Finally we had come to the convention center for the last time to throw our event. The project manager and I came to Orlando a day before the trucks were scheduled to arrive. We wanted to make sure that we were available as soon as the riggers were to install any sign. We had our decks, of over 100 pages, full of signage and instructions on how and where it should all go up before any of our Stylists would show up for our event. Now we didn’t have the entire convention center until 2 days after we arrived, so we could only do signage in the areas we did have until we had the entire venue. We got up everything we could in 1 day, but then had a day where little to no rigging could be done. On the third day, which was the most difficult, all outstanding rigging had to be done before our Stylists arrived which was scheduled for the fourth day. We did get through it, but there were some last minute changes and switches made to accommodate our timeline. One of our signs arrived missing a logo and had to be reprinted. Fortunately it was a window cling so only a small portion of the sign had to be reprinted.
One problem that we didn’t anticipate was the humidity and heat. We had put up a bunch of wall clings, and many of them were over wallpaper. They were fine during the day, but at night it would get much more humid and the temperature would drop. This caused the low tac in our vinyl clings to not stick as well to the wallpaper, and the sign would start to peel away from the wall at night. We had an entire sign fall down one night, fall on itself, and be ruined. Our vendor quickly reprinted another, we got it up, and we put a tiny bit of clear tape at the top corners of every wall cling that was on wallpaper. This was enough to keep our signs up the rest of the event.
A lovely coincidence that happened: They cut the trees in the atrium. Now our sign could be seen from both the entrance and the exit. They didn’t specifically cut the trees for our venue, but we benefited from it regardless.
Never the less, here is some of that final signage and branding of the convention center:
These lobby signs almost didn’t go up. At the time of installation the riggers got worried due to electrical in the poles they were hanging from. Our vendors came up with solutions to the problem, but the hotel needed to call in all of their engineers to confirm that these solutions would be safe to all the patrons.
The flagpoles in the atrium came out wonderful. One section of the hotel was under construction when we visited, and unfortunately that areas flag pole placement changed and construction changed so our banners no longer fit there. Fortunately we were able to find alternate locations for them.
You can tell you’ve done a good job when the people at the event go around taking photos of your work.
Directional footprints:
Here is that atrium banner showing through the freshly cut trees:
And here it is on the other side:
The bridge windows:
The registration area at the top of the escalators:
All of the window clings at the exhibit hall level:
Banners within the shopping event:
The various entrances for the fashion show and shopping event:
The columns by the base of the escalators:
And finally the white cut vinyl door clings:
And with this and all the other bits of signage not shown it is now time to start planning the next event like this. We do two of these a year, and thus must start planning the visual aspects of one immediately following the end of another.
