Euroshop highlights and hot tips

• Big scale operation – 100,000 visitors, nearly 2,000 exhibitors
• Electro magnetic vinyl powered by battery from Tink
• 3form still the best for textures within acrylic sheets
• Philips big on lighting, small on carbon footprint
• Watch out for Reverse Vending
• Book your hotel way in advance or risk kipping at the airport...

What really strikes you as you arrive at Euroshop is the sheer size and scale of the beast. With over 100,000 visitors and 1,911 exhibitors, just getting round the place is exhausting. For a retailer it is the one stop shop, covering everything from POS to security. From a designers perspective it can feel overwhelming, but within it are some core fundamentals we need to see and experience if we are to keep our designs innovative and groundbreaking.

Euroshop is the Disney World of retail. It doesn’t get bigger or more popular than this. Book your hotel room months in advance or risk travelling in from Frankfurt or Cologne as I had to do! As much about networking as it is inspiration and showcasing, this is an opportunity for businesses to visit their suppliers, catch up with them, discuss potential projects and have a drink or four.

Interestingly, it became clear that it’s not necessarily the actual product itself that’s inherently exciting; it’s what you do with it. It’s like going to buy a shelving system in ikea; the shelves only take on meaning once seen within a home context, illustrating how something so simple can be rather special. Exhibitors at Euroshop either created a whole retail environment or tried to animate the products with the space they had, it was a challenge which Vizona succeeded at best: a challenge intrinsic to retail as a whole.

Whilst there were a lot of practical ideas on show, among the vast sea of retail stands Euroshop created pockets of excitement with showcases companies owned, using them to create a sense of theatre; there were curvaceous walls of cardboard tubes, a sea of balloons which hovered over a glorified seating area -  all about getting excited about space, form and creative energy rather than just practical and implementable solutions.

The things that got me excited…

Lighting; big to small

From the massive to the totally discreet; there were lights for which you need scale to get the full effect, to stand back from afar and see as a whole. There were equally inventive lighting solutions so small they can be contained in the most awkward fittings.

Technology; the high tech and the low tech

We had animated animals coming out of our ears. But apart from the obligatory fanciful Christmas displays, there were advanced touch screens, floor projections you interact with as you walk over and interactive projectors. A simple yet effective example of this is Tink electro magnetic vinyl, powered by a battery. This is a GIF you input which becomes a self contained animated POS. if you’re a brand selling all over the world and wanted an animated POS to thread through all your host locations then this would be easy to roll out. It does have a shelf life though; whilst the battery can be changed, the animation cannot.

Up till now audio visual displays have been impressive yet expensive and static. Now we can have them on curtains, walls, clear, interactive.  A lot of these technologies are being used for travelling shows and by big flagship companies leading the way in innovation. In time however, the cutting edge will become the norm, filtering down and into the mainstream. Today’s inventions become future realities

It’s not all about impressive high tech gadgets though. The low tech can be equally effective. Expo Partner created a wall of magnetic triangular blocks with which you could make words by climbing up a ladder and moving them around. People love to play. More often than not it’s the most basic things that get them engaged, think of how much more fun the cardboard box was than the present that came in it used to be.

The stand most honey-pot like in its attraction for visitors was the one with a table full of nails. All people did was pull the nails up from the table. Then push them down. Up and down. You wouldn’t believe how excited people got about this. It’s less how something is made and more how people can engage with it, something we would all do well with reminding ourselves of once in a while.

Textures and surfaces; the sky’s the limit

Every texture under the sun is now available off the shelf. Textured surfaces, sheet technology, sheet or transparent, or encapsulated sheet, whether it be grass or timber screen you can encapsulate in the acrylic sheet. 3form brings texture to life by embedding patterns in sheets of flat that remain 3D, they’ll cost you an arm and a leg but for the double take and invitation to touch them, perhaps they are worth it. Schobel’s manufactures all the hanging baubles for Reiss. From detailed craft to groundbreaking inventions everything was covered.

An interesting aside, with technological advancement has come the rise of the l shag pile carpet for commercial use (roll or tile). Acrylic fibres means it’s got the shag pile soft feel but it is easy to clean, install and replace. Who would have thought the humble shag pile would enjoy a renaissance!

Sustainability; a strong current running through everything

Big in lighting with Philips as the key driver, showing us how we can still entice customers by lighting spaces to create a vibrant and exciting atmosphere, and reduce our carbon footprint at the same time, through better designed, more energy efficient lighting schemes.

Tomra are pioneering the reverse vending systems, set to help the world recycle. Instead of getting a can of coke out of the machine, you put one back in, and in doing so you can get a redemption back or choose to donate the money to charity.

What I’d use on a project tomorrow

The profile tube. This extruded rigid aluminium channel can be utilised to create structural framework either in its original straight profile, or can be post formed to any pre determined curvature whilst still retaining its sectional profile, so allowing the realisation of a curvilinear structural form that can be in-filled with tensile fabric using the extruded profile.

What would have been bespoke and very expensive, is now off the shelf, flexible and adaptable allowing accessible framing solutions for the retail and exhibition arena