps overhead and a finished blue Zilliant Mindshare 2023 graphic wrap along its front A crew member in a green shirt kneeling to install a blue Mindshare 2023 graphic wrap along the front of the bar A large blue Zilliant Mindshare 2023 banner mounted on a wooden deck railing under trees A crew member holding a rolled blue banner on an outdoor restaurant deck overlooking a downtown skyline and a construction crane An elevated view of a deck structure wrapped with a blue Zilliant Mindshare 2023 banner and strung with overhead lights Restaurant window panes covered with Zilliant Mindshare 2023 and sponsor cards, with a wooden picnic table in front An elevated view of an outdoor restaurant patio with black table umbrellas and a Mindshare graphic on the structure below A hotel registration area with an orange Registration backdrop and staff seated behind branded Mindshare 2023 counters A freestanding fabric display cube reading Guiding Sales Teams in a hotel hallway A man giving a thumbs up beside an illuminated display cube reading It's What We Call Intelligent Commerce in a hotel hallway

2024 and 2025: resort scale

The next two years moved Mindshare out to Texas Hill Country resorts and pushed the production bigger.

At the Hyatt Regency Lost Pines in May 2024, the general session ran an eleven-by-six-foot LED wall, sixty-six tiles framed in beMatrix with hanging banners. We added a green room, confidence monitors, a three-camera package, an outdoor audio system for the resort grounds, a branded charging kiosk, and daily video editing so each day's content turned around overnight. The Zilliant booth and three sponsor booths rounded it out.

At the Omni Barton Creek Resort and Spa in April 2025, it grew again. The same eleven-by-six wall came back with full side walls and graphics, joined by dual eighty-inch audience monitors, a Barco scaler, a reception counter backwall, and a rebuilt Zilliant booth with 4K monitors. Four sponsor booths, a full lighting package, and a complete AV, LED, and labor crew put it on its feet. That fall, Mindshare returned to Europe in Amsterdam, where we coordinated the gear, labor, and logistics with our partners on the ground.

Getting ready for 2026

After this many years the 2026 show starts from a known position. We know the rooms, we know how the general session loads in, and we know how Zilliant likes it to feel. The beMatrix framing, the LED package, the camera and audio kit, the lighting looks, the booth build: most of it is already proven here and scales up or down as the venue and the agenda change.

Planning is already underway. The advantage of running a show this long is that the questions get smaller every year.

Next deep dive

Black Hat 2025