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An Exceptional Video from Display Supply and Lighting (DS&L)

March 22nd, 2012 Mel White COMMENTS

Display Supply and Lighting Video

Rob Cohen, from Display Supply and Lighting (a strategic partner of Classic Exhibits), sent us this video. It’s so well done that we just had to share. Here’s a summary what you’ll see, along with a little “smooth salesmanship” from Mr. Rob.

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What did DS&L do at EXHIBITOR Show 2012? DS&L challenged attendees to THINK, IMAGINE, and CREATE what can be done with creative lighting products and design assistance from DS&L.

The focus of this video piece is on the back wall. This Classic Exhibits structure, covered with a tension fabric designed and produced by Optima Graphics (top and bottom pieces), was the centerpiece of this exhibit.

The top of the back wall was front lit with our new LED8822 arm lights. This is the highest light output LED arm light in the marketplace, providing the light equivalent output of a 125 watt halogen lamp. The fixture is a fully listed, ETL approved product with an integrated custom heat sink. The LED board uses all silicone coated diodes so there is no breakage of LED’s with this product when in transit. Compare this to anything else offered in the market and you will not find a better product.

The back wall contained two different lighting systems to demonstrate different ways of lighting the same exhibit property.

The first lighting system used our Flex product. These are programmable LED nodes on wires. Each individual node can be addressed by the controller and told what to do. As a result you get the ultimate flexibility in programming to really paint your canvas with programmable LED lighting.

The second lighting system used our linear Fuse product. The top and bottom of the lower graphic was lined with this linear, programmable product and you can see the smashing color changing, washing, and fading effects in this video.

Of course even more was being shown.  The four cubes in front were manufactured by Classic Exhibits and the graphic inserts were printed by Optima Graphics. Inside each cube, different color temperatures of white light were used to visually teach attendees the different effect that color temperatures have on illuminating an object. The far left was warm white products at 2700 degrees kelvin, the next cube was lit at 3500 degrees kelvin, the next was a neutral white 4100 degrees kelvin, and the far right cube was daylight at 6000 degrees kelvin.

Bring your design ideas to DS&L and see what we can do to help bring your designs to life with vibrant lighting solutions.

–Mel White
http://www.linkedin.com/in/melmwhite
mel@classicexhibits.com

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Based in Portland, Oregon, Classic Exhibits Inc. designs and manufacturers portable, modular, and custom-hybrid exhibit solutions. Classic Exhibits products are represented by an extensive distributor network in North America and in select International markets. For more information, contact us at 866-652-2100 or www.classicexhibits.com.

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There’s a New Regime in Town: Word on the Street — March 12 thru March 16

March 18th, 2012 Mel White 4 COMMENTS
There's a New Regime in Town

Word on the Street by Kevin Carty

A Fly in the Ointment

As you all know, I think EXHIBITOR Show 2012 was AMAZING. But it did not go off without a hitch. It had nothing to do with the organizers. They did a fantastic job! It had to do with the local union steward unfortunately.

Here is the deal. There is a new regime in the local Las Vegas union, which at first glance and given the economic hardships of the past three years would lead you to believe that positive change is coming.  Unfortunately NO. And to make matters worse, the union leadership decided to flex their muscle at an industry event. To me that is counterintuitive, but to them it made perfect sense. Let me explain.

As we always do, we hired an independent labor contractor. On Day One, our setup crew was approached by the local union rep and told that the two Classic employees could not touch anything and had to stop working. In VEGAS? Really! That has never been the case. You could always have at least one employee assisting, and there were three union laborers working on our exhibit at the time. When questioned, the response was — “Read your Show Book for starters, and secondly, there is a new regime in town and we know that the Exhibit Builders are the worst offenders so we are making a stand. The idea is that you will go back and let your clients know that Vegas is tightening the reigns.”

Again, this confuses me. Isn’t it the exhibit builders, exhibit industry vendors, and show organizers that help to make sure that trade shows are in VEGAS and other cities? Are we not sending bigger and better business your way every year? It seems odd that the union leadership would want to send the “wrong message” to your industry colleagues, especially when, after reading the show book, we were following the rules.

Like I said, EXHIBITOR was an amazing show. One that we should be very proud of, but there was one black eye. What have we learned from the Great Recession? Clearly not everyone in our industry is on the same page, the page that says let’s keep moving this train forward in a positive fashion. We want everyone to continue working, the industry to grow, but we can’t do that unless (at the end of the pipe) it’s the best possible experience for our customers, the exhibitor. If you treat your family like this, I am pretty sure you treat those outside the family even worse.

To be fair, after a very strong push-back by our I&D lead, the union steward did relent a little. But he was clearly not happily.

Sorry to vent after such a great week in Vegas. But it just baffled me.

Be well!

–Kevin Carty

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

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EXHIBITOR 2012…What a SHOW!: Word on the Street — March 5th thru March 9th

March 11th, 2012 Mel White 5 COMMENTS
EXHIBITOR 2012...What a SHOW!

Word on the Street by Kevin Carty

Goosies!

To steal a phrase from J-LO (yes, I said J-LO) . . .  EXHIBITOR 2012 gave me goosies! 🙂

Let’s start on March 5 at 11:30 am. Normally the Classic Crew would be standing in the booth waiting for the doors to open and for the first attendees to arrive. But we weren’t! We weren’t because starting at 10:30 am we already had other exhibitors in our booth looking around, admiring the Classic Exhibits booth, and eager to learn about what we were showing this year. To be totally honest, neither Mel nor I noticed when the show opened because we were busy from 10:30 – 3:30 non-stop.

The Booth

This year’s booth was designed to show all aspects of our business. In the past, we have succeeded in showing slices of what we do at Classic Exhibits — portables, custom modular, rentals, extrusion. But we have never been able to actually show it all. So this year, we handed that design challenge to Mike Swartout and Erik Frost. And man did they deliver!  Our exhibit showed how well we can build Island Hybrids, probably the first thing you noticed when seeing the exhibit. But it also highlighted our capabilities within ClassicMODUL Aluminum Extrusions, such as our one-of-a-kind bending capabilities of TSP profiles for SEG graphics. It also illustrated our extensive custom rental offerings. But the cherry on the top was the elevated retail display windows showcasing four hybrid displays:  Sacagawea, Perfect 10, SEGUE, and Visionary Designs.

Exhibitor 2012 Classic Exhibits Inc.

Again, to Mike and Erik, very well done! And to our graphic designers at Flying High Creative Resources, thank you for nailing the “Be Better” theme throughout the booth. Like I said in the beginning of this post, the comments by visitors and friends regarding how we really hit a home run on the design not only made me very proud but also gave me goosebumps.

The show overall was solid this year. Kudos to John Pavek and crew from EXHIBITOR. You did a wonderful job putting together this year’s show. I did not hear a single negative comment regarding any aspect of the event. For Classic and crew it was just another year where we left the show feeling very proud to be part of EXHIBITOR.

Walking the floor proved to be a real challenge this year I must admit. Post show, we all compared notes and neither Mel, Jim, Reid nor I was actually able to see the entire show floor because we were so busy. But, for me, on Wednesday I had the privilege to work the EDPA booth for an hour. The booth was on the other side of the hall, so walking to and from the booth I took different routes just so I could see some of the other exhibits along the way. Everyone looked very good, and considering it was Wednesday, it was great to see exhibitors engaged with customers which is not always the story on the last day.

Other “Classic Exhibits” on the Show Floor

For the past several years, Classic has been very proud to help design and to build portions or all of the exhibits for many of our tightest vendor partners. This year was no different. This year we built the ClassicMODUL portion of Optima Graphics exhibit, the CORT Furnishings Island Exhibit, the New Leads 10 x 20 Sacagawea, The Immersive Realities 10 x 10 rental, the EXHIBITOR 10 x 20 Visionary Designs rental, the DS&L 10 x 20, and the ELITeXPO 10 x 20 Custom Visionary Designs Hybrid. I mention that unit last because it deserves special recognition. Thanks to Dave Mihalik and his whole team for really showing off what we do at Classic! It was an amazing structure with more curves than a county road in Eastern Kentucky. There were several other ClassicMODUL Aluminum Extrusion structures at the show as well, designed and built by custom houses. We can’t take any credit for these, except to personally thank them for choosing ClassicMODUL (which we did at the show).

Old Friends and New Friends

As in past years, it was wonderful to see you. It’s always such a great time and reminder of the great partnerships and friendships we have made over the years. For me, it’s always an opportunity to connect with many of the friends I have met over the past seventeen plus years. This year was no different.

Part of that came during our Annual Distributor Appreciation Event, held this year in the Vista Suite in Mandalay Bay in conjunction with Eco-Systems Sustainable Exhibits. We had 200-250 people come through the afternoon and evening. It was a lot of fun to see you and to meet some of the new faces we have working with over the past year.

Exhibitor 2012 Classic Exhibits Inc.

On a personal note, after missing the show last year, it was exhilarating to be back on the show floor and to see those folks who have been so supportive over the past year. Reid, Mel, Jim and I always say, “At the end of the day, we want to do business with friends.” We are very fortunate and blessed to be able to do so daily. So “THANK YOU!” to those customers and vendor partners we saw over the past week. Along with our great staff, you make Classic Exhibits a great place to come to work to everyday.

One final thanks to Tim Patterson and Marlys Arnold for contributing their knowledge and time to our booth this year. We would not have been as successful without your pre-show marketing and in-booth contributions. We appreciate and thank you for all you did.

I am curious to hear your experiences and thoughts about EXHIBITOR 2012. Please share.

Be well!

–Kevin Carty

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

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It’s Showtime: Word on the Street — Feb. 27th thru March 2nd

March 4th, 2012 Mel White COMMENTS
It's Showtime

Word on the Street by Kevin Carty

It’s Showtime!

Classic Exhibits and its family of companies is ready to show at EXHIBITOR 2012. We look forward to seeing you at booth #1645 this week.

The exhibit installed Friday and Saturday and looks amazing. Special thanks to James and Corey from Exhibits NW who led the set-up charge. And special thanks to Chris Griffin and the men from TS Crew for their stellar work.

The booth does have a theme– “Be Better,” which reflects our mission this year. We hope you’ll agree that it is not only better than anything we have shown before, but it is the BEST exhibit we have ever shown. It shows off our ability to design and build large custom extrusion-based exhibits, large rentals, as well as our inline capabilities. We are highlighting four systems at the show and showing off several new booth accessories such as iPad stands.

Here are several photos showing the display being built and close to finished. I hope they give you a glimpse of what you’ll see in person this week.

Look for blog updates from us this week and perhaps even a video. 😉

Travel safe my friends.

–Kevin Carty

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

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Our Final Pre-EXHIBITOR2012 Video

February 29th, 2012 Mel White 3 COMMENTS

EXHIBITOR Video #3

EXHIBITOR2012 is less than a week away, and Tim Patterson, the intrepid “Tradeshow Guy” reporter, made a surprise visit at Classic. Up until now, we’ve held our cards pretty close to our chest regarding the booth design and graphics. However . . . being coy was no longer an option with Tim planted in the setup area asking questions.

Here’s your chance to see the structure about midway through assembly. Kevin and Mel discuss the concept in more detail. You are invited to see us at booth #1645 where you can meet Tim and Marlys Arnold, the trade show marketing gurus. They’ll be there between 11:30 – 12:30 on Monday and Tuesday.

We’ve packed our booth and it’s on its way to Las Vegas. See everyone there.

Look for Tim’s video and blog reports from the show. If you are there, you’ll recognize him — he’ll be wearing a hat with the fake “Press” badge. 😉

–Mel White
http://www.linkedin.com/in/melmwhite
mel@classicexhibits.com

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Based in Portland, Oregon, Classic Exhibits Inc. designs and manufacturers portable, modular, and custom-hybrid exhibit solutions. Classic Exhibits products are represented by an extensive distributor network in North America and in select International markets. For more information, contact us at 866-652-2100 or www.classicexhibits.com.

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Posted in Mel White | 3 Comments »

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