When I first got into the exhibit industry in the early ‘00s, the company I was hired by, Interpretive Exhibits in Salem, was heavily involved in an exhibit for the Army Corps of Engineers. It was a permanent installation (still there) at The Dalles Dam in The Dalles, Oregon. The theme of the exhibit was “Tradeoffs” and it addresses the various parties involved in the needs and desires of the Columbia River. For every group that had in interest in utilizing the Columbia River as a resource, there was a tradeoff
of sorts. Sports fishermen, Native Americans and their fishing rights, shipping and transportation, recreation and so on – there were all sorts of groups that wanted something out of the river. The exhibit went into detail to explain each group’s interests and how they had to compromise, in a sense, to get a lot (but not all) of what they wanted.
That concept – the tradeoff – comes up in my mind frequently, and it can be applied to virtually anything that you are involved in.
Apply it to the tradeshow world: if you are willing to spend the money on a larger exhibit, the tradeoff is often that you must also be willing to hire a crew to setup and dismantle the exhibit, and you must be willing to pay more for shipping.
If you want an exhibit that can quickly be setup by one or two people, the tradeoff is that you must be willing to settle for a very simple design with limited bells and whistles and perhaps a lesser impact than something more complex.
If you want to have a professional presenter in your booth space pitching attendees several times an hour, the tradeoff is that not only do you need to invest in hiring that presenter, but you’ll need to make sure you have enough staff on hand to engage as many of those attendees as possible before they slip away.
It seems like we’re always giving up one thing to get another. We don’t live in a world where we have it all. Or a world where we have nothing at all.
We live in a world where we’re always calculating a tradeoff that works best for us.
I spent about a week in Monterey with an old friend recently to attend a couple of events: The Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion at the WeatherTech Laguna Seca Raceway and the Pebble Beach concours d’elegance. In a sense, both events are about as far away from tradeshows that you can get. But as event marketing goes, they’re at the top of their games.
Consider this: according to the website, “the competition attracts 15,000 affluent aficionados who pay a minimum of $325 for general admission.” And this: “Entrants often spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to acquire a car, hundreds of thousands to restore it, and tens of thousands more to transport it to Pebble Beach to compete for our top award. Come day of show, the cars pulling onto the eighteenth fairway of Pebble Beach Golf Links often have a total estimated value of half a billion dollars.”
So, yeah, the one-percenters, basically. And of course, there are a lot of other vintage car enthusiasts who like the show and the spectacle who are not in that top echelon (that would include me, just to be clear!).
Just driving around the area over the week gives you an opportunity to see hundreds of exotic and high-end cars that are just out cruising: Porches, McLarens, Teslas, Ferraris, Maseratis, Rolls-Royces, and a few that are simply unrecognizable or unique one-of-a-kinds.
This is a prime market ripe for pitching high-end products. There are numerous car auctions, one of which set a record over the weekend for selling a car at auction for a record $48.4 million. In case you’re wondering, it was a 1962 Ferrari 250 GTO.
Car manufacturers spend a ton to show off their newest models. Infiniti, for instance, sets up a large temporary building just above the festivities on the 18th fairway at Pebble Beach. During the runup to the event, they offer visitors a chance to drive new models for a couple of miles. Other car makers over the year have included Jeep, Cadillac, Chrysler, Tesla and many others. In fact, the first I ever heard of a Tesla was in 2008 when they introduced their roadster at the event. In 2016, Tesla was offering a chance to drive their new Model X (which I did).
Ferrari brought several dozen vintage autos and displayed them on the fairway of hole number one.
There were nine Tucker automobiles at the show, along with a handful of Chinese cars and a collection from the Raj of India.
Concept cars encircle the main putting green in front of the pro shop, where we’ve seen everything over the years from an electric VW bus, to McLarens, Rolls-Royces, Porches, Lincolns, Maseratis, Hennesseys, Genesis’ and many more – too many to count. Just a bunch of glorious eye candy for car fans.
Every year there is a raffle during the event, where up to four brand new model cars are given away. Former Tonight Show host Jay Leno has done the honors for years, telling the same jokes year after year.
Some 1200 media members cover the event, with about a quarter of them from outside the United States.
But at the bottom line, the event is a fundraiser for several dozen charities in the area. Over the years the they event has generated millions of dollars that goes to help area children. This year the event raised $1.8 million which will be distributed by the Pebble Beach Company Foundation to 85 local charities.
Check out the gallery below. I’m sure I’ll be back next year. It’s already on my calendar.
If you’re a long-time reader of this blog, you may recall the time awhile back that I posted a collection of tradeshow infographics from Pinterest.
Time to do it again! Let’s see what the search turns up.
Let’s start with Software Tech Tradeshows & Events, posted here. Not a ton of info in this one, but it does look helpful if you’re in that space. It is a bit of a promo item from KWGeek.
A collection of informative infographics from Supportive Guru here, including Building an Exhibit for Your Business: There’s also one called how to be a Superhero at your next tradeshow!
Even though many clients want custom design and fabrication for a unique look, often having simple exhibits is what you really need.
In fact, many clients that I work with go to several shows. They don’t take their big, deluxe, state-of-the art exhibit to all of the shows. Instead, they’ll take something that can ship via UPS or FedEx, or can even be loaded into a van or SUV if it’s a closer show and you have only one or two people setting up the exhibit.
In this type of situation, it often comes down to convenience in setting up, convenience in shipping, and a starkly simple look. It’s all doable, and it’s usually a step above what many competitors as similar shows are doing. I mean, have you seen those wrinkly vinyl banners that hang lopsided across the back of the booth, and a cheesy table cloth (or none at all) over the organizer-provided 8′ folding table? Of course you have. And you are thinking the same thing: “What can I do that’s a step or two up from that, but won’t break my budget?”
X-1
I get asked this question on a regular basis. And there’s no one answer, but there are a lot of options, depending on budget. And depending on how many people might be setting up the exhibit with you.
For starters, you could start with an 8′ or 10′ graphic back wall. There are a number of options, but we like the HopUp and the VBurst and have sold many of them. The HopUp comes at a lower price point, but still provides good quality. It also comes in different sizes, up to 20′, and is available in straight or curved. The VBurst is a higher priced, but also comes with options that the HopUp doesn’t deliver, such as back lit graphics. And with either, if you want to cover a 20′ (or more) back wall space, you can always set up more than one side by side. Another option is something a little different – the X-1, which comes in a variety of configurations.
What about counters? Again, it depends. Do you want a counter with lockable storage, or is an open storage shelf workable for your specific situation? We like the HopUp Counter, the Formulate Counter Pillar (and related counters), the Hybrid Pro, the Linear Pro and the Embrace counters.
Many counters can be shipped flat in a custom-jigged padded case, and can also be fabricated with charging ports. Loads to look at here.
Exhibitors often want a little more than convenience and practicality and start adding things like tables and chairs. We particularly like the OTM-100 set of two chairs and a table that breaks down and packs flat.
Simple exhibit do win. They win with convenience, ease of shipping and set-up and in pricing that doesn’t break your budget. Don’t let the big guys have all the fun with their fancy schmancy custom exhibits. Get some attention with simple exhibits. Hey, your boss will love it.
In the world of custom exhibit design, there are so many possibilities that any good exhibit designer will never run out of ways to put things together. Companies want a lot of the same things, such as product demo or display areas, meeting and storage areas and generous branding space.
We often have conference calls with prospects and clients with our designers, and from those discussions come mockup designs. Once a potential design is reviewed, changes are often made to accommodate functional needs and create more graphic branding opportunities. Or whatever. Designs, until they are built, are always a work in progress. Even after a custom exhibit design is built and used at a tradeshow, companies will often make changes between shows to flooring, graphics, and add storage, tables or chairs based on their experience with the exhibit at a show.
Given all of that, I have a ton of design mockups lurking on my hard drive. Many are from-scratch custom designs and others are modifications of kits that exist in Exhibit Design Search.
Let’s take a look at a handful of them and see what issues might have come up.
Starting with:
Tintri: Invited to submit a design for a 30×30 rental booth at a Las Vegas tradeshow this summer. Challenges: need 6 demo stations, a meeting area, and use an existing hanging sign.
Sweetleaf: invited to respond to an RFP for a 20×20 design that would use elements of the larger design for a 10×20 to appear at smaller shows. Needs: some sample areas, but not too many, and modest product display. Partly private meeting areas desired.
Fasoo: another RFP we were invited to respond to. Client was looking for a 20×30 design with a large A/V area, small staging area for in-booth presentations, and three double-sided demo stations, also a separate meeting area for clients and prospects. Hanging sign optional but desired if it fit the budget.
Hyland’s: a current client was interested in upgrading their current exhibit and was looking to streamline the older wood look with smaller product display area, a single meeting area, and a greeting counter with some storage.
Stahbush Farms: wanted an exhibit that could have elements that would set up as a 10×10, 10×20 or 10×30 depending on the show. Needed sampling areas, storage and large branding graphic. Wanted a wooden, ‘farm-like’ image, but should be able to break down to smaller pieces for shipping.
Unnamed company: we were invited to respond to an RFP for a company that made those little pull handles for beer taps. It was a larger island of 30×60 that would leave a lot of room for people to congregate and give ample space for showing off the pull handles. Also wanted a bar-like area, and if possible, a private storage closet or meeting area. This is an unbranded concept that the potential client chose to keep anonymous, but the unused design is certainly up for grabs if you want to stick your name on it!
These are all great designs and for one reason or another, remain unbuilt. But they’re up for grabs if they intrigue you and your marketing team and feel that they could be modified to fit your needs. What do you think?
When it comes to standing out in a crowd, don’t look up, look at the flooring under your feet. Look down. Have you ever walked a tradeshow floor and did nothing for fifteen minutes but look at the flooring an exhibitor is using in their booth? In many cases, you can’t ignore the floor. It’s quite an education on the use of a variety of flooring options for today’s exhibitors. If you’re not taking advantage of any of them, it’s a sure bet that many of your competitors are.
One example of a client we work with, Schmidt’s Naturals, has used custom printed flooring in both of their recent Expo West presentations, and to say it helped their exhibit stand out is an understatement. With the ability to print custom graphics and messaging on the floor gives you a (no pun intended) leg up on the competition.
Another client, Dave’s Killer Bread/Alpine Valley, didn’t use custom printed flooring, but instead chose to separate the two brands in a 10×30 space by using one type of flooring (printed vinyl) for one brand and another type (black carpet) for the other brand. Great way to distinguish the two brands in a single space.
Printed carpet is also available, using the dye-sub technology to add branding to the soft carpet below your feet.
Another approach that draws attention to your booth space is to raise the floor by two or three inches. I hear this is very common in Europe. The edges in this case will often have a slanted walkway or entry to help visitors avoid tripping hazards. Raised flooring also lets you take care of all wire management underneath the flooring, and it’s easy to change out the surface from show to show.
Whatever you decide on flooring, there are multiple opportunities that should be considered to give yourself a visual edge in drawing attention of attendees.
There are many reasons to explore bare-bones or low budget tradeshow design. Budget is probably a big motivator to many exhibitors to have a simple design, but it’s not the only reason. Having an extremely simplified exhibit can attract attention you might not otherwise get.
One recent example comes to mind: Kashi, at the Natural Products Expo West. For the past couple of years, Kashi has made a statement with a very simply exhibit. The large island exhibit consisted of a tall “1%” icon that engaged visitors, driving them to curiosity to stop and see what it meant. The explanation was shown on a small posted sign and was reinforced by a few staffers. The exhibit captured people by its very simplicity.
Of course, there are numerous ways to save bucks when exhibiting: instead of printing brochures, make them available only via PDF downloads. Rent an exhibit instead of owning. Promote through social media. Avoid promotional giveaways unless it really nails your brand. And so on.
But with a simple design, you can catch eyeballs and turn heads and keep to low budget tradeshow design. Large simple graphics with very little text can often to the trick. Using a pop-up internally lit graphic in a smaller booth is one good way to stand out. Having a creative design brief that directs your exhibit house to think in terms of stark simplicity. If your brand lends itself to simplicity, all the better. If not, a creative 3D exhibit designer and a creative graphic designer can work to simplify.
Another reason to simplify: if you have a simpler booth, you have fewer pieces to ship, which reduces shipping and drayage costs, and presumably, I&D costs. It also gives you more space to welcome visitors. A more open space is often more inviting.
What can you do with the design of your booth to simplify and reduce costs?
When it comes to tradeshow shipping, you certainly have options. And, like all of the aspects of tradeshow marketing, there are many moving parts. No pun intended.
For shipping, to make it easy, rely on great tips from the Freight Pros, who remind you that it all starts with the BOL (Bill of Lading). Article author Logan Theissen discusses other items such as freight class, freight carrier, delivery windows and the dicey ways of getting in and out of busy tradeshow shipping docks.
Shipping in advance to the show warehouse is more economical than shipping direct to the show, but it does mean that you’ll need to ship a week or more sooner than you would when shipping direct to the show. Shipping direct is more of a juggling act, as you have to find a shipper that can deliver at a specified time to a specified location. If you are shipping smaller items, such as product samples or replacement graphics, shipping to yourself or another employee at your hotel may be a good option, so that you can simply carry the items onto the show floor.
Another few tips courtesy of My Display Source: always keep records – tracking numbers, phone numbers of shippers and contacts, BOLs, etc. Take photos of all of the paperwork at the show. And if something shows up damaged, photos are a necessity. Before you go to the show, know what is shipping back and how, and what, if anything, is to be discarded. And don’t make the mistake of shipping items to the show that you won’t use. You’re paying for it, make sure you don’t ship extraneous items.
What about another aspect of shipping, such as the choice between a large custom wooden crate, or smaller molded plastic shipping cases? Many clients we work with at TradeshowGuy Exhibits have exhibits that are of a size (10×10, 10×20) that frankly could go either way. A modest 10×10 can be shipped in a custom-jigged, padded wooden crate. Exhibits last a long time when shipped with that kind of protection. But the same 10×10 that ships in a single custom crate may take three, four, or even five roto-molded plastic cases.
There is a huge variety of cases and crates to choose from, and it’s an important thing to consider when purchasing a new exhibit. Some clients like to have a custom crate, and have additional space built in so that they can include sample products and other essential items for your tradeshow tool kit.
Some clients prefer not to have to deal with freight companies or shipping docks and fork lifts, and opt for the smaller plastic cases. Some cases double as counters and can be branded or modified with printed wraps as well.
When making that choice between cases or crates, talk to your exhibit house. Do they provide custom-cut die-cut foam packaging to protect all pieces during shipping, or do they just wrap things in plastic or bubble wrap and toss it into the case? It makes a difference, so be sure to ask!
For a closer look at a few of the various types of shipping containers, browse this gallery:
Welcome to the (perhaps) annual TradeshowGuy Expo West 2018 Exhibit Awards, where I totally (almost) at random, pick out a handful of the 3600+ exhibits at the Natural Products Expo West show and give them a little notoriety here on the TradeshowGuy Blog!
A couple of caveats: I’m not including any current clients of TradeshowGuy Exhibits – they’re already award winners in our book, and we don’t want this fun post to be biased towards, you know, clients! Besides, we’ve already posted photos of those exhibits.
So, let’s get started!
Best Big Brand Makeover: Kettle Foods
Kettle Foods started out as a small nut and chip maker in Salem, Oregon. In the past ten years or so the company has been bought and sold a handful of times and is currently operated as one of the major brands of the Snyder’s-Lance product suite. The island exhibit shows great color and ingenuity in piecing together many elements of the Kettle Brand.
Best Client-Made Exhibit: Stahlbush Farms
I’ve had the pleasure of knowing and working with the good folks at Stahlbush Farms, near Corvallis, Oregon, for several years. But when it came time to do a new booth, it finally came down to having their own fabrication shop create it. It’s built using crates that double as counters, and everything fits neatly into a couple of crates. Nicely done!
Best Kitchen Sink Exhibit – DanoneWave
I think they used to be White Wave, but now it’s DanoneWave, still offering brands under the Silk, Dannon, Oikos, SoDelicious, Wallaby Organic and many others. I’ve always stopped by their booths over the years and chatted and tasted and this year was no exception. There’s a lot going on here: carts, hot air balloons, colorful images, detailed woodwork, a random vehicle or three – seriously, you can just walk around the thing for fifteen minutes taking it in!
Best Retro Motor Vehicle Use – Hansen’s
A cool psychedelically painted hippie van? Ff course! There are a lot of vehicles that show up in booth spaces at Expo West, but this one catches your eyes like no other.
Best Photo Op – Enjoy Life
Enjoy Life has seen their exhibit grow significantly in the last few years, from a small inline to a dominating island. This year they showed of a pseudo-underwater photo alley that invited people to shoot and share. Yes, there were a lot of photo ops throughout the show, but this made the biggest impression.
Best Rustic Exhibit – Kodiak Cakes
Kodiak Cakes of Park City, Utah, also had a great photo op section of their booth space, but I felt that the rest of the exhibit was more impressive. Beyond the photo op section was a forest, a lookout-like building and a wall of photos of booth visitors. A fun-loving and lively crew, too, passing out samples like crazy.
Best Simple Yet Powerful Statement Exhibit – Kashi
Last year, Kashi caught eyes with a simple statement with no brand ambassadors, no sampling – just a simple statement to support farmers in their transition to organic farming. This year they made a similar statement with a slightly modified exhibit. Powerful stuff.
Best Split Exhibit – Aqua Carpatica
Downstairs in the busy ballroom at Expo West, it’s a little hard to stand out. But Aqua Carpatica of Romania booked two 10×20 spaces across the aisle from each other and dominated the space with a spare, almost ascetic approach to pitch the cleanliness of their water. It was capped by a giant video screen, around 8 x 12 feet, and some tables and chairs – but not much else. Very attention-getting!
Best Tribute to a Fallen Comrade – Clif Bar
I met John Anthony over a decade ago when Kettle Foods was a client, and John worked for them. A fun and engaging guy to talk to, he moved to Clif Bar, Nature’s Path, UNFI and CLIF’s White Road Investments. I was having lunch with an old Kettle Foods friend a few months prior to Expo West and mentioned that I’d run into John at the 2017 show. He said he’d heard that John had died unexpectedly in the fall of 2017. Clif Bar did a nice job in their tribute:
All right – on that note, we’ll wrap up this year’s TradeshowGuy Expo West Exhibit Awards. Hope you enjoyed. Sorry if we missed your booth – but hey, there were over 3,600 exhibitors this year. Maybe next year!
Random thoughts, observations and photos from walking the floor, test-tasting the products, and chatting with people on day two of the Natural Products Expo West show in Anaheim:
It’s a mental thing. But as much as I feel I should restrain myself from eating too many samples, you seriously can’t hold back. There are so damn many good foods on display for test-tasting that you just can’t not try them. I’m a sucker for great chocolates, sweets, and similar concoctions. Frankly, it’s overwhelming. Having said that, I’m getting tired of energy bars. I stopped eating them on a regular basis a couple of years ago (too many calories for my diet!), and it’s hard to find ones that I really want. There are also a lot of prepared foods that I bypass. We don’t eat microwave foods at my house, and none of those types of foods really appeal to me after so much good home-cooking.
Non-food items – skin care, hair care, supplements and the like – all are very popular, and many caught my eye. One of our clients, Wedderspoon, added to their line of New Zealand Manuka Honey tasty treats by introducing cleansers, hand creams, body lotion and more – all very good stuff.
This is also the first year that I paid much attention to pet products. It’s because, for the first time in decades, I’m able to live with a pet (say Hi, Scruffy!). So yes, I grabbed a couple of samples for the four-legged member of our household. We’ll see how he likes them!
Speaking of our clients at TradeshowGuy Exhibits, we love supporting them and showing them off. Bob’s Red Mill, Schmidt’s Naturals, Wedderspoon Manuka Honey, Dave’s Killer Bread/Alpine Valley, and Hyland’s are all off to a great show. So many of the companies we’ve worked with are at an interesting spot in their growth: new products, growing bottom line, expanding exhibits means an expanding and more mature presence at Expo West. It also means, in a sense, moving out of their comfort zone. It means hiring installation/dismantle crews now to set up the exhibit when a previous smaller exhibit was set up by company employees. More complexity also means a more powerful presence and impact. But the end result in all cases has been a client that’s pleased with how the exhibit looks to their customers – which is the most important things to us.
Also got a chance to meet and chat with Nicky Omoundro of Little Family Adventure who is one of the official Expo West bloggers – and who will be on the TradeshowGuy Monday Morning Coffee vlog/podcast in the not too distant future to talk about her experiences here!
Ready for Day Three! Thanks, but I’ll bypass the yoga in the plaza this morning (I already did my ten minutes upon arising) and head straight for the coffee.
