613 Originals Blog

Impressions Fort Worth 2024: A "Berry" Successful Trade Show Experience

Written by Chloe Sosa-Jarrett | Oct 29, 2024 2:43:16 AM

After our "Hot Off the Press" food truck-inspired displays caused such a stir at Impressions Long Beach and Atlantic City, we wanted to keep the momentum going for Fort Worth. Read on to learn all about our planning process from workshopping fruit puns to building "The Fruit Stand" and more.

The fruits of our labor were well worth the effort! 😉

The Booth Food Truck Fruit Stand

Earlier this year, we retired our traditional trade show floor plans in favor of a more exciting, experiential set up where visitors can actively gain real time glimpses into our products' versatility. Our formula for upgrading the trade show experience is simple: showcase our product through real life use cases, model how to incorporate your own brand, and decorate all kinds of products with heat transfers.

The Concept

Partnering again with Fruit of the Loom, the seeds for our produce market aesthetic were planted. One of the many reasons we love working with the FOTL team is our shared belief in the unlimited potential of an "everyday product", like the t-shirt. Their logo inspired us - and so we set forth to repurpose as many tees as we could throughout our booth display.

The booth had two main features:

  • "The Fruit Stand" inspired by a farmer's market stall using garments to add color and texture. Using t-shirts as fruit through intricate folding, we amplified our transfers' versatility through application on wood, cotton, and more 
  • "The Market" included transfer-decorated garments and our popular "touch" wall, where attendees can see and feel our different transfer types. We used fruit-themed designs and vintage hand-painting inspired signage - even adding a milk crate display as an extra nod to our "farmer's market" experience 

Here's a snapshot of our planning layout for "The Fruit Stand" experience. We invited folks to step "into the market" by featuring additional product samples and printed garments along the perimeter of our area. 

The Fruit Stand

The actual construction of the "fruit stand" feature provided a fun challenge. How could we make it clear that we make heat transfers and weren't actually inviting folks to stop and grab a healthy snack? We decided the key was in the tees! Our team members scoured the web for origami inspiration to shape each garment into a fruit inspired by its coloring. We also printed Direct to Film transfers to decorate the wooden crates and panels that added to the overall "natural" and handmade feel.

Our display turned out to be a super eye-catching, attention-grabbing tool that made passersby stop to take in the scene and ask how the heck we managed to fold entire t-shirts into cute, palm-sized apples, pears, bananas, and more. [More on that later!]

The "Touch" Wall

Part of setting a different vibe in our booth entails creating a "please touch" experience where attendees are encouraged to feel the differing hands of each of our transfer types. We used stock art programs like Kittl to put our spin on a handful of fruit-inspired designs and printed them in a wide variety of our heat transfer formulas! The two pictured here are especially noteworthy because they're printed with our newest formula, DTF Hybrid – a transfer printed both with digital and screen printing techniques. 

We tapped into so many of our team members' talents, from crafting the punniest fruit references about heat transfers, building our stand from repurposed materials, decorating the “touch wall”, and so many other details that are seen throughout our booth. 

Our Market's Fruity Features

Freshly-Picked "Giveaways": Frui-tees and Mini Transfers

Our favorite part of any trade show? Attendees' reactions to finding out we're applying transfers to the garment of their choice in real time. This models the perfect versatility of transfers (same design, a variety of garments) and the convenience is unmatched. While we used black tees in the past, this time around attendees could "pick" one of seven fruit-inspired garment colors and had their choice of 2 different fruity pun designs, printed using our multidimensional puff formula.

Each garment was also branded with a tagless neck label - a fantastic, quick, and simple way to elevate any garment!

Big thank you to Fruit of the Loom and Jerzees for providing the perfect 100% cotton tees to withstand the higher application temp of our awesome puff formula!

The Mini Mystery "Sticker" Machine

While planning, we discovered that vending machines were hands-down our team's favorite part of visiting any sort of market. Through the power of Facebook Marketplace, we were able to snag a perfectly-sized vintage sticker machine and filled it with mini heat transfers in four of our go-to formulas, providing just enough nostalgia and excitement for folks waiting for their "freshly pressed" frui-tee!

The Fruit Stand "Receipt"

We leaned all the way in when designing the signage, especially the receipt which detailed each of our market's freebies. Instead of printing our receipt on paper, we highlighted our Direct to Film gang sheet capabilities and printed on a continuous roll which doubled as a "screen" for covering our storage area.

Upcycling our "Thank You" Totes

Earlier in the year, the Thankful "Burrito", a rolled tote bag decorated with our most popular transfer, the Varsity 1 Color formula, was a huge hit. We decided to bring them back because what's more essential to hitting the farmer's market than bringing your own reusable tote bag?

Shout out to Alphabroder for providing the tote bags for this extra special giveaway.

More Market Goodies

To continue the experience, we kept our sample and swatch packs organized in a hanging fruit basket for convenient "shopping" with our "Thank You" tote bags. We always recommend keeping swatches on hand as an additional resource for our customers to use when placing orders or working on projects, especially for referencing with our colors. Folks were super excited to get home and test out applying them to their favorite garments!

Our team in The Fruit Stand! 
Top Row (left to right): Tonie, Kristina, Cat, Tee, Chloe
Bottom Row: Steph 
Shout out to our team member not pictured: Andy! 

"Talking Shop" and Sharing Pro Tips

As your partners in all things screen print and garment decorating, it wouldn't be a trade show without us organizing some amazing opportunities to exchange advice and best practices with all of you!

Tee of the Tee Academy!

To start, we invited Tee of The Tee Academy to be our guest in Fort Worth! She designed one of the giveaway transfers, pressed shirts with us, and chatted with attendees, all while dropping gems and insights into how to build your own successful brand using heat transfers. On Thursday, Tee was interviewed by Ink Kitchen's Rick Roth on how to leverage social media when building your brand! Later on in the weekend, Tee hosted a private seminar available to Impressions attendees followed by an in-booth demo on the many ways to use transfers beyond just decorating garments. We're still over the moon about meeting our #BesTee in person!

On Friday, our VP of Technical Sales, Tonie Mignogna, also participated in a Shop Talk panel hosted by Ink Kitchen sharing what's new & hot in the transfer world! Industry leaders discussed trends in garment decorating, equipment updates, and more. Guests learned more about the technical side of transfers from screen print to direct to film!

Our VP of Tech Sales, Tonie (first from the right) on a Shop Talk panel to talk about the transfer industry.

Fresh, Juicy Crowd Reactions

Show attendees kept us busy, busy, busy during the Fort Worth show. Folks had a lot to say about our colorful designs, fun giveaways, and the high-quality, yet hand-crafted feel of our booth furniture. We even joked about wishing we'd set up a counter for every person who asked for a tutorial on how to fold the fruits!

We couldn't be happier with how everything came together and hope you're feeling inspired to try some out-of-the-box thinking with your next project!

We hope to see you at the next show! 

 

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