As the tradeshow industry considers the next steps towards its safe return, 2020 Exhibits is actively working to provide our clients with creative solutions to achieve their event marketing goals keeping in mind the needs for safety and practicality in our changing world. Without question, health and safety are the top priority. And as we work with clients through the design process, we are making very conscious and contentious decisions to tailor our design strategy and solutions to fit a project and offer opportunities to move forward with the best design and experience possible.
Everyone will have high expectations for safe, healthy layouts and protocols post COVID-19, and attendees will be wary. It’s essential to ask and consider how you might re-imagine the exhibit experience for your team and your attendees? How can you personalize the experience? How can you increase comfort levels for attendees traveling through your environment and your team as they engage in this next trade show?
Our team is thinking differently about connection, re-imagining exhibits and experiential design. And as we outline protocols and suggestions, we look forward to collaborating to create, iterate, and solve for the “new normal” for tradeshows for the foreseeable future. We are with you, all the way to the next show. As we travel down this path together, for starters, here are six (new) normal design considerations for distancing and safety.
1 Sanitizing Stations
Sanitizing stations are the cornerstone of new normal, throughout permanent and semi-permanent environments, such as a trade show exhibit. As we create engaging and impactful exhibit environments, we will incorporate rental and purchase solutions for hand sanitizing and device charge/sanitize stations. Keep in mind that sanitizing stations lend themselves to marketing and branding opportunities to complement your exhibit properties through graphics, AV, and branded personal protective equipment.
2 Barriers & Dividers
These are now all too familiar to everyone, as a form of safety and protection for visitors, attendees, and your trade show exhibit team. Virtually any space where people usually are within 6’ feet of another could require safety barriers in some form—greeting counters, demo stations, presentation theatre seating, hospitality bars, seating areas, conference rooms. We can integrate boundaries and barriers into designs by applying different materials, shapes, and printing to compliment your branding and exhibit aesthetics.
3 Social & Physical Distancing
To create a welcoming environment in today’s tradeshow world, guests need to feel they have room to move throughout an exhibit while maintaining social distance with exhibit staff and other visitors. The layout and design for exhibit properties, stations, and product displays need to accommodate spacing and create a logical flow throughout. In some cases, a less is more approach may be required for a physical product on display and the number of booth staff on a stand at a single time. Adjustments in approach to meeting spaces will be taken based on client preferences and the number of meeting attendees.
4 Wayfinding/Signage/Messaging/AV
Graphics, signage, and flooring all contribute to the overall event experience. Visual indicators such as floor graphics ensure social and physical distancing and provide an excellent way to help attendees and guests navigate your space. Carpet/flooring design through inlays and printed applications can help define exhibit flow and compliment the overall booth design. Going big with graphics and AV can help communicate messages to attendees from greater distances.
5 Safe Distance Seating & Layouts
Space limitations from physical distancing require a new way of thinking for conference rooms, theater/presentation areas, lounges, meeting areas, and more. Exhibit design will carefully consider best practices.
6 Consider Hybrid Experiences – The Physical & the Virtual Spaces
Virtual experiences allow brands to extend their tradeshow presence beyond the hall to visitors not yet ready for in-person events and everyone longer than the duration of a show. Virtual experiences can extend the experience, strengthening pre-show, and post-show opportunities for interaction and engagement. Virtual also gives brands more opportunities for interaction and engagement on the show floor. In-person, private meetings can be conducted via webcam to ensure social distancing or to include those participants unable to attend an event.
In this new normal, everyone is thinking differently about connection. We know that new ways of physical and social distancing will be a way of life in the post-COVID-19 world. And that we all will have higher expectations for both hygiene and safety protocols in our face-to-face engagements. We’d love to begin a conversation about how we can help you with tradeshow exhibit ideas and solutions for ways to meet your objectives and deliver an exceptional experience, always.
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