TLDR: Highmark partnered with Event Marketer to anchor the show floor at the 2026 Experiential Marketing Summit in Las Vegas. The love-themed hub brought “Event Structures You Can Love” to life with bold graphics, playful messaging, and a new double deck design, all while serving as one of three major content stages at the show.
At a Glance:
- Highmark built the central hub at EMS 2026 for the show’s programming.
- The theme “Event Structures You Can Love” tied directly to EMS’s focus on human connection. Highmark used love-themed messaging like “Break Up with Tents” to show why premium structures beat tents and shipping containers.
- Highmark’s 80+ seat content theater served as one of three major stages, while a bar area and second level handled networking, hospitality, and private meetings at the same time.
- An eight-person Highmark crew built the two-story structure in just two days
Highmark returned to the 2026 Experiential Marketing Summit with one job: build the place where the show happens. In partnership with Event Marketer, our structure once again served as the central hub for programming at EMS 2026, held May 18-20 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.
EMS sits in a category of its own: an experiential marketing trade show dedicated to live experiences and nothing else. Event Marketer has run it for over two decades, and it now draws a crowd of 1,000+ marketers and event pros.
What sets it apart is who’s on stage. Brand-side leaders from companies like American Express, IBM, Sephora, and PepsiCo regularly break down the events and activations behind their customer strategies. For Highmark, that means a room full of the brands and agencies we build for.
This year, we crafted our structure around the theme “Event Structures You Can Love.” Think red carpet, red fur, and a few breakup lines aimed squarely at tents.
Here’s how it came to life.
Why “Event Structures You Can Love” Fit EMS 2026
The 2026 Experiential Marketing Summit centered on human connection in the digital age. Love is the most universal human connection there is, so the theme practically wrote itself.
It also ties directly to what sets Highmark apart. Every event structure represents a brand and shapes how people perceive it. Tents and shipping containers ask audiences to tolerate a space.
Highmark builds premium event structures people actually love.
What Was Highmark’s Goal at EMS 2026?
Our goal at EMS stays consistent: tell the Highmark story to this audience in a fresh way every year. We don’t just explain how our structures support brand experiences. We build immersive environments that let attendees feel it firsthand.
Over the last several years, we’ve used the same structural system to create completely different worlds, including ’80s nostalgia, rock and roll, family reunions, and a retro-future space station.
An outlandish, fun love theme pushed that versatility even further while grabbing attention (and a little affection).
Inside the Hub: How Highmark Designed a Structure You Can Love
The 2026 hub turned a 40×48 space into a two-story, fully themed experiential brand activation. Every element, down to the beam covers, carried the love story forward.
The Main Components of the 2026 Structure
- A 500 sq ft two-story double deck
- A content theater with seating for 80+
- Massive-scale graphics built around the love theme
- A red carpet and red fur-covered beam covers
- Interactive activities and storytelling experiences
- A wedding-style social media photo booth called “Break Up with Tents”
Messaging That Breaks Up With Tents
Love and relationship messaging ran throughout the space, and every line took a playful jab at the alternatives. Attendees spotted “Love at First Sight,” “Can You Picture Us Together?” “Break Up with Tents,” and “Shipping Containers Will Ghost You.”
Attendees who looked closely also found several Easter eggs tucked throughout the hub. The standout: a retro pay phone with a graphic that read “Hang Up on Tents.”
The copy did double duty. It kept the mood fun and made the case for premium structures without a single sales pitch.
Solving the Space Challenge With a Diagonal Deck
This year’s build introduced a new double deck design, a new layout, and an all-new color palette and graphics package. Same proven system underneath, entirely different personality on top.
The biggest design puzzle? Fitting a larger deck into the space. The team turned the deck on a diagonal, which freed up room for the content stage and maximized theater seating.
How Long Did It Take to Build the EMS 2026 Hub?
An eight-person crew set up the entire Highmark hub in two days. That window covered the double deck, the theater, the graphics, and every themed detail inside.
The most complex piece was the audio/visual experience. With roughly a third of the show’s official programming running on our stage, the AV had to deliver for every speaker and every session.
And it did.
How Attendees Used the Highmark Hub at EMS 2026
Our theater hosted roughly a third of official EMS 2026 programming, making it one of three major content stages at the show. Most sessions featured brand case studies, alongside panel discussions, interactive storytelling events, networking, and hospitality breaks.
Multiple Zones, All Running at Once
Careful planning created distinct environments within a single structure. While content ran in the theater, the bar area handled hospitality and networking, and the second level hosted makeovers, semi-private experiences, and meetings.
That kind of zoning turned one footprint into a full activation experience. Attendees could learn, connect, and talk business without ever leaving the hub.
Attendees Loved the Vibe
Attendees embraced the theme and had plenty of fun with details like the red fur beam covers. Again and again, they told our team how much they loved the vibe and the experience inside the theater.
What’s Next for EMS and Experiential Marketing?
The biggest trend at EMS 2026 echoed the show’s own theme: personal connection matters more than digital connection. People delete emails and skip ads, but a great in-person experience sticks.
That principle sits at the core of event experiential marketing. It’s also why the structure behind an experience deserves as much attention as the content inside it.
Returning attendees remember what we’ve built in previous years, and they expect us to top it. That expectation mirrors what brands face across the industry, where audiences want each experience to feel bigger and better than the last.
Each year, our team learns more about the physical structure, what works best for attendees, and how to sharpen our storytelling. Those lessons shape the next hub, and every new concept we create for clients.
Why the Right Event Structure Matters for Every Activation
The structure behind an event shapes how people perceive the brand, the experience, and the agency that produced it. It can detract, enhance, or land anywhere in between. Aesthetics, quality, safety, comfort, and sound all play a part.
In experiential trade show marketing, the structure makes the first impression before anyone reads a word of copy. At EMS, Highmark shows year after year how much that matters, and how easily our systems adapt to support any activation.
Planning your next experiential activations? Build a structure your audience will love with a proven experiential design agency partner.
Talk to Highmark about custom event structures.
FAQs
What is the Experiential Marketing Summit (EMS)?
The Experiential Marketing Summit is Event Marketer’s annual conference dedicated entirely to live experiences, and one of the most influential experiential marketing conferences in the industry. EMS 2026 took place May 18-20 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas and drew 1,000+ brand marketers and event professionals.
What is experiential marketing?
Experiential marketing engages audiences through live, in-person experiences instead of passive messaging. Brands use experiential activations like pop-ups, trade show exhibits, and sponsorship events to create memorable moments that build connection.
What was Highmark’s theme at EMS 2026?
Highmark’s theme at EMS 2026 was “Event Structures You Can Love.” The love-themed hub contrasted premium event structures with tents and shipping containers through playful lines like “Break Up with Tents” and “Shipping Containers Will Ghost You.”
What role does Highmark play at EMS?
Highmark partners with Event Marketer to build the central hub on the EMS show floor, a collaboration that dates back to 2017. At EMS 2026, the hub’s theater hosted roughly a third of official programming as one of three major content stages.
How long did it take Highmark to set up its EMS 2026 structure?
An eight-person Highmark crew built the EMS 2026 hub in two days. The build included a 500 sq ft double deck, a content theater that seated 80+, and fully themed graphics and finishes.
Why choose a custom structure over a tent at a trade show?
A custom structure elevates aesthetics, comfort, sound, and safety, and each of those shapes how attendees perceive a brand. Highmark’s modular systems adapt to any theme, giving brands and any experiential design company a premium space built around their story.
Related Links
- Experiential Marketing
- Highmark at the Experiential Marketing Summit
- The Evolution of Highmark at EMS
- EMS 2024: Event Structures That Rock
- Rock Out With Experiential Marketing: EMS 2024
- EMS Case Study: Event Structures That Rock
- Highmark Wins EDDIE Award for Integrated Experiential Marketing at EMS 2025
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