In the World of Gaming, the Focus is on Competition, and that Focus Extends to Exhibiting Companies

Purpose:

Ubisoft’s wildly popular games like Assassin’s Creed and Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell have an enormous global following. When the company exhibits at gaming shows, they want to make sure all attendees are engaged, from resellers to gamers. Especially gamers!

Ubisoft noticed that connected sandbox experiences, with seamless switches between single and multiplayer modes provided the players with more fun, leading the company to switch from pursuing single-player only games to internet connected online experiences. Idea International was on hand to make the multiplayer gaming a critical part of the exhibit—one that had crowds lined up, waiting to play.

Ubisoft develops games for multiple platforms and consoles: Nintendo Switch and 3DS, Play Station, Xbox, the Wii U, PCs, IOS, and Android.

In an interview with The Verge, Anne Blondel-Jouin, executive producer of The Crew turned vice-president of live operations, noted that The Crew was an early game of Ubisoft’s to require a persistent internet connection in to play. This raised initial concerns for gamers, hampering the game’s initial success and sparked concerns internally at the company.

Solution:

Large scale graphics and crowd control stanchions marked the space for buyers and avid fans alike and gave everyone the chance to preview Ubisoft’s newest products at individual stations. Single players as well as on-line multiplayer competitions inevitably drew crowds to a gaming exhibit.

BUT in the world of gaming, the focus is on competition, and that focus extends to exhibiting companies. The design for Ubisoft specified a roughly 50-by-70-foot island stand featuring a 20-foot-tall central tower comprised mostly of cladded truss topped with a massive screen to display gaming content. Ubisoft had a prime booth-space location at the front of the hall, and the screen faced the entrance, so everyone would surely see it as they came in. Around the tower, kiosks offered attendees myriad gaming experiences.

When the Ubisoft exhibit manager saw the exhibit and the location, he decided we needed to have a “face off” with their largest competitor– big screen to big screen – whose space was nearby.

With three quarters of the exhibit set up—and with that much exhibit set-up time elapsed, our Idea International team was asked to rotate the exhibit 180 degrees. When I spotted the lead foreman, i.e., the “genba kantoku,” he seemed to be heading to lunch. When we explained the situation to him, he squeezed his eyebrows together, pursed his lips, and looked to the sky.

After a few moments of contemplation, the genba kantoku looked me dead in my eyes and said, “Let’s do it!” Actually, he said, “Yarimashou!” as his face broke into a smile.

He even added a little clap before he jumped to his feet and scurried off in search of additional workers. Clearly, this fellow loved confronting a challenge.

In less than a minute he returned to the booth with about 30 workers in tow. Either he wasn’t a foreman to be messed with, or his buddies also liked a good challenge. After a few quick orders from the big guy, everyone got to work.

First, they rolled up the carpet, which had been cut and laid around the existing kiosks, and set it in an aisle. Next, they ripped up the electrical cables and moved them out of the way as well. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, the crew produced an armada of dollies and carefully lifted and positioned the kiosks and miscellaneous exhibit properties on the dollies. In a flash, the previously stationary components became mobile, and the workers temporarily placed them in the aisle. Next, an audiovisual crew showed up, and using a complex system of various ties and bands, they lowered the massive screen. All that remained was the 20-foot tower.

This structure had to be sturdy enough to support the weight of the big screen, so the truss that made up its core had some serious weight to it. There was no way that even our small army of workers could lift and rotate it 180 degrees. The genba kantoku disappeared yet again, and about five minutes later a 10-ton crane came rolling down the aisle. Once the crane was in place, the workers unbolted the tower from its floor supports and ran straps through the truss onto the crane. A courageous worker even ambled atop the tower to ensure the strap and crane situation was copacetic. Then, the crane lifted the tower three inches from the floor, while ground-level workers carefully and slowly rotated the whole structure 180 degrees. The crane operator gingerly set it back down, and the worker at the top of the tower descended from the tower without incident. We’d moved our mountain in record time. The workers re-positioned the kiosks to accommodate the new tower location, restrung the electrical wiring, and re-laid the carpet. By 5 p.m., everything was back in place, and we still had roughly seven hours to complete the finishing touches and wipe down the entire exhibit.

At Idea International, we believe that almost anything can be accomplished with with the right leadership, a can-do attitude, an army of workers, and a 10-ton crane.