GlobalShop 2017: Back to Basics

The annual GlobalShop trade show and conference event was held in the Mandalay Bay Convention Center, March 28-30, in Las Vegas.

This year, more animal forms made their mark beyond dogs and cats (e.g., a zebra, an elephant and an army of pigs), while integrated lighting was again a predominant feature. A continued trend were products which helped support customer engagement and those that would work well for experiential concepts. Many observable trends seemed similar to last year’s, as retailers’ budgets are becoming tighter.

Adding some extra excitement to the show floor, a VM obstacle course created by Joe Baer of ZenGenius (Columbus, Ohio) had attendees and students racing against the clock to complete a series of challenges, like properly folding and tagging clothing and redressing a mannequin.

During the show, VMSD honored five exhibitors with its annual “Outstanding Booth Design” award, which included Go Home Ltd. (Atlanta), B+N Industries (Burlingame, Calif.), Sistemalux iGuzzini (Montreal), NicoNat (Commerce, Calif.) and Opto Intl. Inc. (Wood Dale, Ill.).

The Planning and Visual Education Partnership (PAVE) again hosted its PAVE Student Design Challenge, which featured student-designed retail displays. This year’s winning display, designed by students from Humber College (Toronto) and fabricated by Visual Elements (Woodbridge, Ontario), featured a life-size, branded pin art wall for Nike (Beaverton, Ore.), which students demoed throughout the trade show, sculpting the wall by pushing its pins back and forth, exhibiting its ability to shapeshift and become a flexible fixture wall.

After the show, attendees gathered to celebrate on two consecutive nights. First, at PAVE’s third annual Opening Night Bash, held this year at Drai’s Beachclub and Nightclub at The Cromwell Hotel & Casino, and the next night at Shop!’s annual Design Awards, which was hosted in a new location at Light Nightclub at Mandalay Bay.

GlobalShop coincided with the annual Digital Signage Expo (DSE) this year, and attendees could use their credentials from either show to enter both exhibit halls. Moving away from its host city of Vegas the past several years, GlobalShop will be back in Chicago’s McCormick Place, March 27-29, 2018.