The Expo Group - The perspectives Series

The Expo Group’s new technology for designing booths takes its inspiration from online automaker platforms, where shoppers can custom-design a car for themselves from the ground up, choosing the paint color, wheels, interior detailing and more — and even spin the car around — then get an instant quote in real time.

“In today’s digital world, buyers expect immediacy,” Michael Guillory, Senior Vice President of Marketing and Communications at The Expo Group, said. “The technology has been around for a while, but in the exhibition industry, it has not really been leveraged until now.”

The website for the company’s Perspective Series exhibitor booth offerings features multiple, pre-designed rental booth options from 10′ x 10′ to 20′ x 30′ configurations. Its interactive booth builder tool lets users see exactly what the booth will look like in a 3D rendering, right down to the chairs, monitors and custom graphics.

When the design is finalized, users can request a final cost estimate based on the options they chose, or access a shareable PDF document with the picture, everything that’s included and the price estimate. A member of the company’s exhibit team then reaches out to finalize details and logistics, such as shipping.

This capability has never been offered by a general service contractor in the trade show industry, according to the company. “The idea was to take a nod from other industries and offer an experience that not only gives people the immediate satisfaction of what they’re building, but also gives us the ability to share the many different options that are available,” Guillory said. “Sometimes, especially for newer exhibitors, they don’t always have the knowledge of what they can and can’t do. To be able to see it and to get a better sense of the scale they need is helpful.”

There is no added cost to use the booth builder. The biggest savings is in time, Guillory said. “With some of the other companies that offer exhibits, when they work with a client they have to do a rendering, and then they send them the rendering, and then there are the changes. So it could be weeks before the customer gets to see what the final product is going to look like.”

Currently, the new booth builder is exclusively featured at perspectiveseries.com. The Expo Group plans to expand the use of the tool in the coming months within their internal show portal, CyberServices, for shows where the company serves as the general service contractor.