Following a period of significant growth and strategic restructuring, immersive technology specialist Pufferfish has introduced a new integrated business structure spanning creative, technical and live event delivery. Ahead of InfoComm 2026, AV News spoke with CEO Stephen Patterson about the evolution of the business, the future of immersive experiences and the launch of the next-generation PufferSphere.
AVN: Pufferfish has evolved significantly over the past year. What’s changed within the business?
SP: A lot has changed, although in many ways this is a formalisation of how we’ve already been operating behind the scenes. Over the last few years, we’ve seen immersive projects become increasingly ambitious and increasingly complex. Clients don’t just want a screen anymore – they want content, interaction, deployment, support and measurable audience engagement.
Historically, that often meant managing multiple suppliers across creative, hardware, integration and live delivery, which creates friction and risk. We realised our strength was that we already had those capabilities internally, so we’ve now structured the business more clearly around them.
That’s where PufferStudio, PufferEvents and PufferTech come in. Together, they create a much more streamlined, end-to-end approach for clients. We are offering one integrated partner across creative, technology and delivery.
AVN: Can you explain what each division does?
SP: PufferStudio focuses on creative and content – everything from interactive storytelling and data visualisation through to designing experiences specifically for non-planar canvases.
PufferEvents handles turnkey immersive activations and global event deployments. That’s an area we’ve grown substantially in, particularly with brands wanting more experiential engagement at exhibitions, launches and live environments.
PufferTech is the engineering side of the business – developing our spherical displays, LED globes, curved surfaces and more bespoke immersive technologies.
The important thing is that they’re not separate silos. Clients work with one integrated team from concept through to installation, support and long-term maintenance.
AVN: Why do you think immersive experiences are becoming such a priority for organisations?
SP: There’s definitely a wider shift happening. Traditional digital signage still has its place, but organisations are increasingly competing for attention in environments where audiences are overloaded with visual information. Every environment is saturated with screens. Flat panels line walls, fill lobbies and dominate exhibition floors, but increasingly they become visual wallpaper.
Immersive experiences create a different kind of engagement. People behave differently around immersive environments. They stop, engage, interact and – importantly – remember the experience afterwards. That has huge value whether you’re in corporate communications, education, museums, healthcare or live events.
We’re also seeing businesses wanting environments that are memorable and emotionally engaging, not just functional displays. A Pufferfish installation isn’t background furniture. It’s the centrepiece that draws crowds, sparks conversation and creates moments people photograph and share.
AVN: Pufferfish has always been associated with spherical displays. How important is hardware innovation to the business today?
SP: It’s still hugely important, but we probably think about it differently now. The hardware creates the initial moment of attention, but long-term value comes from the experience, software and interaction built around it.
That’s why software, interactivity and content creation have become such a major focus for us. Every Pufferfish system ships with an intuitive authoring environment, but we also have a full creative and software capability internally for more advanced projects. We’re increasingly helping clients think about the complete experience rather than just the display technology itself.
AVN: Beyond the core spherical displays, what other solutions does Pufferfish offer?
SP: We have the touch-responsive PufferHemi – a hemispherical display designed for brighter environments with enhanced pixel density and immersive interactivity – as well as PufferLED, a high-brightness spherical LED solution ideal for exhibitions, events and permanent installations.
We’re less known for custom display forms but this is a big opportunity for us. Bespoke to a customer’s brief, we engineer tailored designs, mounting options and branded finishes for unique environments and experiences. Custom form options include curved LED walls, LED floors, architectural media surfaces and integrated experiential structures.
Increasingly, clients are asking for immersive technology tailored to a specific environment or audience journey, and that’s where our engineering and creative teams work closely together.
AVN: You’re launching the next-generation PufferSphere at InfoComm 2026. What can visitors expect?
SP: InfoComm will be an exciting moment for us because we’ll be showcasing the fourth-generation PufferSphere publicly for the first time.
The fourth-generation platform has been completely re-engineered around performance, deployment efficiency and long-term serviceability. It’s brighter, quieter, lighter and far more modular than previous generations, while retaining the visual impact the PufferSphere platform is known for.
We’ve taken nearly two decades of real-world deployment experience and built that directly into the system architecture.
It’s designed for much more demanding immersive environments and workflows, particularly as expectations around interactivity and real-time content continue to increase.
AVN: Pufferfish is also appearing on the Barco booth this year. How important is that relationship?
SP: Very important. We’ve worked with Barco for many years and there’s a strong alignment between both companies around innovation, reliability and experience-led visual technology.
Having a presence on the Barco booth (#N7231) at InfoComm is a great opportunity to showcase the new-generation PufferSphere within a broader ecosystem conversation around immersive visual experiences and enterprise technology.
The new-generation PufferSphere has been developed alongside that continuing relationship, so showcasing it on the Barco booth feels like a natural fit. Partnerships like that are increasingly important because clients are looking for integrated solutions rather than isolated technologies.
AVN: Looking ahead, where do you see the immersive technology market going next?
SP: I think the boundaries between AV, experiential, software and spatial technology will continue to disappear.
We’re already seeing immersive environments become part of mainstream communication infrastructure rather than standalone attractions. Real-time rendering, AI-assisted workflows, interactivity and data-driven experiences are all accelerating that shift.
For us, the focus is on making immersive experiences easier to deploy, easier to scale and ultimately more accessible for organisations globally. That’s really the thinking behind the structure we’ve introduced this year.
We’re no longer just delivering products – we’re helping organisations communicate in more engaging ways.
For more information, visit: www.pufferfishdisplays.com. Visit the Pufferfish team at InfoComm Las Vegas, Barco booth N7231
