by Fiona Humberstone on June 30, 2010 · 2 comments
Gareth Palmer has literally just set up Playscene, a company that specialises in creating fun and imaginative playspaces for children. We met Gareth at this May’s Grow Your Business exhibition and he loved the Flourish stand, so when he booked the EcoSchools show in Peterborough he approached Flourish to help him create an engaging and memorable stand.
Gareth and I worked through an exhibition planning session together and helped him establish what his key angle was going to be for the show. We focused very much on the fact that there was a mix of teachers and pupils in attendance, and Gareth’s focus needed to be on engaging both, but it was the teachers who were likely to become potential customers.
We explored how we might create an impact, and Gareth had some fantastic ideas and together we whittled them down into a cohesive idea that would make sense to visitors. Gareth created his own graphics for the back wall and he and his girlfriend worked incredibly hard painting furniture, baking cakes and creating goody bags.
Gareth had also commissioned a fabulous Storyteller’s Chair which proved to be a real talking point and had also obtained hundreds of seeds to give away to the children which reinforced his ecological commitments.
You can also see plenty of his products on show – and we made sure that we kept them all rustic and natural to make sure that the impact was cohesive. I love the grass green floor and the vibrant backdrop. And how fabulous is the garden planter with all it’s fresh vegetables growing?
Gareth picked up well over 90 entries into his compeition and he’ll be announcing the winner shortly. Then he has the hard job of following up. But a jubliant Gareth was delighted with how the day went. The show organisers were so impressed with his stand they told him it was the best at the show and even used the stand as the backdrop to MP Lord Henley’s press shoot. Not a bad accolade! And proof that you don’t have to be a big company to have the best stand at a show – it’s all about your imagination.
Tagged as:
educational show,
exhibiting to teachers and pupils,
exhibition stand planning,
gareth palmer,
playscene,
schools exhibition
tagged as educational show, exhibiting to teachers and pupils, exhibition stand planning, gareth palmer, playscene, schools exhibition in Case Studies, Exhibitions, In The Studio This Week
Have just received this glowing review from a local publication, Guildford Means Business from Ezie Publishing and as it’s so lovely I thought I’d share it with you. Over to you John Hines and John Ashcroft… (and thank you. My mum is delighted 
The exclamation mark is the most overused – and misused – pieces of grammatical notation. In emails it is abundant. The result is that everything screams for attention and nothing gets it. When they are used correctly they make their subject stand out from the rest. They give it an enduring life of its own. When the Theatre Guild in New York launched a show called Away We Go, no one gave it a chance. It bombed on tour and it was only just before it was due to premier on Broadway that advice was sought. Impresario Lawrence Marshall’s suggestion was not only to rename it after the US state his wife came from, but to add an explanation mark.
Oklahoma! is still running 60 years later. In fact, a west-end production is playing at the New Victoria Theatre this week (May 10th – 15th). All this came to mind as I started to read Fiona Humberstone’s book exhibit!. It’s a book which gets your attention. More importantly, it’s contents comprise truly easy ways to get customers’ attention. It is the ‘Lawrence-Marshall-advice’ that will change the way your company exhibits forever..
Getting the right kind of attention
The book contains one of the most powerful, successful business practice sentences I’ve ever seen: everyone in business should read it. It’s lines two and three on page 61. “If you can just switch your focus from what you want to sell to what’s motivating your VISITORS, you’ll be on the road to success.” For VISITORS, substitute ‘clients’ or ‘prospects’ or ‘customers’ or anyone else who can help make you successful.
The sentiment of the rule is universal. It works for our magazine editorial too, when we tell contributors that we do not do advertorial. “If you can just switch your focus from what you want to sell to what’s motivating your READERS, you’ll be on the road to success.” exhibit! is the road map to success
We’re trying it out
It’s easy to write two dozen column inches of review about a book. With exhibit!, though, we are going to do something entirely different, Because the GROW exhibition is almost upon us, eZie-publishing is taking this book to task to see if it works. Our ad on page 23 and our stand display atGROW (stand XX) is right out of page 127 of Fiona’s book. It’s a simple exercise in collecting data which the book goes into great depth about.
The other side of exhibiting is speaking. It’s easy to say, as I have seen in other “how to” books, “Speak at seminars: it will boost your company’s exposure.” It’s nowhere near as easy as that. Look at the seminar list for GROW YOUR BUSINESS on page 17. Many of those names keep popping up all over the place. Getting onto those lists takes perseverance. exhibit! comes up with a superb way of starting. Look at the scan of Fiona’s “Creating a speaker sheet” page above.
This book has page after page of such working guides. Not words about what you should do, but checklists to ensure that you do it. And these are not incomplete lists, where the way to complete a project is to employ the writer as a consultant. exhibit! has everything: it’s Fiona’s entire exhibiting knowledge.
It’s like having a professional exhibition consultant by your side, 24 hours a day.
You can see if it all works for yourself
Go to the seminars at GROW and see how others put their stands and their presentations together. Especially, go to Fiona’s own stand (she is speaking at 10.00am and her stand number is 35) and you will see everything she writes of in practice.
Normally when a book is launched the author will sit at a desk for 60 minutes to sign copies, spending perhaps more than seven seconds with each customer. Fiona is going to be there all day. There’s no escape for her. She will be all yours at the Guldford Spectrum on 12th May. She’ll tell you how this book will help you grow your business at GROW YOUR BUSINESS. And I guarantee that you’ll get considerably more than seven seconds.
I think that deserves an exclamation mark!
And you can see the GMB4 – Fiona Review here.
in Exhibitions, Fiona's Book, Flourish Stuff
