Collaboration results in mobile marketing tent

Networking at IFAI Tent Expo 2013 results in a tent that looks like a house.

A mobile marketing tent for pharmaceutical giant Merck toured Canada in 2013, but it came together in Germany, Montreal and Orlando, Fla.—where IFAI Tent Expo 2013 brought together tent manufacturers Losberger US LLC and Fiesta Tents Ltd. along with Canadian trade show exhibit specialist
MediaSystems.

The structure serves as a mobile marketing “house” that invites environmental allergy sufferers inside to learn about options for combating symptoms.

“The desired look included a side dormer as well as smaller dormers on the roof along with real windows and doors to be integrated into the tent,” says Alexandre Renaud, international sales manager for Fiesta Tents of Saint–Laurent, Quebec, Canada.

The custom frame was manufactured by Losberger in Germany. Fiesta Tents provided the fabric, and printing was completed by PNH Solutions of Montreal with coordination by Fiesta Tents.

“This was the most challenging part of the project as it required precision with regard to where the printing would end up once the tent was assembled and the fabric tensioned,” Renaud says. “Working with another company’s custom frame and trying to align the print on patterns we were not familiar with was a challenge.”

Creating decorative dormers on the roof of the tent without adding too much weight and achieving a realistic look also proved challenging.

“These are not standard options on clearspan tents and required not only some ingenuity in design but also quite a bit of creative thinking with regard to fabrication,” Renaud says.

A timeline of six weeks from time of order to first installation required that the frame be flown from Germany to Montreal, and that some of the components be flown from Montreal to the first event site in Vancouver.

“The result was a tent that created the illusion of a house and achieved the client’s marketing objective with regard to visual impact,” Renaud says. “All of this was possible thanks to the networking opportunities offered by the 2013 IFAI Tent Expo.”