The trade show business is ultra-competitive: each and every show, the ultimate (million dollar — or often more?) question perpetually asked is what to do to draw that fickle, show-level audience (read: potential new customers) into your booth instead of that of the competition’s right next door.
C. H. Robinson, one of the largest distribution chains in the world – among their many other distinctions – handed this age-old challenge once again to FSG this year in Orlando for their largest attended show of the year.
The group’s decision was to build a full-scale mock up of the space shuttle itself (designed and built by the amazing people at The Rogers Company in Cleveland, Ohio) and populate it with an actual, realistic cockpit with 3 immense viewing screens next to one another – creating one mega-panoramic/super horizontal space viewport/screen effect. Through this massive monitor, the cockpit audience would be taken on a “Wizard Of Oz”-like trip through space – seeing the earth and planets of the solar system from the virtual comfort of the space shuttle (all CGi created and designed by Ben Morse, our head of animation here at FSG), and immediately afterwards, the 10 minute, all-encompassing CHR marketing video, also created by the FSG team. Mark Gorman, our high-tech/guru/Yoda took charge of all the myriad of technical challenges at show level – and all our wizardly gents did an incredible job! That was apparent from the long lines waiting to get inside…
Yes, CHR’s booth was the hit of the show and – no big surprise here judging by the reaction of the attendees – it handily won the coveted “BEST OF SHOW” award for most impressive booth of the year!
It was a genuine honor to work with Ian Novak and Zach Raab from CHR who passionately spearheaded the project, and for the team at FSG – who all worked nearly 24 hours a day to build all this in time – this was easily one of the most enjoyable/challenging projects of recent memory.
Drop us a line if you’d like to see the show pics and video content. We’re always here and love to show off a bit, especially when our group collateral takes home the “best of” award at the end of the night’s festivities.