The Future of Event Design is Human - With a Little Help From AI

If you’ve worked in events, you’ll know how the line between what we imagine and what’s actually possible can often feel blurry. For those of us in the business of designing spaces from scratch, that gap between concept and reality is exactly where the magic (and the challenge) lives.

Lately, that gap has been getting smaller — and AI has had a lot to do with that.

While 3D design tools like AutoCAD and SketchUp remain the bedrock of spatial accuracy, lighting plans and structural logic, AI has become a powerful addition to our creative toolkit — not as a replacement, but as a way to unlock ideas faster, with more experimentation, and with greater visual clarity right from the start.

The Shift in How We Start Visualising

Where I used to rely on rough sketches or flat references to share a concept, I can now feed a thought — a feeling even — into a text-to-image AI tool and get back a first-draft visual that helps me, and the team, grasp what we’re building towards.

This doesn’t replace traditional 3D rendering, but it does get us closer to the final vision much faster. It acts like a digital sketchbook on overdrive — one that thinks with you and adapts as you refine your thinking.

I’ve also started experimenting with scene-building and image-to-video AI tools, which help add life and motion to previously static design elements. And that’s especially exciting in eventing — because we aren’t just designing for structure, we’re designing for experience. Energy. Emotion. Movement.

Case in Point: A Conference that Felt Like a Festival

Last year, we conceptualised a large conference experience where we blended 3D renders with AI-enhanced 2D assets — including visual themes around growth, the changing seasons, and diverse human faces.

These started as simple static visuals, but through AI, we were able to bring them to life in surreal, immersive ways. The assets moved, pulsed, and evolved — becoming more than just backdrops. They became part of the storytelling. That event space didn’t just look like a concept come to life — it felt like it.

The Limits (and the Point) of AI in Event Design

Of course, AI has its limits.

It doesn’t understand technical rider specs, or where the main rig should sit. It can’t (yet) ensure a truss system meets health and safety guidelines or perfectly scale seating layouts within a venue’s restrictions. And it shouldn’t be expected to.

That’s where human designers, and proper 3D software, still play a crucial role.

But what AI can do is help visualise that initial idea that’s been floating in your head for days. It can present a client with something emotionally resonant before we even get to the technical details. It can turn early-stage concepts into conversation starters. It gets everyone — the client, the creative team, and the production crew — speaking the same visual language from day one.

The Future is Collaborative

I believe the future of AI in events lies not in automation, but in collaboration.

AI won’t do the job for you, but it will sharpen your tools, extend your imagination, and offer solutions you might not have seen on your own. In the near future, I think we’ll see AI playing a far bigger role in selling ideas — not just in pretty pictures, but in how we create mood, logic and narrative through space.

And if we’re clever with it, the gap between what we imagine and what we can actually bring to life might just disappear altogether.