Booth Camp

Left: A Polo exhibit by Tom Yurkin of Freeman. Center and right: Exhibits for Buick and HP by H.B. Stubbs

“Exhibits are always changing,” says Tom Yurkin, vice president, creative, at Dallas-based exhibits and events conglomerate Freeman. “You just have to go along with what's happening in our culture.”
Named 2005's Designer of the Year by the Atlanta-based Exhibit Designers and Producers Association, Yurkin gets his inspiration for booth design from all over. He reads 50 to 60 magazines every month, paying particular attention to architectural trends and automotive design, and he visits museums to look for ideas in art installations.
    “Exhibits need to do a lot more than they used to,” Yurkin notes. “They're more complicated and so full of technology.”
    Following is a taste of some of the country's top exhibit designers' latest inspirations.

Lighting
“Lighting can make or break the booth,” says Costas Varkarotas, GES' western region exhibit and design manager, based in Las Vegas. Indeed, changing the color and intensity of light can
affect a viewer's response, emotionally and even physically; best of all, compared to the exhibit's physical structure, lighting equipment is a relatively lightweight component.
    Recent advances: Lighting within exhibits has been getting more intense; it's not uncommon to see booths using a $100,000 projector with 12,000 lumens (nearly as bright as direct sunlight). Lighting also permits some really fantastic tricks. Varkarotas has put in holographic screens, rotating plasma screens and fog walls, created by pouring a curtain of fog from the ceiling and projecting an image on it.

LED systems
Really ambitious booths feature LED light boards, in which individual bulbs are placed just a few millimeters apart on a wall; the bulbs combine to form a pointillist video image. Why go LED? Such lighting is far brighter than that of a standard TV or projector, both of which can easily get washed out with all the other competing lights, explains Ernie Barna, design director at H.B. Stubbs, an exhibit design firm in Warren, Mich., with clients such as General Motors and Hewlett-Packard. “Really, nothing can compete with LED video walls,” he says.
    The walls have other advantages. First, because they are run by a computer that readily can be reprogrammed, the presentation can be adjusted up to the last minute, which isn't possible with most other media. Second, the walls can be painted to look like part of the architecture until the program launches and the walls are illuminated. Third, says Tom Yurkin, the technology permits very theatrical lighting without requiring big, heavy, hot and expensive rigs.
    Recent advances: LED walls now have better resolution. A decent wall will have bulbs separated by 10 mm (from the center of one bulb to the center of the adjacent bulb). The newest walls have separations as little as 4 mm, says Barna.

New materials
The materials used in constructing booths are getting lighter and more beautiful. Varkarotas uses acrylic, frosted plastic and Plexiglas panels to create accents.
    Aluminum, often found in new homes, is becoming increasingly important in exhibit design because of its light weight, durability and versatility. Mississauga, Ontario-based Alusion (www.alusion.com) creates textured walls made from shaved aluminum.
    For similar reasons, plastics and composites traditionally used in manufacturing cars have become important building materials in exhibits. Foam designed to look like stone can make a wall appear heavy without weighing much at all. 
    Fabric also has become a material of choice. It's lightweight, inexpensive, available in an almost unlimited array of colors, can cover vast expanses, can be stretched into curious forms and is easy to print logos or project images on.
    “It opens up a new vocabulary of shapes and designs,” says Paul Grondin, special projects director at H.B. Stubbs.
    Flooring has made great leaps as well. “In the past, flooring was a flat carpet,” says Varkarotas. “Now people realize it's part of the sculpture you're creating.”
    Carpeting is still popular, but now it's becoming patterned and textured, or even logoed. Alternatives to carpeting include laminate made to look like real wood, and rubber.
    But not all materials have to be clever fakes or of a high-tech nature to be effective. For a display for famed clothing retailer Polo Ralph Lauren, Yurkin used 100-year-old barn wood to impart an old-fashioned, rustic and cozy look.
    Recent advances: With modern resin technology, a company like Salt Lake City-based 3form (www.3-form.com) can “freeze” items in clear polymer, whether they be rose petals, bottle caps or pretty much any other small object.

Amenities
Sometimes the creature comforts in top exhibits can be akin to what's found in a fine hotel. Chichi coffee drinks are a very popular draw, no matter what the exhibiting company.
    Another option is to give attendees the chance to win high-end gifts, explains Sagoe Hoyle, director of design for the Minneapolis-based Star Exhibits & Environments Inc. One client of Hoyle's has used a Wheel of Fortune approach: Attendees took a spin, and if the arrow pointed to a certain spot, they won an iPod. Hoyle also has seen raffles for electronics and even cars.
    Entertainment in the booth also is a big draw, says Hoyle. He's seen Cirque du Soleil-style performances, salsa dancing demonstrations and even a post-show dance party held right in the booth.
    Recent advances: Varkarotas explains that some booths have two levels, with the second floor housing air-conditioned and soundproofed boardrooms.

Telling the story
The best exhibits tell a story, with the help of live presenters who guide prospective clients through different areas of the booth. These presenters used to be hired for their looks, says Barna; now they're “product specialists” who have spent many hours learning the finest details about the product and are prepared to answer any question.
    This story should always tie into the company's brand image. Explains Doug Schofield, design director at 3D Exhibits, based in Elk Grove Village, Ill., “We've gone from exhibit structures that are almost sculptural to forms making a lot more sense for a company's culture and brand.”
    For an exhibit for Ingersoll Rand, the diverse equipment manufacturer, at a recent National Association of Home Builders show, Schofield designed a booth that would show the company's products in use, appeal to the emotions of the crowd and emphasize IR's branding strategy.
    At the most basic level, a number of the parts Ingersoll Rand makes, including all kinds of door hardware, were shown built into a mocked-up house interior, which was set within the booth.
To bring people into the booth, Schofield hung sheer fabric in front and projected some of the company's marketing imagery onto it. The transparency of the fabric allowed passersby to see the branding message and peer inside the booth. The marketing images featured the company's new logo, along with shots of homes in different stages of development, designed to elicit an emotional response from the builders.
    “There's a level of recognition,” Schofield explains. “People think, 'Oh, I've been in that situation. I know exactly what it looks like.'”