ttempting to display every product Disney Consumer Products Inc. has in its inventory is the kind of problem that would drive most exhibitors goofy. So for the 2011 Licensing International Expo, the Burbank, CA-based company cast its 50-by-80-foot booth more as an experience of Disney magic rather than a gigantic product display jammed to the hilt like a Dollar Store. With the help of New York-headquartered exhibit house Tangram International Exhibitions Inc., Disney created a booth that was part business and part bewitchment.

Inspired by "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" portion of the movie "Fantasia," Disney placed 12 separate fabric structures made of medium-density fiberboard (MDF) around the booth to serve as dividing walls. Colored a silvery white, the structures' shapes and shades echoed the streaking comets Mickey Mouse conjured from the heavens in the animated film. Instead of fireballs, however, the booth's "sky" held a trio of tensioned-fabric ribbons.
Hung from a truss about 22 feet above the space, the 450-foot-long ribbons were wrapped into coils like Aladdin's turban. Below, two 10-by-12-foot rooms housed audiovisual controls for front projectors, intelligent lighting, and gobos that alternated the colors and content on the ribbons every five minutes.

With no actual Disney products to handle, attendees could watch information about them displayed on four LED screens positioned around the booth. Showing images of licensed offerings and video clips from various Disney TV shows and motion pictures, the massive screens morphed the surfaces of the otherwise-stark booth into a giant flickering film. When they were ready to meet with Disney staff, attendees sat at any of 14 tables beneath the coiled fabric.

Ultimately, instead of filling its booth with licensed baubles, Disney created an innovative exhibit whose shimmering screens and immersive projections gave visitors a true taste of Disney magic, as if they'd stepped out of the aisles and into an animated classic.e