New Booths All Around

Las Vegas¡ªIf EXHIBITOR is an indicator of the year to come for the exhibit design, build and marketing sector, then 2006 should be a banner year.

The show, held March 5-9 at Mandalay Bay Convention Center in Las Vegas, broke its own records in every metric that management tracks, and was a success for exhibitors interviewed by Tradeshow Week.

"To the extent that we're a bellwether, I suspect the industry's pretty strong," said Lee Knight, founder and CEO of show owner Exhibitor Magazine Group, as he sipped a glass of champagne handed to him by a show participant. "This has been our best show in 18 years."

Carol Fojtik, the Hall-Erickson manager of the show, added, "Companies that hadn't been exhibiting are starting to come back, and those who had been exhibiting are taking more space and looking for new properties to replace the ones they'd been using for years."

The show spanned 68,000 net square feet and drew 303 exhibiting firms, the "most ever" in both categories, according to Fojtik. Although attendance numbers will have to wait until after an audit is complete, she reported that first-day registration exceeded that of 2001, which holds the high-attendance record.

Changing the conference schedule so that intense half-day and daylong sessions started Sunday and ended Thursday ¡ª bracketing the three days with showfloor hours ¡ª probably had something to do with increased attendance on Monday, organizers said. Because exhibit managers and event professionals seeking the Certified Trade Show Marketer designation showed up Sunday to get course credits, more people were on hand for the exhibition's Monday opening.

In fact, the CTSM program benefits the show in other ways too. First-time exhibitor Gary Turner, business development manager for DuPont Ink Jet and Textiles, said he would like to come back to the show because of its sophisticated audience.

"This was a good turnout, with a highly educated group of people who asked excellent questions," said Turner. "We're not cheap. We want people for whom quality and beauty are important."

In fact, Turner's 10¡ä¡Á20¡ä exhibit was geared as much toward other exhibitors as toward attendees. He was there showing off DuPont printers' ability to produce large-format graphics on a variety of fabrics ¡ª services more often subcontracted by printers or exhibit builders than commanded by exhibit managers.

DuPont wasn't the only one in this situation. Fabric Images, makers of all types of fabric exhibitry, departed from its customary 10¡ä¡Á10¡ä with literature and samples. The company opted instead for a tall 20¡ä¡Á30¡ä using brightly colored examples of the types of work they do ¡ª including fur-covered columns.

"We're here to connect with the designer, because we're often a subcontractor for fabric displays," said Leo Boczar, marketing manager for Fabric Images. "And we're showing off our capabilities to the end users too, educating them on what we can do."

A healthy exhibit design and build business was also reflected in what the two biggest general service contracting firms, Freeman and GES Exposition Services, chose to highlight at the show.

GES, which in recent years has focused on exhibitor services like I&D, this year pushed its exhibit design capabilities ¡ª something the company has been doing since before its parent company Viad bought Exhibitgroup/Giltspur, one of the industry's largest exhibit design firms.

Freeman, meanwhile, put its corporate accounts business front and center, sending the message that it can do everything, "from the floor you see here, all the way up to the lighting," as National Sales Manger Leigh Dorton put it. "We can support our clients as a general contractor, and in the function of a small boutique exhibit house ... We have over 100 designers ¡ª probably more than anyone else out here."

So, why the competition for the design business?

"The demand is huge right now," said Fojtik.

Attendee Steve Helberg, an exhibit designer for Boeing, wasn't shopping the floor for a new booth, since his company does them itself. Instead, he was looking for trends and ideas.

Helberg said designs have changed significantly since he last attended the show three years ago. "The trend we're noticing is the clean, crisp look of booths. It's very nice," he said.

Even more important, he added, was that design firms seemed to have caught onto the importance of coherent corporate branding.

EXHIBITOR2007 is scheduled March 25¨C29, again at Mandalay Bay. Knight said he had no plans to move the show out of the venue.