Interactive foyer for companies - how to impress your visitors

What is the first thing your employees and visitors see when they walk through the front door of your company headquarters? This is the impression they will carry with them throughout the premises. Your foyer is far too busy to be left to clinical boredom. Or a ficus. Instead, welcome your visitors in a way that represents your company with dignity. If this makes you think of innovative, unique and fascinating, then read on now.

Trend: Experience at the company headquarters

The interaction with your company begins as soon as you open the door to your visitors. So why not start the customer journey with an interactive experience? Corporations, large companies and innovative SMEs are increasingly focussing on digital and interactive exhibits when designing their foyers. And rightly so! High ceilings, pillars, glass façades and high-quality materials make an impression. Interaction options make it last. Find out what types of interactive foyers there are and what advantages they offer here.

1. interactive company exhibition in the entrance area

Use your foyer to encourage visitors to engage actively with your company. And give them every reason to do so. Large-scale timelines, for example, can tell your company’s story in an entertaining way and invite visitors to explore. Or showcase your most successful products: using multi-touch installations, you can transform the foyer into an interactive exhibition. One that certainly won’t gather dust. Active engagement opportunities not only increase dwell time, they create emotional connections with your corporate identity. Independent exploration makes any waiting time fly by. You can also use your foyer specifically for guided tours. To remain flexible, it’s best to connect your digital stations to a central content management system (CMS). This allows you to adapt them to the expected guests with just a few clicks.

Been there, done that: with the “Styriaversum”, our partner Ars Electronica Solutions has realised the design of the entrance area at the headquarters of the Styria Media Group AG media group in Austria.

The interactive corporate exhibition at the ZEISS Technology Group Museum in Oberkochen showcases key milestones from the company’s 175-year history on an interactive video wall.

2. digital centrepiece in the company foyer

Instead of using several exhibition elements, you can, of course, make a statement with a single centrepiece. It should be suitably large and incorporate digital features such as augmented reality, touchscreens or even projection mapping. After all, interaction breeds enthusiasm. Don’t just speak to your visitors, speak with them – through gestures, touch, or positioning. You are perfectly entitled to view your centrepiece as a work of art. And design it as such. The silhouette can be static, but also dynamic: for example, as a kinetic installation made up of moving screens. Draw inspiration from your own brand and product world! However, it is important to consider the timelessness of the object. This applies not only to the aesthetics of your centrepiece, which should harmonise with the space of your foyer. You should also ensure that you can adapt the digital content of your installation at any time. After all, your interactive installation should naturally be able to keep pace with your company’s rate of innovation.

The interactive exhibition marking 100 years of the company’s history at the Austrian Standards headquarters also features an interactive lift.

3. immersive foyer with spatial projections

If you want visitors to be completely immersed in your world the moment they step into your premises, it’s best for that world to take up as much space as possible. Large-scale, immersive wall and floor projections transform your foyer into a visual experience, which is often enhanced by a suitable surround sound system. This type of digital presentation allows you to remain flexible: the entire visual world can be customised or changed via software. As this option does not require any physical installation, you have complete freedom to design your experience: artistic, playful, abstract, or even very specific with company content. Using sensor technology, the foyer can even react to your visitors: depending on where they walk or stop, the projection changes, encouraging them to explore. An immersive foyer of this kind is sure to generate excitement. Which, to be honest, is less true of the cost of the necessary projectors…

Life-sized 4K projections and three-dimensional sound in the immersive, multimedia projection room at the Neuro Campus Hotel in Switzerland.

Technology and control: requirements for an interactive foyer

Regardless of the type of interactive installation, a number of technical requirements are necessary to make a digital foyer an innovative and interactive experience. These include

• technical infrastructure: floor boxes, connections, mounting options, etc.
• Separate technical rooms and networks
• Digital control: the ability to schedule start-up and shutdown times, as well as a central CMS for activating and modifying digital stories and content
• Regular maintenance: Bear in mind the high footfall! Nothing spoils the impression quite like a faulty LED panel or a crooked projection screen.

From classic to first-class foyer - how do you go about it?

One thing is certain: the foyer of your company headquarters should make an impression. After all, it may be the first impression visitors get. It is at this very point that it can be decided whether your brand is perceived as unimaginative or breathtaking. Whether your identity is merely promoted or actually put into practice. In almost every company, innovation and digitalisation are now taken for granted. So it all comes down to your individual design. Talk to the experts! Get an idea of what is possible and what is possible for you. We would be happy to inspire and advise you in a no-obligation video presentation. In it, we’ll show you how other companies do it, discuss project timelines and budgets, and highlight potential pitfalls. We’ll open our virtual company doors to you and promise: you won’t be disappointed.