An equipment library for interactive exhibitions

65 types of equipment: what each one actually does, where the sales deck stretches the truth, and what trips people up in year two. We do not sell this kit — we work with it.

Organised by role in the system, not by price list. Every interactive exhibit is a closed loop: a person acts, a machine reads it, the exhibition answers. The three categories below are three quarters of that loop, and the weakest link decides for all the others.

One idea runs through every page: the hardware is chosen last. First, what the visitor walks out with. Then, what they do with their hands to get there. Only then, what has to survive it. A budget built the other way round is easy to spot a year later — by the dark screens.

• 01Output equipmentHow the exhibition speaks to a personLight, image, sound, vibration — everything that reaches a person. The most visible part of the budget and the most treacherous: a four-metre screen people walk past without looking loses to a spyglass with a queue in front of it.24 entries · 68 manufacturersOpen the section
• 02Input equipmentHow a person answers backFingers, hands, body, voice, mere presence. The cheapest line in the budget and the one that decides everything: this is where «interactive» parts company with «switched on».20 entries · 51 manufacturerOpen the section
• 03Processing and controlWhat nobody sees and everything rests onMachines, engines, network, room control. None of it appears in a single photograph of an exhibition, which is why it gets cut from the budget first. A year later it is exactly this part that decides whether the place runs or stands idle.21 entry · 49 manufacturersOpen the section

Integration by Playdisplay

We are integrators: we build working exhibitions out of this kit, from the story to opening day. We know it from the rooms we designed, installed and later repaired, not from catalogues. What each item really gives you, where it will let you down, and what to swap it for when the budget will not close — we know from our own work rather than from somebody else’s promises.

In our hands an ordinary monitor becomes a display people stop at. The same monitor with no story is a noticeboard. The difference is not the monitor — it is what happens on it, and why anyone noticed.

We are independent of suppliers: no warehouse of our own, no commission on hardware. So the solution gets picked for the job rather than for the stock. Supply is handled by our partners — anything on this list, on the best terms for you. Ours is the story, the content, the interaction, the software and the integration: one hardware-and-software system, rather than boxes from five vendors who have never heard of each other.

Got a specification in hand? Send it over. We will tell you what is redundant, what is missing and what will not see year two. Free, no obligation, and no sales pitch afterwards.