Exhibitor | Trade Show Ideas & Inspiration

EXHIBITOR Magazine’s 2014 Awards Night: Word on the Street — Feb. 24 thru Feb. 28

February 28th, 2014 Mel White COMMENTS

Kevin Carty, VP Classic Exhibits

Say goodbye to February! Come Monday we will be three days into March already.

What a crazy first two months of the year it has been. And, we’re only two short weeks away from all of us descending on Las Vegas.

I look forward to seeing you there. Classic is winding up the final touches to our booth as well as several vendor exhibits. I have to say, this will be the best group of exhibits we have ever brought to EXHIBITOR. Everything from a modified 20 ft. SEGUE for PRG to a fully custom build for EliteXPO. Both are “must sees” as you walk the floor.

Along with those two, we are once again building much of EXHIBITOR Media’s booth. Wait until you see the magazine cover in large format on the show floor! Gonna be SuperNova big. 🙂

And of course there is the Classic Exhibits 20 x 30. It’s a special design this year. It is a version of a design for which we are a finalist in this year’s EXHIBITOR Magazine 2014 Awards Night Celebration.

Have you reserved your seat yet for the Awards Gala?

EXHIBITOR MAGAZINE’S
2014 AWARDS NIGHT
An evening honoring excellence in our industry

You’re invited! Join us for an elegant evening of networking and celebration as we honor the best-of-the best in the trade show and event industry.

The first ever EXHIBITOR Magazine’s 2014 Awards Night, honoring trade show excellence, takes place Tuesday evening, March 18 in Mandalay Bay’s Lagoon Ballroom at EXHIBITOR2014. Festivities begin with a 6:30 pm cocktail reception followed by an awards dinner and program at 7:15 pm.

As an attendee to this prestigious event, you’ll be there as we unveil winners of EXHIBITOR magazine’s Exhibit Design, Portable Modular, and Buyer’s Choice Awards programs. Discover who is named this year’s Best of Show and be part of history as we honor the inaugural inductee into EXHIBITOR’s Legends Hall-Of-Fame.

Seating is limited. (We suggest you get your tickets in advance.) Whether you “fly solo” or bring a friend, we promise a fun evening of networking and celebration. Single tickets and group tables can be purchased now at www.exhibitor2014.com/awardsnight. Don’t miss this inaugural night celebrating excellence!

Reserved seats are going pretty quickly. There will be 10 of us there from Classic, Exhibits NW, and Eco-Systems Sustainable. I do hope that you will join us.

If you have time, please cast your vote for the People’s Choice Awards. You can vote once a day. Plus, it’s your opportunity to see all the displays in the mix for an award.

http://www.exhibitoronline.com/awards/pma/peopleschoice-vote.asp

In the meantime, March looks like it’s going to be every bit as busy as January and February. So buckle up and let’s enjoy the ride together.

Thanks again for all your continued support and business. We know you have choices in your partnerships, and we are honored to be partnered with so many of you.

Have a great weekend with your families.

–Kevin
http://twitter.com/kevin_carty
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/kevin-carty/3/800/32a

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Tags: Classic Exhibits, Exhibitor, Exhibitor 2014 Awards Night
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EXHIBITOR Show Design & New Website: Word on the Street — January 27th thru January 31st

February 3rd, 2014 Mel White COMMENTS

Kevin Carty, VP Classic Exhibits

EXHIBITOR2014

In just six short weeks, we will meet in Las Vegas for EXHIBITOR 2014. It’s our opportunity to show all that is new in our great industry from design and construction to AV, flooring, and services.

Each year at Classic, we collaborate to create the layout and foundation for our booth at the show. This year was no different. We started with representatives from Design, Production, Project Management, Rentals, and Management to discuss what all we wanted to show and do at this year’s upcoming EXHIBITOR show.

This year a unique focus was given to “Design” as a whole. Not that we don’t always have a well-design booth. We do. But this year EXHIBITOR is holding the Inaugural Design Awards of Excellence at EXHIBITOR2014, an event celebrating the very best in designs from the past year and from the show floor at EXHIBITOR 2014.

Classic is heavily involved in this inaugural event and very appreciative. We are participating with several entries in the award categories.

So this year, we knew this going into our own booth design meetings. Our clear focus is to create the most design-driven exhibit that we have ever shown at EXHIBITOR.

Having said that, the process is always a challenge. The more people you bring into the process, the more ideas you get and the longer and more difficult the process can be. No different really that what we all experience when designing for our clients. And like our clients, we are indecisive yet full of home run ideas. Many sound great on paper, but are not practical. Sound familiar? Many of the same struggles we think are only “client driven” are actually challenges we face as well.

I can report that the booth we designed is truly the most elegant and beautiful exhibit we have ever produced for EXHIBITOR. We will highlight not only our systems, but also the custom wood work we have been building for you over the past two years.

Katina Rigall has taken on the tough task of absorbing all our crazy ideas and putting them to paper — and she has done a stellar job. Now Production and Project Management are doing their magic to make it all come to life

Back to the awards night. It will be held on Tuesday at 6:30pm in one of the event halls at Mandalay Bay. Final details will be announced next week. But suffice it to say, it is going to be a truly grand event, produced by the great folks at Exhibitor Media Group and Delphi Productions. Please make sure, when you see the details, to get a ticket for you and your staff members to attend, and enjoy a night designed to celebrate the beauty that we all create every week.

Register for EXHIBITOR — For FREE

Special Promotion Code: 4044

The Special Promotion Code gives you free access to both the Exhibit Hall and the Monday evening Welcome Reception. It’s a $100 value! Enter this code on the registration page at www.exhibitor2014.com/vip.

New Classic Exhibits Website

On a different topic . . . The New Classic Exhibits website is Live BABY. And its truly beautiful! Mel White, Tony Bennett, and Glenna Martin deserve a tremendous amount of credit for all their long hours and dedication to creating what I think is hands down the best website in our industry. Yes I said the best! Check it out and I think you will say the same thing. It combines beauty, class, and an intuitive nature all in one great website.

Some Highlights:

All the same tools: EDS, P5D, Peek-a-Booth, Trade Show Tales
Organized, easily-accessible drop-down menus
Larger and brighter graphics
Consistent page designs
Information Bubbles for most product lines
Revised, cleaner layout for EDS
Advanced Search option in EDS

The next phase is the Adaptive Design layout for tablets and smartphones. Should be ready in the next 60-90 days.

Take a look and please let us know what you think. I truly believe you will appreciate all the hours and hard work that went into the process.

I look forward to this week as we kick off another great sales month together.

–Kevin
http://twitter.com/kevin_carty
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/kevin-carty/3/800/32a

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Classic’s EXHIBITOR2013 Commercial

April 25th, 2013 Mel White 1 COMMENT

On occasion, Trade Show Tales is literally a commercial for Classic Exhibits. 😉

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Tags: Classic Exhibits, Exhibitor, video
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Happy Easter: Word on the Street — March 25th thru March 29th

March 31st, 2013 Mel White COMMENTS

Word on the Street by Kevin Carty

This past week has been nothing short of chaotic! Good chaotic mind you.

The week following EXHIBITOR Show is always nuts, unless you did something really wrong. 🙂 Seriously, we have been amazed by the feedback coming off the show. And trust me, we have been working very hard on the follow-up. We came home from Vegas with nearly double the leads from any other prior show. It’s quite humbling to be honest.

What a pleasure to get to know some of the new folks and to re-engage with those distributors who we have not worked with for sometime. As one person from East Coast said to me,”We’re back baby! And by that, I mean the industry feels alive for the first time in a long time.”

I could not agree more. While we have been feeling positive for a while now, it is refreshing to hear it from you as well.

So all that busy talk to say, my blog is short and sweet this week. Because quite frankly, it’s Easter Weekend and I am (hopefully like you) spending all my time hanging with family, extended family, good friends and neighbors celebrating. Especially after the past week working very long hours.

Side note: I am 40 now so its been a while since I participated in an Easter Egg hunt, but I do have 6 year old twins, and my lord, they have four hunts this weekend. I swear I remember only having one! But it is fun.

I hope you all have/had a great Easter Holiday at home, with friends, at church, or wherever you spent your weekend.

And thanks again for ALL the great comments and feedback you shared with our team the past week.

Be well and Happy Easter.

Kevin Carty
http://twitter.com/kevin_carty
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/kevin-carty/3/800/32a

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Siegfried, Hamilton, and Melvis — EXHIBITOR Review: Word on the Street — March 18th thru March 22nd

March 24th, 2013 Mel White 1 COMMENT

Siegfried, Hamilton, and Melvis -- EXHIBITOR2013 Review: Word on the Street — March 18th thru March 22nd

Word on the Street by Kevin Carty

It’s Vegas Baby

Why would you expect anything less than seeing famous people, staying out too late, and being apart of the BEST show of the year?

And the title is true. We saw Siegfried at dinner with his entourage. I saw George Hamilton at the airport on the way out of town, And I see Melvis everyday. 🙂

We are all back from EXHIBITOR2013. What an amazing event this year . . . like past years. But there was something extra special about this year’s event, something in the air. Optimism — albeit still cautious. But optimistic nonetheless.

What’s hot? For those who missed the show here is a short recap of what is hot in the industry. And what your vendors and colleagues were showing

1. Technology, Technology, Technology. Everything from massive touch screens to the smallest of tablets being used to drive client content such as e-document stations, interactive kiosks, and large screen fabric projections that interacted with the user.

The message was . . . communicate your message to your clients based upon their specific interests in formats that appeal to them.

2. Design is back! Not to offend any of our great friends and competitors or ourselves for that matter. But after four years where budgets drove the ship, it was great to see the industry (like our clients) in full dress ready to shine brightly! Well done to everyone who exhibited.

3. Classic Exhibits is clearly your iPad Headquarters and the innovative leader in Hybrid and Modular Solutions. Not to sound arrogant, but we made a huge splash with four new 10 x 10 displays as well as our large 20 x 30 main structure. It was impressive, an an exhibit where we saw constant traffic all three days of the show. And, while last year was a spectacular show for us, we had more leads in Day #1 this year, then all of last year.

Some Other Highlights

The Classic Exhibits Distributor Hospitality Suite — What a great time as always! Thanks to everyone who attended. We appreciate the time you spent visiting us and getting caught up both personally and professionally. I know your time is precious during the three days of EXHIBITOR, so we really do appreciate you stopping by. It’s always great to spend time with the Classic Family of Distributors, more accurately, friends!

The EDPA Portable/Modular/Hybrid Summit — Thanks again to the EXHIBITOR Media Group for giving us a spot on the show floor for the summit this year. It really made a difference! According to Jeff Provost from EDPA, “We nearly tripled the number of attendees from any past summit.” Thanks to those who attended.

The summit focused on what was happening “In the Trenches” of the Portable/Modular/Hybrid segment this year and from the last quarter of 2012. Our panelists, representing Design, Graphics, Builder/Distributor, Systems Distributor, and I&D, provided their perspectives.

The overall message was that things are looking good. Sales are up and design is clearly driving sales, gratefully! But also, along with great design and more complex “system” builds comes the need for better details, better instruction, longer set-up and dismantle times on the floor etc. My thanks to the following people for their unbiased reports from their markets. The post meeting comments spoke highly of the panelists.

Panelists

Greg Beach from Atlantic Exhibits, Katina Rigall from Classic Exhibits, Anita Mitzel from GraphiColor Inc., Chris Griffin from Tradeshow Supply, and David Brown from Optima Graphics.

I would also like to thank Jay Burkette from ExpoDisplays. Jay provided not only great insights from what he has seen, but also assisted me in presenting the summit.

At the end of the day, my lasting impression was the show and our industry is ALIVE! It felt great. It felt like we were there to show our best. And we all did. As you can see from the pictures below.

Thanks for spending time with us in booth #1637. We appreciate it. Based upon your comments and feedback, we appear to be headed in the right direction to serve your needs throughout 2013. But, as always, it’s a moving target so let us know if we miss the mark.

To the Classic staff, take a bow please. You were key in making this year’s event a success. We had a lot of staff there this year, and they all took turns working the booth. However, I would like to mention four people in particular for their contribution.

Jen LaBruzza and Laura Magdalen — Great job on the Hospitality Suite. I know it’s a large undertaking and you did it perfectly. And Laura, you can sling a cocktail better than any pregnant woman I have ever seen.

James Sharpe and Nate LaBruzza — Spectacular job setting up and tearing down the booth. I am always impressed by what you do to get us “Show Ready.” Thanks for everything!

Last but not least, no show can happen without the help of your key vendor partners! Brumark for flooring, Cort for furniture, Optima Graphics for all the graphics, Glenna Martin for the graphic design, Tradeshow Supply for the I&D, and EliteXpo for shipping. Thanks once again making Classic shine. We choose our partners very carefully and are proud of our relationships.

If you were in attendance at the show, tell me what you thought. What was your favorite booth? What trends did you see that stuck out? What didn’t you like?

I look forward to hearing your thoughts and feedback on EXHIBITOR2013

Have a great weekend.