Antoine de Tavernost (Auditoire): Share Your Power - Episode 10

Auditoire, the agency of "firsts"

A subsidiary of the Omnicom group, Auditoire has 150 employees in Paris and 450 worldwide, for revenue of around 120 million euros. The agency defines itself as "creative producers": it designs and produces events for brands and institutions, from retail activation to international-scale ceremonies, with a culture of production excellence that Antoine de Tavernost claims as the house's hallmark, to the point that the market talks of an "Auditoire school".

Paris 2024: an extraordinary project, down to the unexpected

Antoine de Tavernost looks back at the behind-the-scenes of the opening ceremony: a public tender lasting several years, price grids ranging from the cost of hiring a boat to the load-bearing strength of the Seine quays, real-time GPS tracking software to synchronise the river parade to the second, and, on the day, the only rain cloud in all of Europe, sitting right above Paris. An event of this scale, he says, cannot be run alone: Auditoire created a dedicated structure, Panam4, with several competing French agencies, to absorb the workload. A direct result for the agency: a new entity, Auditoire United, now positioned for the biggest international tenders (the 2030 French Alps Winter Olympics, the Dakar Youth Olympic Games).

Live experience, "the only over-invested medium"

The common thread of the conversation is the growing place of the event experience in brand strategy. For Antoine de Tavernost, in a world saturated with screens and digital demands, the event becomes "the only real moment" again, the one where a brand creates an emotion and an attachment that no advertising campaign can match. He cites the example of the Olympic medals made with a piece of the Eiffel Tower, or the Olympic cauldron reinvented by EDF, which became a cult object brought back to Paris after the Games: two cases where the creative integration of a brand into the overall experience multiplies its resonance, far beyond simple sponsorship.

AI, a "sparring partner" but not a replacement for creativity

On artificial intelligence, the CEO of Auditoire is nuanced: it considerably speeds up executive tasks (3D modelling, set design, content production), freeing up time for design and strategy. But he is categorical on one point: "what you cannot produce yourself, AI does not buy for you". Good taste, a fine understanding of a sector and a brand, the ability to challenge a brief rather than execute it to the letter, remain in his view the real added value of an events agency in the face of the industrialisation of the sector.

When the event experience meets mobile charging

What this episode reveals between the lines is how much a premium event, whether a brand launch, a trade show or an international ceremony, concentrates thousands of hyper-connected participants into a few hours: ticket scanning, sharing on social media, navigating the event app, continuous photos and videos. This intensive mobile use drains visitors' batteries well before the end of the day, with a direct impact on their experience and, ultimately, on the perception of the event itself.

This is precisely the ground on which OneFlash operates: charging stations for events, on a turnkey rental basis, designed for organisers who, like Auditoire, want to look after every touchpoint with their audience. A self-service phone charging station at the entrance of a trade show, in a VIP area or near a dining area keeps participants connected and available for the experience on offer, rather than focused on finding a power socket. In formats where, as Antoine de Tavernost points out, "the real marker is communion with the audience", a power bank or a mobile charging station accessible in a few seconds becomes an organisational detail that really matters in the lived experience.

In summary

This conversation with Antoine de Tavernost sketches an events sector in the midst of reshaping: market concentration, the rise of AI on executive tasks, and the strong return of live experience as the most powerful advertising format there is. In this equation, participants' digital comfort, and therefore access to reliable mobile charging during the event, becomes an increasingly strategic link in the success of an events project.

Hear the full conversation between Lucas Di Franco and Antoine de Tavernost by listening to episode 10 of Share Your Power.

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