When Brumark Total Flooring Solutions, an Exploring Inc. company, wanted an attention-grabbing look for EXHIBITORLIVE, the Atlanta-based business turned to steampunk, pirate maps, and fake news. Working with ID3 Group, Brumark designed its booth based on the science-fiction genre known in part for combining materials synonymous with Victorian times – e.g., bronze, wood, and leather – with anachronistic mechanisms, including robots and dirigibles powered by superheated air.

When attendees approached the 20-by-20-foot island exhibit, they encountered a 250-pound, tobacco-brown planet Earth inspired by 19th-century pirate maps and bas-relief globes of the same period. Sticking out of the polystyrene orb were 80 blue flags, each representing the locations of Brumark flooring projects around the world. The structure was balanced on top of a 5-foot-tall faux bronze cylinder, itself supported by an elevated platform made from the company's A&P Raised Flooring.

Surrounding the globe like a halo was a 16-foot-diameter header whose frame was sheathed with Sintra laminated to bendy plywood. A quartet of LED screens on the ring's exterior continually scrolled Brumark's tagline for the show, "Total Flooring Solutions Through Time," a cheeky nod to its longevity and its vision for the future. On the ring's interior the company airbrushed a timeline of factual and fabricated flooring-news events throughout history, such as "2004 – Brumark launches FlexFloor" and "48 B.C. – Cleopatra remodels her personal chamber with Perfect Plank." The header rested on pylons fabricated to look like massive bronze gears, each bearing "hands" wearing steampunk-style studded gloves that grasped product samples and video monitors. With its stylish look straight out of a Jules Verne novel, Brumark created a booth that easily stood a world apart from its neighbors. E