Attendee experience ranks close to the top of the priority list for show organizers, who have been closely examining every aspect of how attendees circulate through an event. The registration booth is often the first impression an attendee has and the Washington, D.C.-based Innovations Cardiac and Vascular Symposium recently re-engineered its reg area for a much more streamlined and aesthetically pleasing environment.

For smaller events, and smaller budgets, making a big splash is tough to do, but there are significant differences a freshly designed booth system can provide—especially with the often hum-drum standard registration booths. According to Toshia Bruster, project manager for Meeting Management Services, if you've seen one registration kick-panel set-up, you've seen them all, which was exactly the reason she and the Innovation Symposium decided to freshen up the look and registration experience.

Working with T3 Expo's design team, Bruster created a better looking and more efficient booth system that didn't break the budget. "We put on about 30 shows a year, and we've seen it all. I was looking for something different at a reasonable price," she says.

Bruster wanted a custom design but without the extra charges that often get tacked on for deviating from standard design plans. For this year's event, which attracted about 300 cardiologists, Bruster wanted to avoid, as much as possible, the long lines that often plague the morning registration rush hour. The new design featured a sleeker, more stretched out footprint that accommodated more traffic and helped speed the reg process. "We still had the kick-headers, but the biggest change was their position. With a normal registration booth, you have the headers and a bar, which makes it look like a box. By moving the attachment rail and putting it behind it on a separate unit it made it a lot more open. It was a much more pleasant experience to come register," says Bruster.

The materials were almost completely recyclable and the booth's design was optimized for extremely fast set-up and tear-down. At the end of the event, the entire back wall went into recycling as did the overlays. The counters were fully collapsable and were designed to be assembled in minutes without any tools.