AI trading cards at US events: a giveaway with stats people care about

Over one IndyCar Grand Prix weekend, AAA's Fan Zone booth printed 3,000 personalized trading cards and handed every one of them to a fan in a protective sleeve. Each card showed the fan as a Team Penske driver, fire suit and all.

That is the whole case for AI trading cards over branded swag. A guest steps up, has their photo taken, and Snapmatic's AI puts them on a card in your branding with stats to match. It prints on the spot. A water bottle with a logo has no reason to survive the flight home. A card with your own face on it does.

Everyone already knows how to read a card

Most Americans grew up with a shoebox of baseball cards somewhere in the house. Picture on the front, numbers underneath, and an argument about whose card was better. Put an attendee's face where the shortstop used to be and the format explains itself, which matters on a show floor where you get a few seconds of attention.

Let the stats do the selling

The numbers are where a card earns its place, and the best ones come from the client's own world.

At Qlik Connect, the stats weren't made up at all. Guests played hockey, golf and cycling games at the booth, scanned their badge, and their real scores came straight from the Qlik Games leaderboard API onto a printed card. Qlik's product, live analytics, was the thing that made the keepsake work. The back of each card carried a QR code linking to the global leaderboard. Here's how the Qlik all-star cards were built.

ShareGate ran the cards at three shows, including the Microsoft 365 Community Conference in Las Vegas, with stats only IT people would get: "Complaints about slow Wi-Fi: 127". Each show drew over 300 participants a day, and as one delegate put it, "We thought the AI photo booth was engaging, this was on another level." See the ShareGate IT Heroes cards.

VisitPITTSBURGH used the card as a sales sheet. At IMEX America 2025, among hundreds of destination booths, each planner left with their AI portrait on the front and the reasons to bring an event to Pittsburgh on the back, along with the city's NFL Draft sponsorship. Natalie from VisitPITTSBURGH: "We LOVE working with the team, it was SUCH a success and we'll be booking this in AGAIN!" Read the VisitPITTSBURGH IMEX case study.

Branding has to be right, down to the gloves

Motorsport fans notice everything. For AAA's IndyCar cards we trained the model to render the Team Penske fire suits faithfully, keep the race gloves consistent and reproduce the AAA collar mark cleanly. Fans scanned a QR code to enter their details, which released the digital card and sent it to print, so AAA came away with thousands of fan records as well as a busy Fan Zone. "The AI Trading Card has been such a big hit," their event services lead wrote afterwards. "I've even had AAA members stop by and tell me how patient and great the team were."

Printed or digital, one venue or two

Not every show allows printing. At ServiceNow Knowledge 2026 at The Venetian, show rules meant Ondaro couldn't count on live printing on the main floor. The booth put guests on a surfboard carrying Ondaro's own brand patterns, then sent a second rig to a VIP party at Wakuda that evening so nobody had to break down the booth. Party guests got their cards in hard-shell cases. The Ondaro case study has the full setup.

Diversified went digital only at InfoComm 2026, with soccer player cards shared by QR code from their stand in the North Hall. A printed card in a case lasts longer on a desk. A digital card travels further on social. Pick based on what the show allows and what you want afterwards.

What to decide before the show

• Where the stats come from. Live data, like Qlik's leaderboard, beats anything we can invent.
• Printed, digital or both, and whether the venue's rules allow a printer on the floor.
• Whether you need the attendee's details. A QR sign-up before the card appears is how AAA built its fan list.
• How many guests, over how many hours. AAA's 3,000 cards took a multi-booth setup over three days.

Booking cards for your next event

Our Las Vegas crew ran the IMEX and ServiceNow Knowledge booths in person. Tell us the event, the booth size and roughly how many attendees you expect, and we'll come back with a card design and a plan for the floor. See the formats on our AI trading cards page, browse real output in the gallery, or contact us.