Corporate product launches and roadshows
Celebrating 25 Years of Events
A product launch is a one-off event that introduces a new product or service to customers, partners, press or an internal sales team - typically built around a reveal moment, demonstrations and hands-on time. A roadshow takes that same presentation to multiple cities as a repeating series, bringing the product to regional customers rather than asking them to travel to one venue. Companies use launches to concentrate attention on a single date; they use roadshows to reach dispersed B2B audiences who won't all come to London. Both are delivered by an event management company handling venues, staging, AV, logistics and delegate management.
We've been delivering B2B product launches and roadshows since 2001 - reveal events for enterprise customers, dealer and partner showcases, press days and sales kick-offs, and multi-city roadshow series across our home patch: the M4 corridor, Cheltenham, Oxford and west London. End-to-end management, from the venue search to the last load-out.
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Award winning end-to-end event management
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SafeContractor accredited
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Product launches and roadshows delivered since 2001
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Covering the M4 corridor, Cheltenham, Oxford and west London
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Venue finding, logistics, transport, install and removal
Talk to us about your away day | 01793 772999
One perfect moment, or a repeatable machine
Launches and roadshows sit on the same page because most companies plan them together. But as delivery jobs they're opposites, and treating them as the same job is where things go wrong.
A launch is one moment. The press, the customers, the exec walking on stage - everyone sees it live, once. There's no city two to fix what went wrong in city one. So a launch is engineered like a first night: rehearsal, contingency on the single points of failure, backups for the demo, a run order everyone has walked through, and a team that has already made its mistakes in the empty room the day before.
A roadshow is the same event delivered eight times. The discipline flips from perfection to repeatability. Kit chosen because it loads in and out fast without losing polish. A set design that fits the smallest venue on the route, not just the flagship. Consistency, so the customer in city seven gets the same event the customer in city one did - with enough local flex that neither feels like a photocopy. And crew planning that respects the truth of roadshows: the event is easy, the fortnight is hard.
Ask an agency how they'd deliver each and you learn everything. If the answer sounds the same for both, keep looking.
What a launch needs
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The reveal moment designed and rehearsed - staging, lighting, AV and the demo itself treated as the single most important five minutes of the event
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Hands-on product time built into the flow, because B2B audiences decide with their hands, not from the stage
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Press and partner logistics handled separately from customer delegates where the audiences mix
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Contingency where it counts: the demo that has a backup, the speaker with a stand-in brief, the timings with slack hidden inside them
What a roadshow needs
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A route plan built around real geography and venue availability, not wishful thinking
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A set and kit package designed once to work everywhere on the route. Load-in and load-out schedules the crew can sustain across the series
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Delegate management per city - invitations, registration, joining instructions, dietaries - run centrally so no stop gets forgotten
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A debrief loop between stops, because a roadshow is the rare event where you genuinely can fix in city three what you noticed in city two
Where we deliver
Our launch and roadshow work concentrates on the M4 corridor, Cheltenham, Oxford and west London - the stretch of the country where much of the UK's enterprise, tech and engineering B2B audience actually sits.
For roadshow routes, that geography is an advantage: Reading, Swindon, Bristol, Bath, Cheltenham and Oxford make a coherent multi-stop series with sensible drive times between venues, and west London anchors the route where a flagship stop is needed.
A recent roadshow
Client: Intuit Quickbooks
Event: Cloud Accounting Roadshow
Venue: various UK venues.
Delegates averaging 200
Roadshow details.
Our client Quickbooks had big ambitions to capture the UK's cloud accounting software market. Working with the marketing team, we produced a roadshow strategy that would both engage and educate accountancy firms looking to switch to cloud accounting.
As the lead on this project, our founder Simon Maddison, delivered in an innovative way that encouraged guests to attend this event. Invitations were not sent as standard paper invites. Instead, we re-created the invites in a retro 70's View Finder it immediately engaged delegates to look through it and see the future of cloud accounting. Our success rate was 75% of all invitees attending this event.
Our innovative cloud accounting View Finder engagement strategy.
How we work
Our process runs the same five stages on every project - first chat, design and venue work, build, the event itself, a proper catch-up afterwards. On launches, the design phase includes rehearsal in the schedule from the start. On roadshows, the venue work happens across the whole route before anything is signed, because one impossible venue reshapes the series. Simon Maddison founded Planet Pursuits in 2001 and personally leads the first chat on every brief.
What have we learned about launches and Roadshows
The biggest advice we can give our clients about product launches and road shows is to engage your potential audience well in advance. People's time is precious, especially in this fast-paced world that we live in, and giving up the time to attend an effectively free event poses significant risk.
An attendee has to think: what's in it for me? What will I gain? Will it be knowledge, a trial period, or will it enhance my business? That engagement is critical and must be innovative.
It goes without saying and for all the events, we do, meticulous planning, communication, briefing teams, and logistics is, of course, essential, as well as finding the right venue space for your event.
Questions about product launches and roadshows
How far ahead should we look to plan a product launch or road show?
Three months is a workable minimum for a straightforward customer launch at an external venue. Add more when press are invited, when the demo is complex, or when exec diaries are involved. The product's own readiness is usually the real constraint - we've built plenty of launch schedules around a slipping ship date, and the plan should assume yours might.
How many cities make a sensible roadshow
Think about the capture area for your audience. For our coverage area, three to six stops is the common shape - for example Reading, Swindon, Bristol and Oxford as a four-stop series inside a fortnight. Beyond six, cost per contact keeps falling but crew fatigue and diary drag rise. The honest answer is audience-led: plot where your customers actually are, and the route usually draws itself.
Can the same event work for a product launch and roadshow?
Yes, and it's a common pattern: a flagship launch first, then a slimmed version of the same content and set on the road. Designing both at the same time is significantly cheaper than retrofitting the roadshow after the launch, because the set, AV and content get engineered once for both jobs.
Do you handle delegate invites and registration?
Yes - invitation lists, registration, joining instructions, dietaries and on-the-day badging, run centrally across every stop of a roadshow so the standard never slips. You keep ownership of the audience and the data; we run the machinery. We also have our innovative AI concierge service, which keeps delegates fully informed using the WhatsApp platform pre-event and on the day and we can also use it for post-event feedback.
What type of venue suits a roadshow or product launch?
External venues with good access, staging capability and hands-on space - hotels with proper event floors, conference venues, and the more characterful private-hire options where the product suits a distinctive backdrop. We find and contract the venues across our coverage area as part of the job.
Do we need to see all the venues for a roadshow?
It works well initially for us to source the venue and then site visit with you until we understand your requirements. After that, it's a pretty formatted event, so we can do the venue finds for you based on the needs of each roadshow or product launch.
If a launch or roadshow alternative is for you
For events better matched elsewhere in the corporate events service set:
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Conferences [LINK] - for delegate-led, content-driven events
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Away days [LINK] - for strategy offsites and team days
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Festivals and fun days [LINK] - for large-scale, production-led days
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Corporate events hub [LINK] - if you'd rather scope by service breadth than format
Pick up the phone or drop us an email
Tell us what you're launching and who needs to see it - or send the draft route if a roadshow is already forming. We'll come back with a venue shortlist, a delivery shape and a sensible cost range. The first call is short and not a pitch.
Or Phone us today 01793 772999 or email events@planetpursuits.com
