Exhibition stand construction / design: Highlights from the first half of the year

There were some remarkable trade fair appearances in the winter and spring of 2018. Four selected examples at different events demonstrate that.

To explain technology vividly and get visitors to interact with it: that was the guiding principle for bluepool, a trade fair service company based in Leinfelden-Echterdingen, when designing the exhibition stand of BBC Bircher Smart Access at the industry fair R+T in Stuttgart. BBC Bircher Smart Access makes innovative sensor systems for automatic doors and gates. A highlight at the stand was the presentation of one of these complex high-tech products: a gate sensor for factories. The sensor detects people and different types of vehicles, noting their size and the direction in which they are moving. As a result it knows for whom, whether and how far it can open the gate to the factory. A particular benefit is the technology’s energy efficiency. To illustrate this, bluepool used a large LED wall with a thermal image, which also had the advantage of attracting the attention of people some way away from it. In front of the thermal image, the company positioned a stylised person and various types of vehicle approaching a gate. 

“The interesting thing was that the visitors were able to control the scenery interactively using large red buttons on an upright display panel and trigger actions,” explains bluepool managing director Frank-Dieter Keinath. “The silhouettes moved towards the entrance, and the BBC Bircher Smart Access sensor allowed the gate to be lifted to the required height. You could see the effect on the thermal image, which showed how much energy was lost,” says Keinath. “It was a vivid and impressive way to show how the technology works and bring the exhibitor’s slogan to life: Experience Smart Access.” As well as the display panel, there were a number of touchscreens, at each of which there was a customer adviser on hand to provide information on the systems. At the bar next to the wall, visitors and staff at the stand discussed what they had experienced, while more visitors approached the red buttons and touchscreens (www.bluepool.de).

Seals are among those products that the end customer barely notices. To make them the heroes of a trade fair appearance requires some serious design input. EagleBurgmann is a leading supplier of industrial sealing technology. The company is based in Wolfratshausen in Bavaria. Last year the company was looking for a creative new exhibition stand construction company and eventually chose the Munich company Bruns Messe- und Ausstellungsgestaltung. The aim of the new stand design, in addition to referencing Bavaria, is to emphasise the status of EagleBurgmann as a global player. The stand made its debut at Achema 2018 in Frankfurt. The stand’s central area referenced the characteristic roundness of a seal. Curved walls and an ellipsoid rotunda defined the exhibition space. The exhibits stood out on acrylic stands against a white background. The ambience was elegant. 

“The idea of flow was also new,” explains Bruns creative director Christian Flörs. On the walls, continuous wave and bubble graphics symbolised the physical states of the media flowing through the seals – from liquid to gaseous. “Everything seemed to be in motion, but also part of an integrated whole,” says Flörs of the successful new exhibition concept. However, some elements were designed to be a conscious reminder to regular customers of previous EagleBurgmann exhibition stands. A cow motif from the previous exhibition stand looked out from behind the semi-transparent wall surface in the catering area, arousing the curiosity of many visitors. Parquet flooring, wooden furniture and a number of beer garden benches with a black zebrano wood and concrete effect invited visitors to spend some time in a welcoming atmosphere. Creative director Christian Flörs calls the stand “a successful symbiosis of the new with elements that have recognition value” (www.bruns-messebau.de).

An island stand: open, attractive and inviting with exciting architectural details, an impressive impact from a distance and great potential for providing information. That was the stand of US software developer Intersystems Corp. at the leading international industry fair Cebit 2018 in Hanover. The stand’s centrepiece was the sandbox, a large table serving as a kind of central digital play area. Up to ten stand visitors could hook up to the sandbox at any one time using their own mobile devices. They were able to learn interactively and discover and develop solutions – in line with the exhibitor’s philosophy. “What hardly anyone noticed was that, despite its slender appearance and the way it seemed to float, the table was a single piece of solid furniture,” explains Jens Gliedstein, the marketing director of the Wiesbaden exhibition stand construction company Isinger + Merz. “It was made at great effort in our workshops. The structure had to support over 300 kg.” 

Perhaps even more surprising was the construction time for the 180 square metre project, including upright display panels, ceiling hangers and furnishings. “The time window available was particularly narrow even by the standards of modern exhibition stand construction – so it was a challenge even for us with our tried-and-tested systems,” recalls Jens Gliedstein, looking back to that hectic but exciting period in the spring. Six weeks before construction was due to begin, with a fully planned concept in place, InterSystems put a stop to it. The whole process had to start again from square one. Isinger + Merz put its entire, closely intermeshed organisational and production potential to work. “That meant we were able to get the required workflow going immediately and were finished in good time for the start of the trade fair,” explains Jens Gliedstein. The customer’s marketing people were suitably impressed and said how happy they were with the quality and implementation (www.isinger-merz.de).

At the stand of ZZF and WZF at Interzoo 2018 in Nuremberg, the leading pet industry trade fair, everything was rounded and soft and all the various elements seemed to blend in seamlessly. WZF is the acronym of the event organiser, Wirtschaftsgemeinschaft Zoologischer Fachbetriebe, while the ZFF is the German Pet Trade and Industry Association, which is the event’s sponsor. “We wanted to deliberately step away from a cuboid Bauhaus-type design,” explains Branko Tomic, designer and project manager Designer for Messebau Wörnlein, which is also based in Nuremberg. “There were almost no corners in the stand. It was a vivid, natural, rounded design.” Green and white were the dominant colours. The graphics and visuals had animal and nature motifs. Branko Tomic has looked after the client for Messebau Wörnlein for around 20 years. He developed the graphics and visuals at bytomic, his own agency. These attracted large numbers of visitors to the 325 square metre stand. 

The stand had an information counter, lounge areas and a stage. The presentations, interviews and live shows on the stage were shown on a large LED wall. At the catering counter, the visitors were able to enjoy speciality coffees prepared by an expert barista. The exhibitor also served delicious ice cream for the first time, which proved to be very popular. Next door, and also designed by Branko Tomic for Wörnlein in the same style, was the 100 square metre stand of the specialist publication Zoologischer Zentral-Anzeiger and the trade fair’s newspaper Interzoo Daily. Interzoo Daily was produced there live for visitors to see. “In this way, visitors were made to feel involved in both the international pet industry and what was going on at the trade fair,” explains the designer and project manager (www.woernlein.de).