Audiovisual event production for Canalys Forum EMEA 2026

Audiovisual event production for a multi-room conference in Barcelona comes down to one question: can the system keep up when the room changes shape? From 6 to 8 October 2026, Novelty Spain, working alongside UK agency TBA, answered it at W Barcelona's Great Rooms, where Canalys Forum EMEA 2026 brought together vendors, distributors and channel partners from across Europe.

Organised by Omdia (part of Informa TechTarget) under the theme «Inflection Point», the forum once again trusted Novelty Spain and TBA with its technical production, now in their 11th year delivering this event together: three stages, 35 linear metres of LED, seven cameras and one control system able to run as a single plenary or as three independent rooms.

Event key facts

• Date: 6–8 October 2026.
• Venue: W Barcelona, Great Rooms 1, 2 and 3.
• Event type: international conference with plenary and breakout sessions.
• Industry: technology.
• Client: Canalys Forum EMEA 2026 · Omdia (Informa TechTarget) · TBA agency.
• AV production: Novelty Spain (video and LED, broadcast, sound, lighting, rigging and staging).
• Technical highlights: T-Rent 2.6 mm LED (15 x 4 m + 2 x 10 x 4 m) · Analog Way Aquilon RS6 and Zenith 200 · 7 Panasonic cameras · Yamaha RIVAGE PM5 · L-Acoustics Syva · 35 Ayrton Rivale and Martin MAC Aura.

Here's how Canalys Forum EMEA 2026 looked at W Barcelona:

Canalys Forum EMEA 2026 highlights video

Why do multi-room conferences need a local AV partner who knows the venue?

W Barcelona's three Great Rooms can open into one large plenary or close into three rooms with movable walls. This conference needed both, depending on the day. For an international organiser, that's where risk lives: every change of configuration is a moment when sound, image or light can fail in front of the audience.

Novelty Spain designed one system with two operating modes. In plenary mode, everything is controlled from the central room. In breakout mode, each room runs its own control and its own sources. The crew switches modes without re-cabling, and every room keeps plenary-level quality.

This is our 11th year delivering Canalys Forum EMEA with TBA. That experience shows in the details: truss positions that clear the fire cabinets and power points, cable routes along the glass wall, and control positions refined edition after edition.

W Barcelona's Great Rooms in plenary mode · Source: Novelty Spain

Staging and rigging across three Great Rooms

The build started with staging: three stages at 60 cm, LED risers at the same height, three FOH positions at 45 cm and 1 x 1 m camera platforms beside each control. A colour-coded plan specified the leg type for every riser, so the LED always sat on fixed legs.

Above each stage stood an independent 6-metre truss structure, lifted with six VMB towers and set back from the movable-wall line, so rooms could close without touching the rigging. Colour-coded pipe structures carried the backlight 1.2 m above the top LED panel. For more on how light shapes a stage, see our guide to stage design lighting techniques.

FOH control and truss structure · Source: Novelty Spain

LED and video control for plenary and breakouts

The look relied on 2.6 mm T-Rent LED: a 15 x 4 m screen (5,760 x 1,536 px) with four 4K processors in the central room and two 10 x 4 m screens in the side rooms. Every processor ran in main and backup mode.

Video control worked on two levels. In plenary mode, an Analog Way Aquilon RS6 drove every screen and stage monitor. In breakout mode, two Analog Way Zenith 200 switchers took over the side rooms through 8 x 8 matrices switching to local sources: presentation laptops, voting laptops, MacBooks running Mitti and programme feeds. The central room added a presentation workstation rack, a hardware timer and two Modulo Player servers on a 10 Gb network.

A Canalys Forum EMEA 2026 session in one of the rooms · Source: Novelty Spain

Return monitors for speakers · Source: Novelty Spain

Broadcast with seven cameras and a stream to the foyer

Camera production used a Panasonic camera system with seven cameras: four PTZ and three operated, one of each per room plus a flown beauty PTZ in the first room. The system recorded six video tracks with three separate audio feeds, one per room, and sent compositions to two laptops for event streaming to the foyer. Learn more about our live streaming and broadcast services.

Canalys Forum EMEA 2026 panel · Source: Novelty Spain

Sound and lighting: one room or three, same quality

Each room had a pair of L-Acoustics Syva and Syva Low, SB18 subs behind the set and 5XT front fills and monitors. A Yamaha RIVAGE PM5 in the central room fed Yamaha QL1 consoles in the side rooms, so the system behaved the same with walls open or closed. Each room had its own wireless mic racks, and presenters used Shure PSM1000 in-ear monitoring.

Front light came from 35 Ayrton Rivale Profile units across the three rooms, with Martin MAC Aura as backlight on the pipe structures and Sharpy Beams on the stage floor.

Backlight on the pipe structure · Source: Novelty Spain

Equipment used at Canalys Forum EMEA 2026

• Video and LED: T-Rent 2.6 mm LED · Analog Way Aquilon RS6 · Analog Way Zenith 200 · Modulo Player · 7 Panasonic cameras (4 PTZ and 3 operated).
• Sound: L-Acoustics Syva and Syva Low · L-Acoustics SB18 · L-Acoustics 5XT · Yamaha RIVAGE PM5 · Yamaha QL1 · Shure PSM1000.
• Lighting: Ayrton Rivale Profile · Martin MAC Aura · Sharpy Beam.
• Rigging and staging: 6 m truss structures on VMB towers · pipe structures for backlight · three stages at 60 cm.

What crew does a conference this size need?

More than 80 technical positions, from crew chiefs and LED, video, lighting, sound, RF, broadcast and rigging technicians to a shift plan for overnight builds. Long fibre, SDI and XLR runs went in first, before the truss was raised to working height, and both modes were tested before doors opened.

The result

• One system, two modes: plenary and breakouts on the same kit, no re-cabling between sessions.
• Redundancy where it matters: LED processors and recording in main and backup.
• Full camera coverage in all three rooms, plus a live feed for the foyer.
• Venue know-how built over 11 years with the same client.

For more large-scale conference work, see our case studies on KubeCon + CloudNativeCon Europe 2026 and MWC 2026 at Fira Barcelona, or our article on technical production for international events.

Conclusion

Canalys Forum EMEA 2026 at W Barcelona shows that multi-room events succeed on how the whole system connects, not on the number of screens. Novelty Spain delivered one integrated video, sound, lighting and broadcast system that performed the same as one room or three.

Bringing a multi-room conference to Barcelona? Request a personalized AV quote and we'll design a system that works for every room configuration.

FAQs about AV production at Canalys Forum EMEA 2026