Dimestore Deva

Deva Productions has only been around for eight years, but head designer Margaret Keasberry has spent the bulk of her professional life creating tradeshow booths for fashion industry customers. With some 30 exhibitors as well as the show's producer, Advanstar Communications, among its customers, MAGIC is Deva's anchor account.

"The ego factor at this show is high," Deva President Daniel Esteras said. "The artists look at one another's booths. Everybody wants to look better than everybody else."

Some of the company's bigger name clients – Joe's Jeans, Bongo, Yanuk and Fetish – "have lots of money and are used to spending it," Keasberry said. Others, small companies just starting out, for instance, "want champagne, but only want to pay for Coke."

So over the years, Keasberry and Esteras have developed a few tricks for helping smaller, younger companies make a good appearance at the show without breaking the bank.

1. It's the weight, baby.

If you haven't figured this out by now, write it down: The lighter your exhibit, the less it will cost you in fabrication, shipping, drayage and storage.

Deva designers currently have a thing for filmy drapes, fabric backwalls, light-as-a-feather furniture and just about anything else that can shave pounds off a client's hundredweight and give a booth a light, clean look.

2. Rent, don't buy.

If you're on a tight budget, Deva – like just about any exhibit house out there these days – will rent you a booth for much less than it would cost to buy one. Renting not only saves you from paying the full price of exhibit properties, it also saves on storage costs.

Unless your company exhibits in many shows in the same year, and you can get away with re-using the same booth, with the same look, over and over, renting is probably the way to go.

3. Turn, turn, turn.

To every campaign, there is a season. Whether you're in fashion or car parts, you know your marketing department well enough to know it will be coming out with a new message, look and feel just when you've paid off the graphics from your last exhibit.

To solve this problem, Deva developed Artwall. The simple modular system consists of steel, powder-coated frames over which can be stretched large-format prints on a variety of substrates, from shiny vinyl to canvas-like Solvatex.

Not only does the Artwall system create high-impact backwalls for about one-third the cost and one-half the weight of hardwalls with graphics, but the graphics can be changed out more cheaply, more often, allowing you to keep up economically with changes in product lines and marketing messages.

"If you're using a good printer and you have a good graphics file, you can have an inexpensive booth that really pops," said Esteras. "And you can change elements or move them around easily for a different look at every show."

And why is Deva so interested in saving its clients money, instead of making as much off them as it possibly can? "They stay with us," Keasberry explained. "With little changes in graphics, furniture or component configuration, our booths can last them two to three years. That gives them the time to get established and, hopefully, break into the business and start making some real money."