The year is 2027 and you just walked into the trade show. Everything is glowing. There are mult-colored graphics blasting all around the room. It feels surreal, like a pop-up version of Las Vegas inside a large convention center. The convention center lighting itself is dimmed in order to better accent the more interesting, and ever abundant display lighting. Thousands of companies have decorated their space with color and light to compete for your attention. Hopefully, they also have something there to entertain you; an engaging spokesperson at the very least. This isn't quite what it was back in the day, when light bulbs looked "normal" and displays had bulkier components. 

The Display Technology is Here Today

This vision is becoming clearer and clearer as we approach it. Why? Because every single display item required to create it already EXISTS, and as mentioned, trade shows are a competitive environment. Trade show technology has come a long way, manufacturing costs have decreased, and competition is getting stronger everywhere. Not only are trade shows competitive environments themselves, but there are more trade show product distributors competing than ever before.

As a company that sells the full spectrum of options for a display, we see all types of approaches when it comes to purchasing trade show items: Those who just need a simple solution, those who are current with the most popular trends of today, and those who are taking leaps ahead to accomplish a futuristic booth that will likely still mesh with the show environment for years to come.

Evolution of Trade Show Graphics & Lighting

Two of the industries latest developments are primarily responsible for this change in direction: enhanced fabric graphic printing technology and improved LED lighting solutions. A printing process called dye-sublimation is able to heat sync vibrant, full color visuals into fabric, resulting in long lasting and easy to transport graphics. The fabric is called contour fabric, and it can be wrapped into a huge variety of configurations. It all depends on the shape of the display frame. LED lighting has evolved and manufactures have found innovative ways to fasten strips of LED lights behind printed contour fabric.  This accomplishes the attention grabbing glowing effect you see in the photo above.

Booth Designs of the Future

The annual EXHIBITORLIVE Trade Show showcases all of the newest trade show industry display concepts. Here, we've seen a major boom in backlit tension fabric displays over the past two years. At other shows, it is still a somewhat rare thing to see - but when it is there it makes a dramatic footprint on the show floor you can't miss. Some companies are seeing it as an opportunity to upgrade early on and stand out at trade shows while many of the other displays still have more traditional designs. It is hard to say how far ahead, but we predict at some point in the future a much larger percentage of trade show booths will be glowing with LED backlighting and fabric printed displays. What do you think?