As SEAT prepared to showcase their Altea compact MPV to shareholders and visitors, they required a cutting-edge solution that would not only display the vehicle but also allow for real-time interaction with the car’s features. The goal was to create an immersive and non-linear showroom where visitors could engage with the car’s design and functionality in a dynamic, user-driven way.
Given the physical constraints of the presentation space—such as the stage setup with a large LED backdrop and seating area—the challenge was to integrate interactive elements without obstructing the view of the presenter or limiting engagement. The result was a futuristic, high-tech showroom that exceeded expectations, leading SEAT to retain the installation throughout the production run of the Altea.
In 2010, SEAT needed a showroom presentation for the Altea compact MPV that would go beyond a conventional vehicle display – something that would allow shareholders and visitors to engage actively with the car’s design and features rather than simply observe it on a stage. The presentation space posed specific constraints: a large LED backdrop, a defined seating area, and the need to keep the presenter clearly visible throughout whilst integrating interactive elements that extended the experience to the audience.ex1t.one’s solution was a non-linear interactive showroom built around real-time graphics driven by the presenter on stage and complemented by touchscreen coffee tables embedded within the audience seating area – allowing visitors to interact with the Altea’s content directly from their seats during Q&A sessions. The installation impressed SEAT to the degree that they retained it throughout the entire production run of the Altea, making it one of the longest-lived showroom installations in ex1t.one’s portfolio.
SEAT
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Non-Linear Real-Time Presentation: Presenter Control on a Large LED Stage
The stage presentation was built around a large LED backdrop displaying real-time graphics that the presenter could navigate non-linearly – moving between the Altea’s design elements, technical features, colour options, and interior details in direct response to the flow of the session rather than following a fixed sequence.
This non-linear capability was central to the brief. SEAT needed a presentation that could serve both structured shareholder presentations and more open visitor sessions, where the pace and focus of the content needed to adapt to the interests and questions of the specific audience in the room. A pre-rendered video, however well-produced, would have imposed a single fixed narrative on every session regardless of who was watching. The real-time system gave the presenter the freedom to run the same installation in fundamentally different ways depending on context – spending more time on the design story for one audience, dwelling on technical specification for another.
The LED backdrop was specified and integrated to ensure full presenter visibility throughout – a constraint that shaped both the physical layout of the stage and the visual design of the graphics system. The presenter was never in competition with the display behind them, which is a common failure mode in large-format stage presentations where the visual impact of the screen draws attention away from the speaker.
Touchscreen Coffee Tables: Audience Interaction From the Seating Area
The most distinctive feature of the SEAT Altea installation was the integration of touchscreen coffee tables within the audience seating area – interactive surfaces that allowed visitors to engage with the Altea’s content directly from their seats, particularly during Q&A sessions when the formal stage presentation had concluded.
This design decision addressed a specific limitation of conventional automotive showroom presentations: the audience is typically passive throughout, receiving information but unable to direct their own exploration of the product. The coffee tables changed that dynamic entirely. Visitors could navigate to the aspects of the Altea they were most interested in – a specific colour combination, a particular interior trim option, a technical feature they wanted to examine more closely – without waiting for the presenter to cover it or interrupting the session to ask.
The tables were integrated into the seating layout without disrupting the sightlines of the audience to the stage, maintaining the coherence of the presentation space whilst adding a genuinely participatory layer to the experience. The combination of presenter-driven stage content and visitor-driven table interaction created a showroom environment that accommodated different engagement styles simultaneously – a meaningful advance on the binary of “watching a presentation” or “asking a question.”
Retained for the Full Altea Production Run: The Measure of Success
The clearest measure of the installation’s success is the simplest one: SEAT chose to retain it throughout the entire production run of the Altea rather than replacing it after the initial launch campaign. In the context of automotive showroom installations, which are typically designed for a single event or a short product introduction window, this represents an exceptional outcome – the installation was judged to be worth keeping in continuous operation for the full life of the model.
This decision reflected both the quality of the visitor experience the installation delivered and its practical durability as a presentation tool. A system retained for a production run must perform consistently across a wide range of session types, presenter styles, and audience compositions over an extended period. The non-linear real-time architecture of the SEAT installation was precisely suited to this longevity – because it was not locked into a fixed narrative, it could continue to serve new audiences in new ways without feeling stale or outdated.
The enhanced engagement and strengthened brand perception that SEAT observed among visitors to the showroom throughout this period confirmed what the installation had been designed to deliver: a presentation environment that made the Altea genuinely compelling to everyone who encountered it.
- Goals:
◦ Create a non-linear, immersive presentation for the SEAT Altea model.
◦ Ensure presenter visibility while interacting with real-time graphics.
◦ Enable the visitors to interact with content from a table next to their seats - Production:
◦ Ensure presenter visibility while interacting with real-time graphics.
◦ Embedded a touchscreen coffee table for audience interaction during Q&A sessions. - Results:
◦ Continued use of the showroom throughout the Altea production run.
◦ Enhanced engagement and strengthened brand perception.
Related Automotive and Interactive Stage Showroom Projects
Explore more interactive stage and showroom projects from ex1t.one:
- Hexagon 270° Immersive Theatre – Real-time interactive showroom for Hexagon industrial technology in the Netherlands
- LG Multi V Stage Presentation – Pepper’s Ghost product demonstration adopted globally by LG’s Korean headquarters
- Neotion Neohome – Physical-virtual interactive IoT experience bridging 3D model and real-world devices
About ex1t.one’s Approach to Interactive Automotive Showroom Design
ex1t.one designs interactive showroom and stage presentation environments for automotive manufacturers and product companies that need to move beyond fixed-sequence video presentations and into genuinely responsive, audience-aware experiences. The SEAT Altea project demonstrates the core of this approach: a real-time system that puts the presenter in control of a non-linear narrative, combined with audience-facing interactive elements that extend participation beyond the stage and into the seating area.
The longevity of the SEAT installation – retained throughout the full Altea production run – reflects a design principle we apply to every showroom project: build for durability of use, not just impact at launch. A showroom that remains compelling over years of operation, serving thousands of visitors with diverse interests and questions, must be flexible enough to serve them all. Real-time, non-linear presentation architecture is the foundation of that flexibility.