Each February, Barcelona becomes the global capital of cutting-edge technology as the world descends upon Integrated Systems Europe (ISE), the globe's largest and most influential professional AV and systems integration trade show. It's where next-gen products are launched, ideas are stress-tested, and reputations are either made or muffled. And in 2025, Sonos made sure its voice would not only be heard, but remembered.

While the brand has long been synonymous with premium consumer audio, Sonos' professional install channel has grown to become a major contributor to the company's revenue, a fact that has remained something of a well-kept secret. Until now. ISE 2025 marked a bold, deliberate pivot to shine a major spotlight on this “sleeper engine” of the business.

From Small Debut to Center Stage
In 2024, Sonos dipped its toe into the ISE waters with a modest 30-by-30-foot booth. Yet even that scaled-down effort made waves. The brand snagged a nomination for best small booth design in the ISE Stand Design Awards competition. That success coupled with inspiration gleaned from walking the show floor planted the seeds for something far bigger. Just four months later, the Sonos team locked in a much larger footprint for 2025 — from 900 square feet to more than 2,700 square feet, making a bet on a budget that didn't yet exist. As David Robb, director of marketing for Sonos Professional, put it, “We had to place a big bet without a guaranteed budget. And then spend the year making sure we could deliver on it.”

To prime the pump ahead of ISE, Sonos launched a modest but targeted pre-show outreach campaign. Key distributors and partners received digital invitations to private demo sessions and a sneak preview of the Era 100 Pro via a teaser microsite. Internally, regional sales leads were armed with pre-show pitch decks and schedules to help engage their top accounts in advance. “It wasn't a massive campaign,” Robb noted, “but it got the right people excited and ensured we weren't starting cold on day one.”







Building the Dream Booth
To bring this vision to life, Sonos partnered with UK-based event agency Nest, known for its deep experience in the AV show circuit. The partnership with Nest first revamped the company's presence at CEDIA Expo, the leading North American trade show for smart home technology and integrated systems, and carried forward key learnings to ISE, particularly the push for sustainability and modularity.

Rather than building a bespoke booth destined for the scrap heap, Sonos designed the ISE 2025 exhibit as a modular system with reusable components. Many elements debuted at CEDIA the prior fall, including the home theater demo infrastructure, and were re-skinned and repurposed for ISE. “Our goal was to reduce waste, cut down on redundant fabrication, and invest in a platform we could evolve, not discard,” Robb said. Even the partner signage was designed to be swappable for different events.

But this was no plug-and-play setup. The booth was designed around 12 active use-case vignettes, each tailored to specific verticals and customer types. From light commercial spaces like cafés to high-end home theaters, each space featured live, functioning product demos.

One standout: the Arc Ultra soundbar demo, built around Sonos' proprietary Sound Motion technology. Visitors were treated to a 9.1.4 Dolby Atmos experience enhanced by subwoofers and Era 300 speakers. Another crowd-pleaser? A real-time demonstration of the built-in subwoofer capabilities powered by breakthrough transducer technology gained from Sonos' 2022 acquisition of Mayht, completed with literal last-minute soldering that took place hours before the show opened.


A Symphony of Stakeholders
What set this activation apart wasn't just the booth's sleek design or even its acoustics. It was the multidimensional intent behind the demo. The immersive exhibit served as a successful nexus for global sales meetings, technical training, channel partner education, and even impromptu deal-making.

The challenge? Juggling competing internal priorities. Marketing wanted impact and press, sales needed room for relationship-building, and training teams required functional demo environments. “We had to make the space work for everyone, even when everyone wanted something different,” he explained.

This strategic orchestration extended beyond the booth. Sonos reserved external meeting rooms, scheduled distributor dinners, and created a custom event app that let staff schedule on-the-fly meetings and match visitors with the right sales reps via QR codes.
Plug-and-Play Partnerships
Sonos used ISE to underscore its compatibility credentials, highlighting control integrations with partners like Crestron and Control4, two major players in the custom integration space, and reinforcing its Works With Sonos program. Collaborative partnerships not only elevated the booth experience, but helped solve last-minute challenges.

One ISE anecdote highlights the value of Sonos' strong relationships with industry partners. When the company's network gear got stuck in customs during its shipping journey, Robb and Russ Ramos, Sonos' experiential designer, walked the floor and convinced Netgear to loan them equipment — then quickly whipped up signage to credit the brand. Elsewhere, Sonos' amps powered a Leon-designed wall installation of functional speaker art. Even the TVs in the demo rooms were on loan from Sony, cementing cross-brand collaboration.

Designed for Delight
Each touchpoint of the exhibit balanced high-tech capability with aesthetic intention. The booth's organically shaped island layout — anchored by dual zones for residential and commercial use — allowed visitors to self-select into interest areas. A speakeasy-like listening room tucked behind a café offered immersive experiences powered by Era 100 Pro speakers, while a separate bar area subtly showcased commercial-grade installs.

Sound was carefully managed throughout to ensure richness without cacophony. According to Robb, daily sound balancing was a must: “We had to keep tweaking it to cut through the show noise but still allow for conversation.”

Loud and Clear Results
Instead of chasing footfall numbers, Sonos focused on what Robb called “surgical impact.” Badge scanning was traded for intentional invitations, quality conversations, on-the-fly matchmaking, and targeted training sessions. Strategic media outreach, including press interviews and demo walkthroughs, helped amplify the company's presence far beyond the exhibit hall.

While Sonos didn't obsess over raw engagement numbers, the team still tracked measurable outcomes. More than 12 personalized training sessions were held across four days, and over 50 qualified distributor and consultant private meetings were facilitated via the internal app. “It validated that we weren't just busy — we were busy with the right people,” Robb said.

Though official sales outcomes are under wraps, the internal alignment and global partner engagement were seen as major wins. “We made sure to maximize an investment like this as an opportunity to strengthen our internal culture. We brought people who have worked here for more than a decade to meet in person for the first time and celebrate how far we've come and where we are going next,” said Robb, pointing to a new sense of cohesion within Sonos' worldwide team.

The results didn't go unnoticed. Sonos was recognized among Best of Show at ISE 2025 for its Sonos Era 100 Pro speakers and received the ISE 2025 Stand Design award in the Extra Large Stand category. While the team's intent was not to win trophies, the nod served as confirmation that their approach was hitting all the right frequencies.

Sonos's ISE 2025 presence wasn't just a showcase of products. It was a case study in harmonizing brand, sales, training, and partnerships into a single, seamless experience. In the end, Sonos didn't just show up at ISE — it composed a performance that resonated across the AV world. E