Heidi Clear and her husband, Steve, dove into the trade show and events industry in 2018 when they bought CenterPoint Marketing Inc., a Minnesota-based exhibit house. They had no idea that their new venture was going to be upended two years later when COVID-19 stopped the industry in its tracks. Since CenterPoint's first show cancelled in March, the company has been designing solutions to help itself and other businesses stay afloat in these turbulent waters.

"When all of this started, we began looking at what we could do," Heidi Clear said. "Working with a friend who is a health care strategist, we began designing a COVID-19 testing booth." The company modeled its testing booth after South Korea's approach, which involved Plexiglas shields with armholes and gloves to protect the health care workers. In March, CenterPoint began working through a company that helps connect medical suppliers with clients to market its testing booth, but it couldn't get any traction. "In some ways, we were almost too soon to the market," Clear said.

With no demand for the testing booth, the company refocused on deploying other solutions such as protective barriers, custom social-distancing floor decals, and brandable sanitizing stations for airports, dentist offices, banks, etc. It also put together a robust virtual solution for companies looking to digitally connect with clients.

Then about a month ago, the company it was trying to market the testing booth through reached back out and said that the University of Minnesota and Fairview Health Services had developed a booth a lot like CenterPoint's. And the university was looking for a partner to license it to that could manufacture it on a larger scale. Once connected, CenterPoint and the University of Minnesota joined forces. Because of the attention the university was generating with its design, CenterPoint saw a growing interest in the testing booth, which CenterPoint believes can provide a much-needed safeguard as states begin to reopen their economies and ramp up testing.

It's the sort of partnership where trade show and events companies can be integral players, according to Clear. "Our industry builds solutions quickly; we know logistics; we work in all different types of materials; and we provide custom solutions to unique problems," she said. "That's what we do on a daily basis."