Two Different Business Models
Experiential agencies generally take one of two approaches to physical mechanisms — subcontracting mechanical work out to third-party fabricators project by project, or maintaining genuine in-house mechanical, electronic and software capability. Both can deliver successful installations, but they produce meaningfully different working relationships, timelines and risk profiles for clients.
Neither model is universally correct, but understanding the difference helps agencies and clients set realistic expectations about what a given partner can actually deliver.
What In-House Capability Changes
Our own approach to experiential engineering keeps mechanical, electronic and software work under one roof specifically because of the advantages this creates for complex physical builds.
- Faster iteration — design changes don't require renegotiating scope with an external subcontractor
- Genuine cross-disciplinary integration — the same team handles mechanical, electronic and software work concurrently rather than sequentially
- Accumulated institutional knowledge — lessons from previous builds directly inform the next one, rather than being lost when a subcontractor relationship ends
- Direct accountability — no ambiguity about which party owns a fault when something goes wrong
- On-site troubleshooting depth — staff who built the system can diagnose it far faster than external support
Where the Subcontracted Model Still Makes Sense
For agencies whose work is predominantly digital or screen-based, occasional physical mechanisms may not justify the overhead of maintaining permanent in-house mechanical capability — subcontracting to a specialist partner for specific projects remains entirely reasonable.
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What This Means for Choosing a Partner
Agencies and clients selecting a technical partner for a mechanically complex installation should ask directly whether mechanical, electronic and software work happens in-house or across subcontracted relationships, because that answer predicts a great deal about integration risk, timeline reliability and who to call when something needs fixing on-site.
Our Position
We maintain mechanical, electronic and software capability in-house specifically because the physical installations we build — from pneumatic mechanisms to sensor-driven interactive systems — depend on tight integration between disciplines that subcontracted relationships struggle to replicate, delivered consistently through our partnership programme with creative agencies.
