A flower-decked bicycle that served as Instagram bait for guests bore just a small—but recognizable—Target bullseye logo within its wheels.
Inside the tent, the "Perrier bubble ball" dispensed prizes including fish-eye camera-lens clips, flash tattoos, earplugs, and earbud headphones.
A photo op allowed guests to step into a booth that looked like a hot-air balloon, and pose in front a whimsical backdrop.
Clif Bar was another company to provide a relaxed lounge area, filled with summery folding chairs and bean-bag games.
Topman, the British fashion brand that has a store on Michigan Avenue, brought back its "Live Screen Printing" activation. Guests could customize T-shirts or tote bags with a variety of prints.
As in previous years—and as at other music festivals—guests waited in long lines to receive the custom tote bags and T-shirts.
The T-shirts all said "Speak the Truth," and guests could customize the statements that were printed below. One guest elected to have printed: "I still have stuffed animals," while another chose, "I am in the fast lane following my dreams."
Whole Foods hosted a miniature market selling fruits and other snacks on festival grounds. There was also a station with complimentary amenities such as sunscreen, hair ties and bobby pins, and scented sprays with labels such as "Mosh Pit Mint." A sign near the station read: "Refresh yourself before you wreck yourself."
Steph Sciré and Isaac Ferry were behind the takeover of the Sparrows Lodge in Palm Springs for the low-key and wellness-minded Retreat. Jeff Consoletti of JJ-LA produced, along with tour and event producer Tanya Slater. Taylor & Taylor managed the production design for the event, which included a silk patchwork canopy for laid-back seating on the hotel's grounds. The look also included Persian rugs, Native American artifacts, succulents, kilim pillows, and leather details.
A curved 130-foot marquee extended over more than two dozen demo stations at the Dealertrack Technologies space by MC2 at the National Automobile Dealers Association show in Orlando. The stations were uplit with blue LED strips, and blue-edge-lit partitions offered privacy by separating the stations and dampening sound.
The playful exhibit for Brooks Sports by Pinnacle Exhibits for the 2013 Outdoor Retailer Winter Market in Salt Lake City had a team of mechanized mannequins running overhead, bar stools made with mannequin runners’ legs, and monitors displaying social media posts.
Lincoln defined its space at the 2013 New York International Auto Show with a partial wall perforated with a logo-inspired pattern, a feature the company called the "the Lincoln Lattice membrane." Exhibit Works engineered and fabricated the exhibit, and Imagination was the creative agency behind it.
At the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, MC2’s booth for Michelin featured two simulator floors that let visitors “Be the Tire.” When they stepped onto the floor mat and placed their hands on the dashboard, they experienced the road from a tire’s point of view—feeling vibrations from the bumps and dips of various road surfaces.
For a low-key yet high-impact display, greeting card company JustWink parked a tricked-out a truck at the 2013 National Stationery Show in New York. Called the Wink Wagon, the truck had an HD screen, tablet devices, and a speaker system along with its bright graphics and product displays.
With black product displays and blue LED lighting, Gallo created a modern booth for SMS Audio at the 2013 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Hanging fabric panels featured SMS owner and C.E.O. Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson, who signed autographs at the event.
MG Design created a traveling barn-theme exhibit for Organic Valley that had solar panels and a motorized wind turbine to emphasize the food brand’s commitment to environmental sustainability. Other details included rake ends that held lanyards, bent forks that held product sampling cards, and fresh grass from a local Organic Valley farm.
At the 2012 National Association of Convenience Stores in Las Vegas, MC2 created a “Convenience Store of the Future” for the Hershey Company that integrated physical and virtual components. On one wall, an 18- by 20-foot screen presented a 3-D model of a convenience store that visitors could navigate with an Xbox controller to see Hershey’s marketing ideas in context.
The gritty booth by Pinnacle Exhibits for personal electronics accessories maker Incipio at the 2013 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas combined new build and rental elements, as well as a refurbishment of the client’s existing properties.
One major trend in trade show booth design right now is bilevel exhibits, like the one by Jack Morton Worldwide for Ericsson at Mobile World Congress 2013 in Barcelona.
Jack Morton Worldwide's bilevel booth for Ericsson at Mobile World Congress 2013 also included an on-site coffee shop with exposed lightbulbs and an eclectic mix of seating.
The Game Insights booth by Sparks at the 2013 Game Developers Conference in San Francisco had multiple game stations in several formats for attendees to play, plus a large video wall showing the trailer for the new game Dragon Eternity.
The structural and cosmetic details of the exhibit for the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company at the Offshore Technology Conference 2013, built by 2020 Exhibits, reflected the heritage of the United Arab Emirates while including tech-driven informational stations.
National Oilwell Varco wanted a red-carpet-themed customer appreciation experience, so the booth design by 2020 Exhibits at the Offshore Technology Conference 2013 in Houston included a café, a lounge with touch-screen coffee tables, a small-scale movie theater, and an interactive area with iPad stations.
At the 2013 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Freeman built a two-story exhibit space for Qualcomm that held three immersive experiences, 30 demos, 14 meeting rooms, and a press area. Cutouts of Sesame Street characters promoted apps including one that helps children learn to read.
At Ply Gem’s 9,000-square-foot exhibit for the 2013 International Builders’ Show in Las Vegas, MG Design created a homelike booth that showed off hundreds of exterior building products and celebrated the brand’s 70-year history. The space also had a theater along with a two-story deck that housed a kitchen, private meeting space, and a fireplace.
A 30,000-square-foot space by Sparks for TaylorMade at the P.G.A. Merchandise Show in Orlando did double-duty, functioning as an exhibit during the day and a client appreciation party at night. Booming house music and an aerialist clad in a Swarovski-crystal-covered bodysuit pouring drinks from a 10-foot-high chandelier helped set the mood.
Freeman created a self-guided exhibit intro for Siemens at the 2012 Audiology Now Conference in Boston. While listening to headsets, attendees learned about the technologies they would experience in the exhibit.
For a New York Times exhibit that traveled to the 2013 Consumer Electronics Show, Macworld, and South by Southwest, Sparks created a multimedia experience in which attendees used iPads, smartphones, and tablets to do things like make Word Cloud portraits—images of guests created by a computer that searched for words within the Times’s article database.
Pinnacle Exhibits created a garage concept for outdoor retailer Yakima, showing off the products in a casual, inviting setting at the 2012 Outdoor Retailer Summer Market in Salt Lake City.
A crisp white foundation showed off Philips lighting products in the company’s booth at the 2013 Lightfair in Philadelphia. A custom color-changing chandelier, inspired by an organ, presided over the 10,200-square-foot space, created by Global Experience Specialists.
At the 2013 Duty Free Show in Orlando, Tangram created a multi-brand booth for JTI that sought to display the company’s cigarette brands in a sophisticated way. An entryway showcased the different products while each of the three private meeting rooms featured a different brand and its own design.
Stations with seamlessly integrated refrigeration systems, sinks, and other equipment were ideal for serving PreGel America’s specialty desserts at the 2013 National Restaurant Association Show in Chicago. Nimlok and Studio Displays Inc. created the space, which also had a double-decker lounge space, LED-lit counters, and sleek, curved custom structures.
Sunquest used 16-foot string curtains to create semiprivate meeting areas in two corners of its booth.
At the McKesson booth, a graphic artist from Ink Factory created a new piece of art each day around a specific health care topic based on Twitter and in-person comments. The company recorded a time-lapse video of the artist at work, which it then shared on its social networks.
Live Marketing created an interactive iPad wall for Siemens. The eye-catching display contained 119 of the devices, some permanently mounted and others placed on the wall by two presenters as they spoke. The iPads functioned synchronously to reflect the concept of connected care offered by the company’s new CareXcell product.
Alere used circular structures in a tunnellike design to emphasize that its services support a continuum of care.
CareTech Solutions erected an elevated glass-enclosed room that nearly filled its entire 20- by 30-foot space on the show floor. The interior was designed to replicate the company’s service desk system for hospitals. Preshow marketing materials invited prospects to stop by, using the tagline, “Discover what’s in the box.”
CliniComp International used drapes, contemporary chandeliers, and lounge seating to create a 13- by 15-foot living-room-style meeting area in the middle of its booth.
To emphasize its theme of “Connected Care in Action,” Medecision had dancers clad in bright bodysuits playing Just Dance 2014 on an Xbox One. The dancers wore Fitbit tracking devices, and attendees could enter for a chance to win a game system by guessing the total number of steps the dancers would take during the conference.
KLAS used redwood deck flooring and half-walls made of bamboo to create a multilevel booth with an open, inviting atmosphere.
Stoltenberg Consulting erected a 20- by 20-foot geodesic dome in the middle of its booth that served as meeting space. Decorating the dome and a nearby treelike structure were discs imprinted with “What if …” questions related to health information technology, which served as conversation-starters with attendees.
Tension fabric stretched across a 30-foot-tall geometric frame created a striking perimeter at the booth for Interfaceware.
Faux brick walls, a large square bar, and multiple televisions created a sports bar atmosphere to highlight Hyland Software’s OnBase system. Booth staff hosted a happy hour each evening with snacks and beer.
CDW, a technology solutions provider for health care, invited attendees to play a variety of quiz-show-style games based on content about the company’s services. In addition to winning small prizes such as battery chargers and tablet cases, attendees earned raffle tickets each time they played a game or interacted with booth staff. Twice a day the company awarded a GoPro camera as a raffle prize.
