7 Trade Show Trends from the Auto Show

Monday, April 25, 2011

7 Trade Show Trends from the Auto Show

7 New York International Auto Show Trends - Through Exhibiting Eyes!

1. The cars are the stars!

With some trade shows I attend I don’t always know what is being shown. No guessing here! The Cars are the Stars!

2. Fabric. Fabric. And more fabric!

Talk about materials that these exhibits are built out of… Lots and lots of fabric! Often in the form of walls or other flat surfaces fabric stretched into extrusion -(SEG) silicon edged graphics – into flat or simply curved surfaces.

3. Printed Graphics. Many fabric surfaces were printed. The trend seen here is not just the fabric printing, high quality dye- sublimation print process in wide widths and high quality imagery, but other flat panels in solid color as well.

4. Graphic Imagery. The idea and the feeling of the graphical treatments were repeated over and over again. The highlighted image in many backdrops featured super graphics that were abstracts of speed, the blur of the road, or the feeling of travel movement imagery.

5. Screens. LED screens were out in full force! Some curtains, many were LED tiled squares that were put together to create approximately 12′ x 16′ digital surfaces. While most LED screens showed traditional commercial imagery in a sameness kind of set up -Toyota broke the mold for the Prius. Toyota used sticks of truss jutting out above the Prius and covered them with the LED 12” squares. The imagery was vibrant….Take a look at some of the photos below…

6. Signage – Clean. Fabric with elevated letters or logo’s. This is a great look and another similar treatment seen reapeatedly. Over and over again 3-D letters or graphics were shown as a relief over a flat, usually fabric wall or banner hanging above. Lighting was often involved, backlit, reflection off the back wall or projected light.

7. Total Environments. Full ceiling treatments. These massive trade show booths were truly integrated environments – they are little villages. Really impressive!

If I didn’t know better I would say that a small group of people designed many of these trade show booths. Many of the elements observed here were repeated. The graphic, the screens, the open-ness of the spaces and similarity in the branding all made me think that between Czarnowski and George P Johnson most of the designs must have come from a few Exhibit Buiders. Does anyone know?

AND Although there were the tons of fabric walls, I don’t want to call them Tension Fabric Structures as I find this a different way of working from the classic aluminum tube frame covered in fabric –In this case the Extrusion/System and the flat stretched fabric with the silicon strip (SEG) inserted into a frame with a recessed groove was prominent. Does anybody have a name for this “new” way of working with Fabric Architecture?

We at Moss DID do some of the fabric at the show and we are proud of it!

All and all, The New York International Auto Show is QUITE impressive. Now I have to go back and look at the cars!