This is the passive footfall problem. And it is more common than most brands admit. The fix is not more staff or better signage. It is an interactive wall display designed to do what passive formats fundamentally cannot: respond.
Why Passive Displays Fail in Active Spaces
Think about the last trade show, auto expo, or brand pavilion you visited. What do you actually remember? Chances are, it is the things you touched, interacted with, or were surprised by — not the screens you walked past.
This is not a subjective preference. It reflects how human attention works. We are wired to respond to things that respond to us. A looping video is processed and dismissed in seconds. An installation that reacts to your presence, invites your input, or shows you something you did not expect — that interrupts the mental autopilot and creates a real moment.
Interactive wall displays work because they exploit this basic fact about human attention. The question is not whether they work. The question is whether they are built correctly.
Jio at WAVES 2025: Engineering a Crowd Stop
Consider what Jio Star faced at WAVES 2025. The summit had 100,000+ visitors across four days. The floor was loud, crowded, and competitive. Every brand had a presence. Jio needed more than presence — they needed moments.
IIC Lab created five experiential installations across two pavilions. The one that consistently drew the largest crowds and the longest dwell times was the Infinite Curved LED Anamorphic Wall in the Bharat Pavilion.
The wall used mathematical precision to create a 3D illusion of Pro Kabaddi League's ten-year journey. Characters and moments appeared to emerge from the curved screen — floating in space, drawing visitors who were walking past with no particular intention to stop. Many did not understand what they were seeing at first. And that moment of confusion is exactly where engagement begins.
You cannot budget for that kind of attention. You have to design for it.
The Mechanics of a Well-Designed Interactive Wall Experience
There are a few design principles that separate interactive wall installations that genuinely change dwell time from those that look impressive on paper but disappoint in deployment:
It should attract before it asks anything of the visitor. The best interactive wall projections draw people in through motion, surprise, or visual richness before asking them to do anything. The anamorphic wall at WAVES did not require a tap or a gesture — the illusion itself was the attraction.
The interaction should feel intuitive within seconds. The gesture-based table at WAVES used Leap Motion technology so visitors could explore content through natural hand movements — no learning curve, no instructions needed. If someone needs to read a placard to use your interactive display, you have already lost them.
The content depth should reward curiosity. A great interactive wall display has layers. The surface level is visually engaging and immediately communicates something. But visitors who choose to go deeper should be rewarded with richer information. The Godrej Interactive Touchscreen Wall did this well: 30-to-50-second animated explainers that could be explored in any order, at any depth.
The experience should work without staff guidance. An interactive wall display should be able to guide visitors independently. BMW's BEVScape was specifically designed with this in mind — it ran as a standalone kiosk, an iPad-guided conversation, or a self-serve micro-website. The visitor's pathway was built directly into the content architecture.
What Sustained Engagement Actually Looks Like in Numbers
- Godrej Trilogy: 20 minutes of guided buyer interaction per visit — in a luxury real estate sales environment where previous presentations lasted a fraction of that time
- WAVES 2025: 12+ minutes average dwell time in a pavilion zone at a four-day summit where attendees were splitting their attention across hundreds of booths and sessions
- BMW BEVScape: a single-showroom experience recognised by the President of BMW India and rolled out to 20+ dealerships because it was consistently changing buyer conversations
None of these outcomes were accidental. They were the result of interactive wall technology designed around one question: what does this visitor actually need to feel, understand, and decide?
The Cost of Not Engaging
Here is the part of the conversation that often gets skipped: what does passive footfall actually cost a brand? A visitor who walks through a luxury real estate experience centre and leaves without conviction is a lost opportunity worth lakhs. A BMW showroom visitor who leaves with unresolved doubts about EV ownership is a conversion that never happened. A brand pavilion at a national summit that generates no memorable moments is a significant investment with no lasting return.
Interactive wall technology is not an expense. It is the mechanism that converts presence into engagement, engagement into understanding, and understanding into decisions.
If your brand space is getting footfall without getting results, IIC Lab can help you change that. We design interactive wall displays and immersive experiences grounded in how people actually engage.