green exhibiting
EXHIBITOR Show 2009 Review
09/April/09 01:21 PM Filed in: Show Reviews
Duration: 13 min. 12 sec.
Size: 12.2 MB
This year's EXHIBITOR Show in Las Vegas was a time to come together as an industry to demonstrate that we will not only survive, but can also thrive. Companies debuted new and innovative products and services for exhibitors, and once again showcased some clever exhibit displays and booth attraction ideas.
Clever Theme & Design Examples
Instead of avoiding the subject of the economy, several exhibitors decided to tackle it head-on.
- Kubik used a low-budget chalkboard wall with the message "Cutting back shouldn't leave you feeling empty. Be a smart cookie."
- Steelhead Productions also used a food-related theme with their Lemonade Lounge: "Turning sour budgets into sweet exhibits." Visitors received a glass of lemonade and were entertained by a flair bartender.
- And speaking of tackling your challenges head-on ... the folks at Switch featured a truck crashing through a brick wall, encouraging attendees to "Liberate your brand."
Booth Design Elements
It was no surprise that many exhibits this year were very simple and often used fabric to help with today's shrinking budgets.
- One very streamlined display was EZ Backdrops, which is a fabric banner that requires no hardware to display! Simply attach the banner to the show's pipe and drape system instead.
- Another simple fabric display is Brand Booths, which are freestanding kiosks that are great for outdoor festivals.
- Nimlok featured a bi-layered banner that gives an illusion of being 3-D.
- Although not fabric, STAX is a lightweight modular system that allows for nearly infinite combinations for your display.
- Fabric Images showcased a giant fabric "ceiling fan," which had no motor of its own.
- How do you demonstrate how your product is superior to competitors? Eco-Systems Displays used an innovative "Good, Bad & Ugly" flip board!
Promotion & Attraction Ideas
- Got something to say? Wear it on a digital badge! Audience.tag badges have a small video screen that plays a loop of your company's messages.
- Speaking of digital messaging, Kaon Interactive featured touch-screen monitors that offer visitors a 3-D tour of your products.
- Globotech featured their digital banner stand, which is a completely portable plug-and-play system.
- For more low-tech, pocket-sized messaging, there's the Mini Brochure.
Several people commented that they noticed less giveaway items this year, probably due to reduced budgets. But the trends for giveaways that remained were:
1. Green: Think Green Promos featured their custom recycled bags and stated "Green is the new black."
2. Personalized: Ardent Impressions (formerly InstaFotos) showcased their laser-engraved photo dog tags, engraved flash drives, and various foil imprinted items.
This episode of Trade Show Insights is protected by copyright. You may share this recording with colleagues, as long as it is copied in its entirety and is not used for commercial purposes.
Click to play
Size: 12.2 MB
This year's EXHIBITOR Show in Las Vegas was a time to come together as an industry to demonstrate that we will not only survive, but can also thrive. Companies debuted new and innovative products and services for exhibitors, and once again showcased some clever exhibit displays and booth attraction ideas.
Clever Theme & Design Examples
Instead of avoiding the subject of the economy, several exhibitors decided to tackle it head-on.
- Kubik used a low-budget chalkboard wall with the message "Cutting back shouldn't leave you feeling empty. Be a smart cookie."
- Steelhead Productions also used a food-related theme with their Lemonade Lounge: "Turning sour budgets into sweet exhibits." Visitors received a glass of lemonade and were entertained by a flair bartender.
- And speaking of tackling your challenges head-on ... the folks at Switch featured a truck crashing through a brick wall, encouraging attendees to "Liberate your brand."
Booth Design Elements
It was no surprise that many exhibits this year were very simple and often used fabric to help with today's shrinking budgets.
- One very streamlined display was EZ Backdrops, which is a fabric banner that requires no hardware to display! Simply attach the banner to the show's pipe and drape system instead.
- Another simple fabric display is Brand Booths, which are freestanding kiosks that are great for outdoor festivals.
- Nimlok featured a bi-layered banner that gives an illusion of being 3-D.
- Although not fabric, STAX is a lightweight modular system that allows for nearly infinite combinations for your display.
- Fabric Images showcased a giant fabric "ceiling fan," which had no motor of its own.
- How do you demonstrate how your product is superior to competitors? Eco-Systems Displays used an innovative "Good, Bad & Ugly" flip board!
Promotion & Attraction Ideas
- Got something to say? Wear it on a digital badge! Audience.tag badges have a small video screen that plays a loop of your company's messages.
- Speaking of digital messaging, Kaon Interactive featured touch-screen monitors that offer visitors a 3-D tour of your products.
- Globotech featured their digital banner stand, which is a completely portable plug-and-play system.
- For more low-tech, pocket-sized messaging, there's the Mini Brochure.
Several people commented that they noticed less giveaway items this year, probably due to reduced budgets. But the trends for giveaways that remained were:
1. Green: Think Green Promos featured their custom recycled bags and stated "Green is the new black."
2. Personalized: Ardent Impressions (formerly InstaFotos) showcased their laser-engraved photo dog tags, engraved flash drives, and various foil imprinted items.
This episode of Trade Show Insights is protected by copyright. You may share this recording with colleagues, as long as it is copied in its entirety and is not used for commercial purposes.
Click to play
EXHIBITOR Show 2008 Review
23/April/08 05:59 PM Filed in: Show Reviews
Duration: 12 min. 37 sec.
Size: 14.6 MB
It's time for our annual review of the Exhibitor Show in Vegas, held in March 2008. We'll discover some new and innovative products and services for exhibitors, along with some clever exhibit displays and booth attraction ideas.
Booth Design Elements
- Last year, we featured some of the innovative earth-friendly products from Eco-Systems. This year they were back with even more innovations, including graphics printed on panels made from recycled soda bottles.
- Who says your flooring has to be boring? Wise Industries showed their wild side with zebra-print flooring. And carpet isn't just for floors. They displayed some of their other carpet samples as butterfly cutouts mounted on a pillar.
- For a cool mix of nature and retro-chic, Expotechnik showed off their design skills using a conference area that featured leather and metal chairs combined with a white bamboo fence.
- Want a touchscreen kiosk in your booth, but don't want that "techie" look? The one used by Image Work Communications was definitely creative!
- You might not think of your booth staff as a design element, but the ladies of Softspace did. Each day they dressed in one of the colors of their booth: orange on Day 1, green on Day 2, and blue on Day 3.
Clever Theme & Attraction Examples
- Want a tasty way to attract traffic? Crepes a Latte is a themed catering company with an outgoing staff that gathers and works the crowd.
- And speaking of food ... MG Design built their theme around "The Idea Kitchen," starting with their pre-show mailer, which looked like a refrigerator and included a scratch & sniff sample. Thanks to a team effort with the Creative Cooking School of Las Vegas, there were tasty demonstrations in the booth and a VIP event on Tuesday evening.
- Okay, so food and the smell of food was an underlying theme for me this year! I attended a session called, "AccScent Your Exhibit," led by Gael Hancock from UNLV, where we learned about the science of smell and how to use it to your advantage in exhibits. Then later that day on the show floor, I discovered that InstaFotos is now offering EnhanScents, which features an aroma machine and coordinated scented giveaways.
- 3D Exhibits repurposed part of their red booth from last year's "Bling" campaign, shifting the red shag (made from cut-up t-shirts) from the wall to the floor. They also used a "Show & Tell" theme, inviting attendees to share advice or tips, which were then displayed in a video wall.
- So what would you do if you ended up stuck in a short aisle at the back of the hall, behind two tall island booths? Impact Unlimited placed a card in the reg bags that invited attendees to come to their booth "wa-a-ay in the back of the hall, next to the restrooms." Those who made it to the booth were registered to win an iPod touch.
Giveaways & Promotions Ideas
- EventPages is a new promotional tool for exhibitors. The company will design an event-specific mini Web site (or microsite), creating an online community for attendees to interact before and after the show.
- MG Design reinforced their "Idea Kitchen" theme by handing out cards with the featured recipes on them.
- Nth Degree played up how they can help you accomplish the things on your to-do list by giving away spiral notepads. (And they were the perfect "reporter-sized" pads -- that's where I made all the notes for this episode!)
- ELITeXPO demonstrated how to truly do green giveaways by handing out miniature trees in tubes from the Arbor Day Foundation.
- George Fern Company had a very appropriate giveaway for exhibitors -- a mini tool kit!
- And while everyone may be giving away USB flash drives, the latest version now comes in bracelet form. Several exhibitors were handing those out, with the added teaser of being a random winner if you were caught wearing the bracelet.
This episode of Trade Show Insights is protected by copyright. You may share this recording with colleagues, as long as it is copied in its entirety and is not used for commercial purposes.
Click to play
Size: 14.6 MB
It's time for our annual review of the Exhibitor Show in Vegas, held in March 2008. We'll discover some new and innovative products and services for exhibitors, along with some clever exhibit displays and booth attraction ideas.
Booth Design Elements
- Last year, we featured some of the innovative earth-friendly products from Eco-Systems. This year they were back with even more innovations, including graphics printed on panels made from recycled soda bottles.
- Who says your flooring has to be boring? Wise Industries showed their wild side with zebra-print flooring. And carpet isn't just for floors. They displayed some of their other carpet samples as butterfly cutouts mounted on a pillar.
- For a cool mix of nature and retro-chic, Expotechnik showed off their design skills using a conference area that featured leather and metal chairs combined with a white bamboo fence.
- Want a touchscreen kiosk in your booth, but don't want that "techie" look? The one used by Image Work Communications was definitely creative!
- You might not think of your booth staff as a design element, but the ladies of Softspace did. Each day they dressed in one of the colors of their booth: orange on Day 1, green on Day 2, and blue on Day 3.
Clever Theme & Attraction Examples
- Want a tasty way to attract traffic? Crepes a Latte is a themed catering company with an outgoing staff that gathers and works the crowd.
- And speaking of food ... MG Design built their theme around "The Idea Kitchen," starting with their pre-show mailer, which looked like a refrigerator and included a scratch & sniff sample. Thanks to a team effort with the Creative Cooking School of Las Vegas, there were tasty demonstrations in the booth and a VIP event on Tuesday evening.
- Okay, so food and the smell of food was an underlying theme for me this year! I attended a session called, "AccScent Your Exhibit," led by Gael Hancock from UNLV, where we learned about the science of smell and how to use it to your advantage in exhibits. Then later that day on the show floor, I discovered that InstaFotos is now offering EnhanScents, which features an aroma machine and coordinated scented giveaways.
- 3D Exhibits repurposed part of their red booth from last year's "Bling" campaign, shifting the red shag (made from cut-up t-shirts) from the wall to the floor. They also used a "Show & Tell" theme, inviting attendees to share advice or tips, which were then displayed in a video wall.
- So what would you do if you ended up stuck in a short aisle at the back of the hall, behind two tall island booths? Impact Unlimited placed a card in the reg bags that invited attendees to come to their booth "wa-a-ay in the back of the hall, next to the restrooms." Those who made it to the booth were registered to win an iPod touch.
Giveaways & Promotions Ideas
- EventPages is a new promotional tool for exhibitors. The company will design an event-specific mini Web site (or microsite), creating an online community for attendees to interact before and after the show.
- MG Design reinforced their "Idea Kitchen" theme by handing out cards with the featured recipes on them.
- Nth Degree played up how they can help you accomplish the things on your to-do list by giving away spiral notepads. (And they were the perfect "reporter-sized" pads -- that's where I made all the notes for this episode!)
- ELITeXPO demonstrated how to truly do green giveaways by handing out miniature trees in tubes from the Arbor Day Foundation.
- George Fern Company had a very appropriate giveaway for exhibitors -- a mini tool kit!
- And while everyone may be giving away USB flash drives, the latest version now comes in bracelet form. Several exhibitors were handing those out, with the added teaser of being a random winner if you were caught wearing the bracelet.
This episode of Trade Show Insights is protected by copyright. You may share this recording with colleagues, as long as it is copied in its entirety and is not used for commercial purposes.
Click to play
