Bristan Event Engagement

Standing out at events without adding cost, complexity, or risk

For Bristan’s marketing team, events play a crucial role in engaging installers, merchants, retailers, and internal stakeholders. But delivering something new and engaging at every event came with real constraints.

Budgets were tight. And many events were run by sales teams independently, without marketing on site. Previous engagement tactics, physical wheels, buzzers, installation demos, came with drawbacks:

They required constant staffing
They added logistical overhead
They introduced GDPR risk when collecting data
And they often felt overused or outdated

For larger shows like Screwfix Live, Bristan needed something that would visibly attract people to the stand.

Whereas for smaller tabletop events, they needed something sales teams could deploy themselves, without breaking or going wrong. And internally, they needed ideas that felt professional enough to stand up to senior scrutiny.

As Grainne Cook, Campaign Manager, explained: “Because games were a new concept and not at all like the activity we’d done previously in marketing, there’s a certain amount of risk.”

“For marketers to be able to take a game and own it, I think that’s a real USP for us.”

Grainne Cook, Campaign Manager, Bristan

The games were intentionally familiar, using classic arcade mechanics that removed the need for instructions or onboarding. Anyone who’d ever played a game before could walk up and start playing immediately.

That familiarity mattered. “There’s no ‘how do I play this?’ It takes away any element of risk. People are really willing to just go and have a go.”

Designed for real-world event constraints

One of the biggest advantages for Bristan was how well the games adapted to different environments.

At Screwfix Live, the game ran on a large touchscreen at the front of the stand, acting as a visual beacon to stop passers-by. At smaller sales-led events, the same games ran on iPads as part of tabletop setups. At an internal Wickes conference, the game was incorporated into a “bar-style” stand, mirroring the arcade games people expect to see in pubs.

Because the games were self-serve and intuitive, sales teams could run them independently, something that was critical given marketing couldn’t attend every event.

Just as importantly, the games reduced GDPR risk when marketing wasn’t present: “It’s another level of safeguarding when we can’t be there.”

“Sales teams are busy enough hosting the stand, so we need everything to be as simple as possible. Being able to set it up and then give it to them has been really great.”

Grainne Cook, Campaign Manager, Bristan

Engagement that was visible, not abstract

Bristan didn’t go into the campaign with rigid KPIs. Some events were new, teams had changed, and benchmarks didn’t always exist.

Instead, success was judged by what marketers could see on the ground.

At Screwfix Live:

People queued to play
The game created visible FOMO
Attendees returned multiple times to improve their scores

“We did have people queuing. So there was FOMO, people were like, ‘Oh, what’s going on?’ People would come back to try and increase their score.”

At the Wickes internal conference:

The game was constantly in use
Apprentices played, then brought friends back
There was rarely a moment when no one was playing

Rather than focusing solely on lead capture, the biggest impact was dwell time, giving sales teams more opportunity to start conversations in a low-pressure way.

“People don’t always want to engage because they’re worried about the hard sell. It’s like, actually, just come and have a play.”

Grainne Cook, Campaign Manager, Bristan

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From event tactic to broader capability

What stood out to Bristan wasn’t just the level of engagement at individual events but the confidence Peek & Poke gave the marketing team internally.

Ease of execution
A professional, credible finish
Highly responsive support
And access to clear post-event analytics

As a result, exhibition games evolved from a one-off event tactic into a repeatable capability the team could rely on.

As Grainne Cook put it:

“Peek & Poke felt really easy to work with. We could execute quickly, it worked across different events, and it gave us something that genuinely engaged people without adding risk.”

That reliability mattered just as much as performance:

“We believe in this, we can execute it really well and really quickly. We’ve got access to the analytics afterwards, and it’s intuitive.”

“Peek & Poke felt really easy to work with. We could execute quickly, it worked across different events, and it gave us something that genuinely engaged people without adding risk.”

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