Word on the Street by Kevin Carty
Five Weeks of New Island Designs
It is officially summer next week . . . although in the Pacific Northwest you would be hard pressed to know that. Until a week ago, we’ve rarely approached highs of 70 all spring. But today, as I write this, it’s 75 degrees with no clouds in the sky. About time!
As the title of the blog suggests, summer is when we dream of a tropical island vacation. While I can’t offer you that, I can announce the release of a five new Island Designs. Beginning this week and over the next five weeks in Design Monday, we’ll showcase five fresh and exciting Island kits.
Admittedly, our focus has been on inline designs over the past two years. We reacted to the market. Our responsibility was to create kits for a recessionary economy that appealed to more modest budgets. We think we did a pretty darn good job — Magellan, Sacagawea, and SEGUE Sunrise to name a few. But we didn’t completely ignore islands. Our rental islands have been strong, and our rental division has done a spectacular job designing affordable, yet customizable kits. But from the purchase side, we have been designed to specific distributor projects rather than to creating island kits. With the economy improving, we have spent the past six months designing five unique “kits.” We hope these kits will appeal to your clients for their late summer and fall shows.
The basic plan of attack was simple. First, we listened to you and to what your clients wanted. Namely, islands that not only could stand alone on their design merits, but could also be reconfigured into other island and inline configurations.
VK-5075 Island Design
Second, we designed these kits to take advantage of large format fabric and SEG graphics, TSP profiles from ClassicMODUL (where possible), and creative accent lighting options. We also recognized that truly custom elements, such as fully assembled counters and workstations, add design heft to islands without adding significant weight.
Finally, while the designs are custom-looking from an aesthetic standpoint, they are designed for “repeatability” and “expandability.” Those two factors allow us to price them more competitively, since we believe these kits (or variations of these designs) will be purchased again and again, much like Sacagawea or Perfect 10 kits. This week, we’re presenting the VK-5075, branded for Barnes and Noble. By using similar towers and counter units, this unit can easily be rearranged with minimal effort and money to create alternate footprints for the second, third, and fourth shows.
So enjoy! Please let us know what you think. Your comments and suggestions are always welcome.
Be well and have a great weekend. And for all the fathers out there, relax and enjoy time with your family.
–Kevin Carty
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