About Cadence
One Team From Concept to Teardown, Since 1995
Cadence is a Chicago-based production company that plans, builds, and runs trade shows, meetings, and live events for companies across the country. We're a small senior team with our own shop, our own gear, and a bench of specialists we've worked with for years. The people who design your program are the people who build it and run it.
Who We Are
Cadence started in 1995 building exhibits and producing events for Chicago companies. Today most of our work happens wherever our clients need it: Las Vegas, Orlando, Austin, Dallas, Miami, Denver, and beyond. Chicago is where we're based and where we build.
Our meeting, event, and trade show clients are marketing and sales leaders at companies like Mercedes-Benz, Daimler, HP, PepsiCo, Abbott, and Diageo. Many have worked with us for more than a decade. On custom fabrication and activations, we're usually the build partner behind an agency: they bring the idea and run the experience, and we engineer it, build it, and set it up. How we work with agencies →
We're built lean on purpose. A core team of senior leads runs every program, and we add designers, fabricators, technicians, and producers from a network we trust, matched to the style and scale of each job. You get the attention of a small company and the bench of a much bigger one.
How We Work
Start at the Experience
Most events are planned from the agenda out: who needs to speak, how many sessions fit in a day, what the venue has. We plan from the experience in. Before we design anything, we ask what the person in the audience, on the show floor, or walking up to the activation should walk away believing, and then build every decision around that, including the agenda.
1. Audience
Who is in the room, what they already know, and what they need to leave with. Dealers learn differently than executives; distributors differently than consumers.
2. Message
The story, the agenda, and who says what. One clear story beats ten good presentations. Why general sessions fail →
3. Space
The room, the floor plan, the booth, the build. The space should carry the message before anyone speaks. Why the decorator matters →
4. Show
Production, logistics, and the crew that runs it. This is where planning meets reality, and where our own shop, gear, and people make the difference.
It's the same thinking whether it's a general session for 1,200 dealers, a private expo, or a pop-up on Michigan Avenue. It's also why we do all of it: the message, the space, and the show work best when one team designs them together.
Leadership
Steve Auer
Founder & Director
Steve is a structural engineer by training (University of Illinois, with a minor in electrical engineering), and he still thinks like one: take a lot of data, find what actually matters, and get the details right. He's also a creative at heart, which puts him squarely between the people who design the show and the people who build it. He'll ask both sides the hard questions, and the work is better for it. He founded Cadence in 1995.
Evan Murray-Rotunno
VP, Meeting & Event Production
Evan runs the logistics, the negotiations, and the reality checks that make an event come off without a hitch, and she leads many of our largest programs. She started in this industry in junior high and has worked in every department we have: fabrication, audio-visual, meeting planning, and production. Clients know her as the person who answers, any day, any hour.
Tony Bonaroti
Director of Design
Tony came to Cadence from an exhibit house. He leads design and makes sure every project has the right creative team behind it. No single style fits every client, so Tony manages our network of specialist designers and freelancers and matches the talent to the job. That's how every program, at any scale, gets the right specialists.
Jeff Nichols
Executive Producer, General Sessions
Jeff spent years on the client side as a creative director for a national consumer brand and produced that company's own large-scale meetings before he joined Cadence. He knows how corporate teams work, from hierarchy and protocol to how decisions really get made, and he leads our general session work.
Their teams, and the bench behind them. Each of us leads a team of project managers, designers, fabricators, technicians, and producers, in our shop and on the road. On top of that, we bring in a network of specialist designers, craftspeople, and crew we've worked with for years, so every program gets the right people for the job.
What Makes Us Different
One Team, Concept to Teardown
Strategy, design, fabrication, production, and logistics handled by one team with one point of contact, instead of a stack of vendors you have to manage.
Our Own Shop and Warehouse
A 50,000 sq ft shop and warehouse outside Chicago, where we build exhibits, sets, and custom pieces and store client assets between shows, plus staging warehouses in Dallas, Orlando, and Las Vegas that keep assets close to the shows.
Our Own AV and Crew
We own our audio, video, and lighting inventory, chosen for the shows we produce and pre-racked for fast load-in. The techs at the board are Cadence people who know the show.
The Message, Not Just the Gear
We help shape what's said on stage as well as how it looks and sounds: show flow, scripts, and content built around what the audience should walk away believing.
Renders Built From Reality
Our 3D renders come from the same engineering model the shop builds from, so what you approve is what shows up.
Problem Solvers by Nature
We're thinkers first. Good isn't good enough, and "no" usually just means nobody has found the way yet. The harder the problem, the more we like it.
What Clients Say
“It takes a well coordinated (and oiled) village to produce a meeting that is this polished, appears to operate effortlessly, and immerses the participants completely.”
Senior Manager, Technical Training · Mercedes-Benz USA
“…getting us setup and executed on time and on budget.”
Senior Director, Commercial Capabilities · Diageo
“The fabrication was phenomenal, the creative was incredible, and the animation was so well done.”
Agency producer · Capital One at the Final Four
Recognition
Event Marketer Fab 50
Five-time honoree
Event Marketer It List
Top 100 agency honoree
Event Marketer Awards
Best B2B Event, Honorable Mention
EDPA
Member, Experiential Designers + Producers Association
Inside the Shop
Industries We Serve
We work with companies that sell complex products to other businesses, and with the brands and agencies that support them.
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Transportation & Commercial Vehicles
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Automotive
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Industrial & Manufacturing
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Building Products
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Medical Devices & Healthcare
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B2B Technology
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Food, Beverage & Consumer Brands
Our Clients
Frequently Asked Questions
Where is Cadence based?
We're a Chicago-based company, with our offices, shop, and warehouse just north of the city. Most of our events take place outside Chicago, nationwide.
How long has Cadence been in business?
Since 1995.
What does Cadence do?
We plan, build, and run trade show exhibits, corporate meetings and events, general sessions, private expos, custom fabrication, and mobile tours and activations.
Do you work outside the Chicago area?
Yes. Most of our work happens in major destinations such as Las Vegas, Orlando, Austin, Dallas, Miami, and Denver, and we ship and install nationwide.
What size programs do you handle?
General sessions for roughly 500 to 5,000 attendees, exhibit programs from a single show to a full annual calendar, and private expos of up to about 250 exhibitors.
Do you work with agencies?
Yes. Much of our fabrication and activation work is for agencies. They own the idea and the client relationship; we engineer, build, ship, and install, and stay behind the scenes.