At the 2008 Public Library Association National Conference, the New Orleans Public Library brought a little bit of the bayou to Minneapolis. Instead of filling its booth with books, shelves, and other library-related elements, it turned its 10-by-20-foot space into the New Orleans Public Library Bistro. Filled with comfy furniture, the bistro featured wall-hung paintings by a New Orleans artist and vases filled with fresh tulips. Plus, booth staffers offered Louisiana-style hospitality, serving visitors complimentary jambalaya and hurricanes.
The bistro not only drew librarians to the booth, it satisfied their rumbling stomachs and treated their tired tootsies to a rest.
 How do you draw attention to your construction
equipment amid a sea of dump trucks,
graders, and backhoes? If you’re
Caterpillar Inc., you turn part of your
36,000-square-foot booth at ConExpo-Con/Agg into a road-construction
zone. Staged to look as if a road was
being built, Caterpillar’s realistic
display featured a half-dozen of its
graders, bulldozers, and other
behemoths parked amid piles of
dirt, giant concrete pipes, and
orange traffic cones. While
the display may have been a
road to nowhere, it mentally
transported attendees into
the Caterpillar world — and
helped the company build street
cred among attendees and the
monster-machinery crowd.
 To attract the attention of passing attendees at EXHIBITOR2009, Out of the Box Exhibits Inc. literally put its message into the box. Scattered throughout the booth, roughly 1,000 4-inch-square cardboard boxes each bore one of seven different symbols, which represented different features of the company’s new cardboard-based exhibit structure. For example, a box with an airplane symbol related to the fact that the limited size and weight of the company’s unassembled 10-by-10 exhibit qualifies it as carry-on baggage. Attendees were invited to select and open a box of their choosing. Inside, they found a card that explained the symbol on the box, along with a branded poker chip inviting them to enter an hourly must-be-present-to-win drawing for a real $25 chip. When all was said and done, Out of the Box Exhibits distributed roughly 600 of the cardboard giveaways, with nearly 450 attendees taking part in the hourly in-booth drawings over the three-day exhibition, giving staffers plenty of face-to-face opportunities to discuss the new product and reinforce its benefits.
 Why just display a product when you can give it a purpose as well? Instead of filling its booth with a random assortment of the huge prop-style products it creates for malls and amusement parks, Studio Y Creations transformed some of its more fanciful offerings into functional booth elements at the International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions Expo in Orlando, FL. A giant magical-spell book opened to show off Studio Y’s portfolio, while an oversized turtle, seaweed, and coral formed the base of a glass-topped table. Nearby, an enormous coffee mug served as a literature stand. Elsewhere in the booth, oversized thumbtacks held up sheets of information while a huge 2-by-3-foot business card demonstrated the company’s ability to enlarge even the most mundane objects. The whimsical exhibit displayed the company’s ability to create clever, realistic props,and by using them as functional booth elements, Studio Y avoided having to rent or purchase booth furniture and literature racks.
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 When you’re selling tubular, metal well screens, creating an eye-catching display inside a 10-by-10-foot booth isn’t easy. But Johnson Screens, a Weatherford Co., found a unique and aesthetically pleasing way to showcase its well screens at the 2008 American Institute of Architects Minnesota show. The company cut two of the screens — which keep the inner walls of an in-ground well intact and prevent surrounding rocks from dislodging and falling in the water — into 3-foot sections to function as supports for its in-booth reception desk. The company placed the shiny-silver screens on a bright-blue base and added a glass top, creating an attention-drawing display, which allowed booth staffers to point out the sturdiness of the product and extol its virtues.
 When is a table more than a table? When it communicates your offerings in a single glance. Rather than using generic rental furniture at the Food Marketing Institute show in Chicago, Beemster Cheese opted for a cheesier alternative. Six bistro-style tables were crafted to look like huge wheels of cheese. The tables obviously weren’t edible, but they certainly caught passing attendees’ eyes and communicated Beemster’s offerings in an almost-edible instant.
 Trade show press rooms are filled with stacks of press kits, most of which are housed in blasé folders. But Procédés Chénel International jumped out from the stacks in press rooms at several U.S. and European shows by turning its product into its press kit. The company, which makes partitions and fixtures using fabric and paper panels, printed each of its press releases on a 7-foot-long strip of its Drop Paper, then rolled the piece up and tied it with a string. Measuring 8-inches wide, the paper scroll boasted company
information and more than a dozen photographs printed along its full length. The intriguing press kit caught journalists’ attention, and offered them a subtle, tactile way to experience the product firsthand.
What's The Big Idea?
Do you have a clever exhibit-related tip? Did your last exhibit have an über-cool traffic builder?
Contact Janet Van Vleet [email protected].
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