In 2016, Barista Brian Leonard set up his espresso machine in a suite at the Toronto International Film Festival. He did not know it at the time, but that first event would define the next decade of his career.
Within two days, he had made coffee for a dozen of the most recognised names in film. A photographer captured a moment. The image circulated. TMZ picked it up. And a career that had been building quietly in the coffee world suddenly had a global audience.
Nearly ten years later, Brian is the most sought-after name in celebrity and corporate coffee experiences — having served over 100 Oscar winners, world leaders, Nobel laureates, Grammy-winning musicians, and C-suite executives from some of the world's largest companies. He has worked at events in Toronto, New York, Los Angeles, London, Montreal, and beyond. He has produced branded activations for Nespresso, Indeed, Warner Brothers, Lucid Motors, Kahlua, and Lululemon. He appeared in 2025 on Australia's number one morning show.
This is the story of how that happened — and why it matters if you are planning an event anywhere in the world.
It started with a simple idea: bring the craft to where the people are.
Brian's background was in the specialty coffee world — a world that, at its best, is as technical and exacting as any fine dining kitchen. He had spent years refining his latte art, developing the muscle memory and visual instinct it takes to pour a recognisable portrait in steamed milk in under two minutes.
What he realised early on was that the people who would appreciate this most were not necessarily in coffee shops. They were at events — at the moments in life where people gather for something significant. Film premieres. Award ceremonies. Conference networking breaks. Product launches. The moments where an unexpected, personal, extraordinary detail is felt most sharply.
So he brought his machine to those moments. And the response, consistently, was something he had not quite anticipated: people stopped. They watched. They waited. They talked to each other. And when they received their cup — with their own face looking back at them in the foam — they photographed it, shared it, and came back the next day to tell their friends.
From TIFF to Sundance to Deadline Hollywood.
Film festivals became the proving ground. TIFF led to Sundance. Sundance led to the Deadline Hollywood circuit — the events that sit at the centre of the entertainment industry's awards season, attended by the most influential names in film, television, and media.
At those events, Brian developed something that very few people in his position ever get to develop: a reputation in a room full of people who talk to each other constantly, across the entire world. An actor who received a coffee caricature at TIFF mentioned it on a podcast. A producer who saw it at Sundance brought Brian to their next event in Los Angeles. A publicist who witnessed it at a Deadline event asked if he could come to London.
Word of mouth, in the right room, travels faster and further than any marketing campaign. It is the reason Brian's work has generated hundreds of millions of views, dozens of press features across CBC, CBS, TMZ, The Globe and Mail, and the Australian morning show circuit — without a publicist or a paid media strategy. The work speaks, and the rooms it has spoken in are the right ones.
Then came the corporate world.
The transition to corporate events and conferences happened organically. Event planners who had seen Brian's work at film festivals started asking whether he was available for other formats. Conference organisers who had read about him asked whether he could scale. Brand marketing teams who had seen the social media output from his festival work asked whether they could produce something similar for their own activations.
The answer to all of those questions was yes — with one consistent caveat. The quality of the experience would not change. Whatever the size of the event, whatever the client, whatever the location, the standard of the work would be the same as it had been in the suites at TIFF.
That commitment to consistency is what has made the corporate side of Brian's work grow as quickly as it has. Event planners are a networked community. When something works at a conference — when guests are still talking about it at dinner, when the LinkedIn posts from attendees generate thousands of impressions, when the client emails the day after to ask about rebooking — word spreads quickly through that network too.
What international bookings actually look like.
One of the questions Brian gets most often from event professionals is a practical one: how does this work logistically for international events?
The answer is straightforward. Brian travels with his full professional setup — the equipment, the consumables, the brand assets if a branded activation has been agreed. He requires a standard table footprint, access to a power outlet, and a clear operational brief from the event team. Everything else is handled by him.
He has worked internationally enough times that the logistics are well-practised. The conversation at enquiry stage covers event date, location, format, expected guest count, and any specific requirements — branded cups, specific design themes, content capture. From that conversation, a proposal is produced. Timeline for international engagements is three to four months wherever possible, though exceptions are made for the right events.
The geography, in other words, is not the barrier. The quality is the constant.
Why this matters for your event.
If you are producing an event anywhere in the world and you are looking for something that will be genuinely talked about — not just during the event, but after it, on social media, in the conversations your guests have with their colleagues and peers — a latte art activation by Brian is one of the most consistently effective options available.
It works because it is personal. Every cup is made for the individual guest standing in front of Brian. It works because it is remarkable in the literal sense — it is the kind of thing people remark on because they have never seen it before. And it works because it is frictionless to produce — it adds an extraordinary element to your programme without adding complexity to your logistics.
From film festivals to global conferences, from Toronto to London to Sydney, the response has been the same: guests remember it. Event planners rebook it. And brands that partner with it see results that outperform almost everything else in their experiential marketing mix.
If you are planning an event and want to discuss what a latte art activation could look like for your programme, we would love to hear from you.