Cupcoat Expressions, a Canadian manufacturer of reusable coffee sleeves made of fabric and Thinsulate, had a unique challenge for the 2008 Specialty Coffee Association of America show. It not only needed to create awareness for its product, it also had to demonstrate a need for it in the first place. While coffee shops hand out hundreds of cardboard cup holders every day, most people don’t consider the environmental impact those cup holders have on our landfills. So Cupcoat piled nearly 500 cardboard cup sleeves beneath a simple product display in the corner of its 10-by-10-foot booth. While the mountainous mess demonstrated the waste produced by typical sleeves, it allowed staffers to open conversations expounding on both the problem and Cupcoat’s nifty solution.

Russell Europe Ltd. manufactures a line of interchangeable apparel offering customers a mix-and-match wardrobe. But demonstrating that versatility in a 10-by-20-foot space requires a revolutionary solution. So at several European shows, Russell spurned ordinary clothing displays and created a rotating display comprising two horizontal turntables joined at their centers by a 6-foot-tall column. Shirts hung on the teeth of the top “gear,” which rotated in one direction, while shorts and pants hung on the bottom and rotated in the opposite direction. Staffers used a remote control to stop the turntables mid-spin to match one shirt to a pair of pants; then, they spun the wheels again to match those pants to another shirt, and so on. Attendees were so taken by the display that Russell plans to install a permanent version in one of its distributor’s showrooms.






While plenty of exhibitors make claims that their products are durable, Invista proved it at Greenbuild 2007 with a 30-year-old carpet sample that looked as good as new. Prior to the show, Invista, which manufactures the ultra-durable Antron Carpet Fibers used by carpet manufacturers such as Mohawk Industries and Mannington Mills Inc., collected carpet samples made with its fibers that had recently been removed from a school. Showing remarkably little wear, two swatches of the bright-colored carpet were inlaid in Invista’s exhibit carpet, surrounded by the text: “sustainability begins with carpet that lasts” and “30 years on the floor.” The carpet might have been in school for three decades, but it looked like it did on the first day of kindergarten, making Antron’s durability an easy lesson to learn.

At the 2007 World of Concrete show, DeWalt Industrial Tool Co. proved you don’t need booth babes to attract men. You just need an ear-splitting jackhammer competition. Throughout the day, staffers walked attendees through six different product demos inside DeWalt’s 80-by-40-foot booth before giving them a ticket and inviting them to return at 11:30 a.m., 1:30 p.m., or 3:30 p.m. for a chance to win a DeWalt tool set (valued at $500). At the appointed time, ticket holders gathered and a presenter drew a number matching the ticket of one person in the crowd. That person was invited onto an elevated stage and given a DeWalt jackhammer, while a DeWalt booth staffer was given a comparable Bosch model. Then, the race was on to see who could hammer through a slab of concrete first. Needless to say, the competitor always won and took home the prize, but it took four minutes of deafening noise, which drew even more onlookers. The competition drew 30 participants, created an incentive to visit the booth twice, and caused a show-wide stir.