CISCO LIVE 2025 AMSTERDAM
240 creative briefs, 600 staff covering 18,750m² of exhibition space over 4.5 days.
The Opportunity
Cisco Live is the premier event for Cisco customers and partners, vital for knowledge sharing, community building, and AI strategy development. For its 2025 EMEA event in Amsterdam, Cisco challenged attendees to “Go Beyond.” The vision was to create an exceptional experience for 17,000 participants over four and a half days, featuring a high-profile opening keynote, extensive exhibition and activation areas, over a thousand breakout sessions, a dedicated meeting village, and a celebratory closing event.
GPJ, for the 20th time, was entrusted with end-to-end delivery at the vast 1,208,000 sq ft RAI Amsterdam venue.
The Idea
Having successfully delivered Cisco Live for two prior years at the RAI, the 2025 challenge was to innovate within an already maximised space. GPJ’s core objective was to reimagine the attendee journey, particularly within the World of Solutions exhibition. Moving away from a “festival” layout, the team focused on optimising for clear sight lines and a logical, intuitive customer journey.
The goal was a consistently bustling show floor, ensuring participants engaged with every exhibition corner, feature area, theatre, and content. The design emphasised a sustainable, uniform yet sophisticated booth solution, using a system build with timber accents for a high-end feel befitting a global technology leader.
A significant new addition was the AI Observatory, designed to visually amplify Cisco’s AI use cases through immersive experiences. The AI Observatory stood out with its interactive circular LED wall and voice-over soundscape.
The Execution
Planning was continuous, kicking off on the 1st May 2024 for the February 2025 event. This intensive period saw the GPJ studio managing over 240 creative briefs, planning 1,119 sessions and labs, and producing 18,750m² of exhibition space. On-site, the team grew to over 600 staff, including 127 core project personnel.
Despite hurdles, GPJ’s close collaboration with the Cisco Live team was constant, maintained through bi-weekly creative reviews, all-areas reviews, and weekly check-ins with over 20 area leads. The GPJ and Cisco teams also champion the importance of face to face collaboration, with the Cisco team spending time in the GPJ office on a weekly basis. This continuous dialogue was crucial for navigating rapid shifts and ensuring alignment.
On-site, quick thinking was paramount. Keynote content saw changes until the night before, and last-minute requests, like a confetti cannon, were expertly managed. The team even orchestrated an “Oprah-esque” giveaway of Bang & Olufsen x Cisco earbuds, complete with redemption vouchers under 6,000 seats and a live stream from a separate exhibition area.
Sustainability was deeply embedded, with KPIs including a 5% reduction in CO2e per participant, 33% decrease in single-use carpet, and 100% hired furniture. GPJ employed independent contractors for carbon tracking, introduced a new sustainability coordination role, prioritised system builds, and implemented an “end-of-life” plan for all produced materials. Commitment to local labour, vendors, and food donations to charity further underscored these efforts.
The Results
Cisco Live 2025 Amsterdam was a resounding success, exceeding expectations on multiple fronts:
- Participant numbers grew by 2,000 year-on-year to 17,000.
- The event achieved an unprecedented 33 million broadcast views.
- The Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) score reached an all-time high of 4.7 out of 5.
- Participants overwhelmingly expressed:
- A strong emotional connection (98%).
- Their attendance was valuable (96%).
- The event strengthened their relationship with Cisco (93%).
- Impressively:
- 48% stated they would increase their deployment of Cisco products or technology.
- 24% planned faster investment.
The Cisco Live Team unanimously praised the reinvented World of Solutions floorplan, calling it “the strongest” they’d seen and the “best looking” exhibition space ever, citing its design-led, high-end feel.
As one survey respondent noted, “Cisco is now regaining its position as innovator of the industry.”
