This past November, Account Executive Rick Lenz, Account Manager John Neil, and Graphic Designer Josh Terceira traveled to Singapore with IGT to facilitate their Branded Environment at WLS. Those of you who are accustomed to exhibiting in the United States, might find your first foray into international shows a bit of a shock – luckily, our team is well-versed in handling all the obstacles the world might throw at you. Below is some shared experience our people have gathered along the way.

Rick Lenz

In Singapore, as with many destinations around the world, trade fair exhibits are designed, constructed and managed a little differently than typical multi-use properties here in the United States. Typically exhibits are produced as “build and burn”, meaning that the design and execution is truly a one-time use affair, where little to nothing is re-used for future events. This presents some freedom for our team to employ more readily available solutions without transport and storage considerations. For example: our Singapore project made use of real tempered glass, which the local fabrication community is uniquely outfitted to handle, without the need for asset cases to protect the glass for future use.

These differences are even more astonishing considering how exhibits go together. In Singapore, the Branded Environment we created for IGT was built entirely by hand – no heavy machinery was used. That means no forklifts, no genie lifts, no cherry pickers - all common resources you would typically find on the show floor here in the United States. Our team in Singapore constructed temporary scaffolding in order to work and handle some components, which were transported assemblies as large as five meters in length.

Although you’ll see many of these themes when exhibiting internationally, Singapore itself is a unique place amongst international locales. As a relatively small city-state in southern Asia off the southern tip of Malaysia, many Malaysians commute to Singapore daily in order to work. While the country may be close in proximity, all workers must pass through a slow customs process that can take up to two hours. This goes both for coming in and leaving - Singapore takes its borders very seriously.