After months of planning, designing, and building, we joined the rest of our industry in Las Vegas at ExhibitorLive 2016 — the trade show of trade shows. We had steady traffic and we met with many excellent new companies. As we talked with folks, we heard the same two questions:
- What do you have that’s new?
- How can you make us stand out from the crowd?
We knew what we’d see from our competition — the latest design trend is fabric. Everywhere. Fabric was hanging from the ceiling, standing off the ground, draping the walls, and even used to form doors and meeting rooms. Fabric is the new wood panel.
Our goal was to show what’s next. And we did.
Modular panels that are stronger, lighter, cheaper, and can be installed without tools.
Apple Rock’s new Xylea-Wood product is a patented wall system for slat- or flat-board. Graphics can be printed directly on these panels — meaning no bubbles! It has many of the same advantages as fabric and extrusion, including:
- Lightweight so it’s cheaper to ship,
- No bubbly graphics printed on vinyl, and
- Quick assembly.
Xylea-Wood surpasses these other options in the following ways:
- Cost — less expensive than other materials,
- Uses — suitable for nearly any part of a booth (including storage areas), not just a few specific components, and
- Flexibility — reversible panels and reconfigurable positioning.
Xylea-Wood is not only on its way to being the next trend, but it could easily become the new baseline for hard panels and booth structure. I believe fabric, extrusion, and other solutions should still be in the design tool box, as they can complement the hard panel look and setup. The customers we’ve shown Xylea-Wood love the features, pricing, and aesthetics — and it was a big hit with those we spoke to at Exhibitor.
If you didn’t make it to ExhibitorLive, we’d love to set up a time to chat with you and share more about what’s new at Apple Rock.