Posted January 26th, 2009 by Exhibitslist Team
Exhibitslist was on the show floor of the North American International Auto Show 2009 at Cobo Hall in Detroit this morning during the massive dismantle. Guess what? Doesn't seem like the poor economy is affecting exhibit sizes at this important show! There were some truly awesome booths. Exhibit Works and George P. Johnson seemed to rule the show floor, however there were a number of quality installations by German exhibit houses including KLARTEXT.
One thing we did not notice was a great evidence of a tilting toward "green" exhibiting. Maybe next year. We talked with a lot of the installers on the floor and heard a little bit of apprehension about the upcoming months in the industry. The circuit continues next week in Chicago when the install for the Auto Show starts at McCormick Place.
Were you at the Auto Show? What trends did you notice? What booth impressed you?
I'll admit that I actually get a kick out of the green-exhibit trend that has permeated the industry in the past two years or so. We delved into the subject at our company - we do custom rental, so it works as a "sales pitch" - but it strikes me as odd that with all of the tremendous waste that goes into ANY exhibit process, that anyone can claim it to be GREEN. It's kind of like someone having a bonfire with DOLLAR BILLS as the fuel, and exclaiming that they're "saving money" because "I'm only burning $1's!!!!"
As consumptive an IDEA as tradeshows are, I'm all-on-board with not being wasteful. But I see that as a dollars-and-cents issue. Reuse because it makes sense. We're going to charge you less, because we get to reuse it. I think it's an angle that our industry will have a hard time pushing, to be honest, but I think the angle, unfortunately, is one that is admittedly superficial - we need to be letting our exhibitors know that they can boast of how much greener our booth is compared to others at the show. Comparative greenness is not going to sell exhibits, but it might be something that exhibitors can sell their target audience.