Seven days ago, we welcomed venue operators, airport leaders, mall executives, and stadium teams to Lumen Field in Seattle for the Mappedin Venue Exchange (MVX 2026). A full day of sessions, demos, and conversation later, one thing was clear: the community around venue technology is growing, and growing fast.
Our partners at Lumen Field opened their doors and helped us pull off an unforgettable event. From the keynote to the stadium tour, their team made MVX feel like home turf for everyone who attended.
Beyond the sessions and demos, MVX offered something just as valuable: meaningful networking.
Attendees left with new connections, stronger relationships with team members, and the assurance that they're not solving venue challenges alone. Throughout the event, customers shared candid insights and strategies they're using to elevate venue operations within their own organizations—and they were too good to keep to ourselves.
7 essential takeaways from MVX 2026
1. Different venues, same challenges
Airports, malls, stadiums and other complex venues all wrestle with the same disconnects. Whether you're managing a terminal, a shopping center, or a stadium on game day, the same friction points keep coming up: legacy systems that don't talk to each other, updates that take too long, and departments working in silos instead of together.
2. Data-driven guest experience
Real-time, self-serve map updates beat static, vendor-locked systems. The Lumen Field team shared how prioritizing fan-facing experience, along with the ability to make updates in house and tailor maps to the event type, has become core to how they operate on game day and beyond.
3. Analytics unlock revenue, not just efficiency
Going from reactive to predictive takes data and an upskilled team. Miami International Airport showed how a single, unified data source doesn't just streamline operations, it opens the door to smarter, revenue-driving decisions, as long as the team behind it is equipped to use it.
4. One map layer can power enterprise-scale security
Centralized situational awareness beats siloed systems in a crisis. Simon Property Group walked through how bringing security and all teams in the organization together into one shared map has transformed how their teams coordinate, especially when something unexpected happens.
5. Frictionless guest experiences are the goal
Teams are energized to solve guest anxiety end to end. Across conversations, the same theme kept surfacing: the excitement isn't about features, it's about relief. Venue teams are ready to tackle the friction venue guests feel before, during, and after they arrive.
6. Indoor intelligence should be seamless
Venues want to connect and amplify the systems they already trust. If there was one clear signal from customers, it's this: nobody wants to rip and replace what they've built. They want a platform that connects and strengthens the tools already in place.
7. Community as a multiplier
Beyond sessions, demos, and sunny rooftops, the connections made at MVX are what people remember most. A growing community means faster, shared learning across every industry represented at the Mappedin Venue Exchange.
The bigger picture
What struck us most about MVX 2026 wasn't any single session, customer keynote or product reveal. It was the pattern underneath all seven takeaways: venues are done working in isolation. Airports are learning from stadiums, malls are learning from airports, and everyone is realizing that the fastest way forward is together. That's the whole idea behind MVX, and it's exactly why we can't wait to do it again.
To everyone who flew in, showed up, asked hard questions, and stayed for one more conversation on the rooftop: thank you for making this event what it was. This community is just getting started.
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