This informal group of Women in the Exhibit Industry have been meeting live for several years as well as our connection through our LinkedIn Group

Forty women met live in Las Vegas, in March at the Exhbitor2012 show.  We broke up into groups of 10 and spoke about Building Your Personal Brand.

I want to encourage everyone to join into this discussion on LinkedIn and add points that were learned through our open discussion.

I look forward to read all about it!  I will repost the discussion here to make this post rich with our collective knowledge!

Meanwhile, read my EXHIBITOR2012 Recap and take a look at our group photo!

Event Solutions Idea Factory: I have been a part of this show for years. It is now part of a larger show, CaterSource. Right now, it has the feeling of being buried inside of a catering show. But it continues to change. For better or worse, it is what it is and here I will tell you of the highlights of the Event Solutions Idea Factory!

I diligently walked the show floor with Mark Musters and his banter about his new site My Sustainable Style. We talked sustainability with many and tasted and experienced all kinds of foods and events products. From smoked salmon to cupcake cozy’s there were many products geared towards reuse and innovation.

Pink Powered by Moss brought in Ribbonesque to highlight the CaterSource Lounge with AFR event furniture. Additionally AFR brought their prize winning booth from TSE, Backdrops Beautiful showed large with several of their backdrops and Champagne Creative jumped up a notch with their Champagne Skirted women, wearing edible chocolate fashions!

The highlight for me was experiencing Projection Mapping, through the Spotlight Awards Ceremony (short, sweet to the point – an excellent presentation) and through a workshop. I was happy to meet Bart Kresa from BartKresaDesign – a projection artist and Ray Thompson from Images by Lighting.

ELI – Event Leadership Institute was there in force – Howard Givner and his team continue to educate through live sessions at the show and most importantly through innovative online education.

David Tutera and Preston Bailey did (once again) great presentations and they really draw a big social events crowd.

I continue to go to meet new event professionals but also to connect with the best in the biz. Frank and Lyn from Concept Bait were there, David Merrell and his team presented, Hillary Harris from Warner Bros events and the MGM events group all were at Event Solutions!

The Diva Design Challenge with Cheryl Fish “against” Sasha Souza was fun and funny. It is AFR’s second year with the live battle of the event designers! Great concept right on the show floor!

While there, Dazian announced they had just purchased Dreamworld Backdrops, one of the original backdrop companies in the Special Event market. Expect to see rental backdrops coming out of the Dazian catalog. Congrats Bev and the Dazian team!

An #Eventprofs tweetup brought together some of the best in the biz! Liese Gardner @liesegardner, Jeff Hurt @jeffhurt , Midori Connoly @avgirlmidori and Jessica Levin @jessicalevin, to name a few. I of course was there @pinkdeb, just in case you didn’t know!

What I do love about Event Solutions is their ability to learn and try different things. They are building on their own innovations, which allows things like: a free to all, 1.5 hour awards show built through amazing projection and mapping technology. Heck, the awards show even ended early! And it led to a small private party at Cosmopolitan (my new FAVORITE hotel in Las Vegas) So, getting shaken up can lead to great ideas and innovation and that is what has me watching Event Solutions carefully and coming back for more!

The feeling and attitude in general of this year’s 2012 addition of the EXHIBITOR show was positive.  Walking in the hall your eye immediately focused UP!  And to me that feels like we are closer to being ”back” then we have been in the last several years.  Now mind you the booth size remained around the 20’ x 20’, 20’ x 30’ rather then the monster booths of the olden days BUT, the height returned.  Look up! Headers, integrated walls continued into ceilings (a trend) and over the top soffits and signage dominated the space.

Now I am speaking primarily about the Exhibit Houses – Additionally in the houses, full concepts – Experiences if you will, dominate – Telling a story, Branding a brand. And of course the use of technology was everywhere!

Now again, my observations tell me that everyone is “catching up” to these concepts – creating full concept environments that include dynamic visuals, technology, well trained staff etc.  And as this catch up happens, I am not so sure that everyone is really aware of what they are “really” doing, especially the technology area.  I imagine there is much rearranging, reorganizing and outsourcing of this work.  Let’s call it collaboration.

Common themes:

Overhead or ceiling treatments morphing into walls

Colors: white and orange / white and green, / red, white and black

Multiple screens for content traveling over all of them (creating very large digital media areas, in both touch screen and traditional)

Fabric, Fabric everywhere! Pop-ups, extrusion, and classic round tube construction. Primarily printed

Extrusion – I mentioned it in the fabric area but this is out of control everywhere!  And the beat goes on with each group pushing the next to create different profiles for a variety of uses.

Technology – It is everywhere yet, some understand it and are doing amazing work, others are showing it because it is in.

Blue Telescope is outstanding with their innovative work.

Blue Pony appeared as content and app providers

QuickMobile – Iphone and Ipad apps

V3touch – Vision3Creative.com – incredible 3d software on large touch screens and applications for live use.

NMR – Tech, production, content – stepping out of their typical comfort zone and looking great!

Favorites:

EEI Global – My Favorite! Elegant, classy, sleek while a nod to Detroit through some grittier elements

GES – won best large booth – Turning your thinking upside down!

Elements won best small booth – also a favorite – and very clever. 4 – 10’ x 10’ booths spread over the show – Water, Fire, Earth and Air. Great concept executed well!

Moss was a stand out with the curvilinear form in classic round tubing with a REFRESH theme and a re-skin from last years successful stand.

MG Design also had a REFRESH theme that was clean and well…refreshing – sorbet anyone?

MC2 and 3D Exhibits featured the “thought bubble” – makes you think doesn’t it?

Kubik – simple paper booth – loved the giveaway napkin sketchbook!

New Materials

More sustainable materials are making it into the marketplace at better price points and quality

SmartBoard by SMARTFORMS - Honeycomb paper product that can be

Printing – Pictura brings sustainable printing to the surface

Behind closed doors, I experienced the interesting and unusual paper products of Procedes Chenel.  Also Boothster – a sustainable booth builder.

Abex – reappeared after years of hiatus with an adorable booth – an airplane experience complete with their Abex stewardess.  Their Mod awards were delivered at the Hard Rock Café just before the infamous Exhibit City News Party.

And that infamous Exhibit City News party at the Hard Rock was great fun with sponsors that included Willwork and Moss providing specialty drinks such as The Grove and the Experience. The Spazmatics played to a dancing crowd and I must admit they are a very fun and talented music group disguised as some 70’s geeks!

Women in Exhibitions met with 40 women, mixing and speaking about “your personal brand”. Breaking out into tables of 10 we all learned from each other. The fact that we each have a personal brand whether you know it or not was a key first takeaway.  Pat Friedlander and I hosted the session. Thanks Pat! And if you are a Women in Exhibitions join our LinkedIn group!

The EDPA crowd was in full force; the FIT and Bemidji State University students were available on the show floor for meetings to see their portfolio’s.  Jump in if you need a design intern!  The EDPA international breakfast brought together exhibitors from around the world. The group discussion led by Marco Alvarez made us to realize that even though the USA has advanced our trade show habits, the rest of the world is still in crash and burn mode about creating and disposing their trade show booths. One reason for this is the high cost of storage in many places.

The social media channel was hot for those that DO participate.  Tweetups, checkins, and QR codes through BoothTag  all added to the value, info and fun.  I was personally excited to meet Ian McGonnigal (@iandavmcg ) a high level strategist from Jack Morton in real life (IRL) for the first time – and “old” favorites John Lindsey (@JohnDLindsey) from Moss, Melissa Skipworth from EFI (@EFIInc ) Exhibit Fair International and Eric Lukazewski (@EricLukazewski) from Echelon Exhibits were all tweeting away!

All in all this was another great year at Exhibitor.  The tradeshow floor was buzzing and the education was excellent.  I do attend a lot of events, conferences and trades show and I want to thank Lee Knight and his entire team for what they do for the Exhibit industry.  They have raised the bar on education, they care and train their instructors, something that is different from many education providers.  The Opening Night Party with drink tickets is open to anyone that comes to the trade show.  This party is always well attended and a great place to meet all the who’s who in the exhibit world.  All in all EXHIBITOR is a very well attended event and a must go for anyone in the exhibits industry!

Side bar:  Coincidently the TSEA has dissolved during this time.  The remains have been “given” to EACA and Jim Worm for dissection.

In addition, these arches can be REarranged in several different formations giving you a completely different look. We brought out 2 More and 2 Less for TSE and rearranged our booth each day to demonstrate. Take a look at some of the photos below as well as some additional options on how to REconfigure this versatile product!

Another one of our REconfigurable products that was seen at The Special Event was the newly introduced Wave Forms. So far we’ve shown this product as a booth at LDI, and as a stage set at EDPA, but this was our first time showing it as an entryway, and over the course of 3 days we continuously REarranged the individual fabric structures to create as many different sculptural forms as possible.  We showed them here in both pillow-cased fabric over the entire frame as well as a fabric skin applied to the front surface only. By simply rotating individual units and shuffling the sequences, completely different appearances are attained. View some photos below to see some of the outcomes . . .

I am happy to be newly back from TSE 2012 – The Special Event 2012 in Tampa, Florida.  I have lots of thoughts and experiences so I will present a series of posts. Welcome to the first!

REthink REPink Powered by Moss booth and lobby installation Reconfigured

Pink Powered by Moss booth – When our creative team came together we created a campaign based on the mood of the times that we reflected as RE. REdefine REignite, REfresh, REthink, REPink! So REconfiguring our booth was of utmost importance with REconfigurable products. The time today requires us to REnew, REinspire, REcharge and the more we played with RE; the more fun we had!

Graphics enhanced our color identifying booth with a giveaway of 8 assorted pink campaign type buttons for you pinning pleasure (you have heard of Pinterest by now; havent’ you?) and our REshuffle ipod shuffle giveaway was fun.  We had a winner each day, and we still have more iPods to giveaway in our REshuffle iPod shuffle giveaway so stay tuned!!!

So below, see our booth REconfigured three different ways.  Our décor was REarranged each couple of hours out in the lobby, thank you Jesse Zryb for REvitalizing the lobby and documenting The Special Event 2012 for us.

I am super excited to be gearing up for The Special Event 2012 in Tampa!

I am super excited to be gearing up for The Special Event 2012 in Tampa!

I recently wrote on the ISES NY Metro site: “The Special Event – Why I attend by Debra Roth” and you should read it and learn why!

At TSE we are introducing our new rePINK campaign where we bring to you products that easily reconfigure. We ask you to recharge, rethink, and reinvent for 2012. Visit us at our trade show booth #1013 to see new product and have a chance to reshuffle – our iPod shuffle give away every day!

You can find Debra and the Pink Powered by Moss team all over the show!

Find Us at The Special Event!

Debra is Speaking on:

Tuesday 10am – 11:30 Current Events Event Design Trends

Friday 9am – 10:30 All Star Marketing Panel

Monday day: ISES Leadership

Monday night: ISES Leadership Cocktail Reception

Tuesday night OUR ISES NYC Chapter hosts the New York Event community and the NorthEast ISES & our Twin City LONDON!

Wednesday Night – You will find all 11 of us at the Opening Night Celebration

Thursday Day – 8:30-10:00am – Michael Cerbelli’s Hot Ideas 2012 edition includes Pink Powered by Moss JuiceBar

Thursday night we are Sponsoring Eventprofs Tweet UP!

Our booth #1013 will be open and enter our Reshuffle iPod shuffle giveaway

See our booth with new product The Oblique Tunnel and the Juice Bar

Our lobby sponsorship includes the brand new Wave Forms and the Ribbonesque.

If you need a free pass into the show let us know!

See you there!

What I loved about BizBash this year was the effort and energy BACK on the tradeshow floor.  Everyone who took a booth seemed to truly make the effort to do something beyond an easy pop up display.  The Exhibitors all seemed to have a collective unconscious to show well! And all the moving parts and pieces that create the event community were out in force! We mixed and mingled right there on the trade show floor, the night before at 300 and later that evening at SIR.  Let’s also not forget the social media lounge, and my booths, Pink Powered by Moss and The ISES NY!

I am hoping that what is being communicated is we are all ready to bring out our Sunday best!

Either way – I saw some great stuff – So thank you very much to the photographers Sarah Merians and Brightroom Photography, as I have used their photos in this article.  So thank you!  Congratulations to all the award winners! View this cool picture of the readers choice Designers and producers nominees. And view this one of me presenting at my flash session on Boosting your Creative IQ.

Trends:

Education – ELI promote online learning and event professionalism

Bizbash – Education sessions

ELI – Flash!  sessions and interviews on the trade show floor

Round Tables for industry information – a gathering of info – crowd sourcing.

Photographers and photo booths everywhere!

Venues – Florists –  Décor – out in full force! NICE!

Lots of Photo Booths – going strong – all types modern, old fashioned,

Social Media lounge – lots of help on all levels

Performances with unusual shapes and lighting – aka GaGa influence

Lots to taste and drink / new venues

Designer Cocktails making an appearance – here to stay –

More Lounge Furniture

Inflatables as decor

Cort Inflatable Furniture

You

Booth – Fifth Avenue Digital

ELI – Event Leadership Institute

Inflate

We just got news that we won IFAI’s (Industrial Fabrics Association International) Outstanding Achievement Award for Interior Display for our Powerstation booth! This booth made it’s first appearance at The Special Event in Phoenix, AZ before being re-branded for the Exhibitor show in Las Vegas, NV. You can read more about the booth in our blog posts from each trade show. We’d also like to congratulate our team for bringing in an Award of Excellence for the 2010 MTV Music Video Awards in the same category!

Below is a copy of the press release from IFAI (Click here to download release as PDF):

Pink Powered by Moss wins IFAI 2011 International Achievement Award

(Roseville, MN – Oct. 26, 2011) Pink Powered by Moss, New York, NY, was recognized with the 2011 International Achievement Award (IAA) for design excellence in specialty fabrics applications. The ceremony took place at the IFAI Expo Americas 2011 at the Baltimore Convention Center in Baltimore, Md. on October 25.

Pink Powered by Moss received an Outstanding Achievement Award for its Powerstation project. The project was recognized in the competition’s Interior Display category.

The annual IFAI Expo Americas is the largest specialty fabrics trade show in the Americas, and for more than six decades, IAA has recognized excellence in design and innovation, highlighting truly spectacular work in the specialty fabrics industry.

Entrants were encouraged to submit projects and compete in 35 categories in this 64^th competition. In all, IFAI received 385 entries from 16 countries. Entries were judged by industry experts, editors, architects, educators and design professionals, who were selected for their knowledge in a particular field of study or product area. Winners were selected based on complexity, design, workmanship, uniqueness and function.

IFAI encourages specialty fabric projects of all sizes and type. The goal of IAA is to promote awareness of the specialty fabrics used in thousands of products and applications. All entries receive prominent recognition at IFAI Expo Americas. Entrants receive additional publicity through coverage in IFAI magazines, as well as press releases distributed to media professionals.

The International Achievement Awards competition is sponsored by IFAI, a not-for-profit trade association whose 2,000 member companies represent the international specialty fabrics marketplace.

Photos and detailed project descriptions of the winners are available at ifaipublications.com/iaa/.

This fall at the Pink Powered by Moss booth at the LDI Show at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando we took a different approach.  We approached the show as a tool for market research. Under that umbrella, we present the Wave Forms. These 4’ x 4’ units stack to create a textural backdrop, wall, ceiling treatments and towers.  Arrange the Wave Forms in different configurations to create dynamic textures.  Take a look and let us know what YOU think!