hile elusive at times, inspiration is born of countless sources - museums and mosaics, jazz and mint juleps, even a single shard of glass. But anyone who'd kill for a sip of this conceptual caffeine can relate to author Jack London who said, "You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club."

	A Day at the Fair A smattering of the show's 104,000 attendees make their way from the fairground's train station to the show's main entrance a short trek away.

That's why exhibit designers the world over flock to EuroShop, The Global Retail Trade Fair. Held once every three years in Dusseldorf, Germany, EuroShop hosts roughly 104,000 attendees and more than 1,900 exhibitors hawking everything from store fixtures and shopping carts to mannequins and banner stands. In a sense, EuroShop is the European equivalent of GlobalShop and EXHIBITOR2008 on speed - only instead of hot dogs and apple pie, attendees dine on dark beer and deep-fried pork knuckles.

Despite the pork-centric cuisine, designers and retail-store owners in general - and U.S. exhibit designers in particular - swarm the show armed with digital cameras and fistfuls of memory cards. While each member of the latter group searches for enough creative "go juice" to fuel their souls for the next three years, they collectively forage for nuggets of originality to give their exhibit designs a razor-sharp edge over the competition. Why? The emerging trends and innovative elements on display at the show are guaranteed to pop up in exhibits around the world for the next three years, until EuroShop 2011 raises the bar once again.

This year, a handful of EXHIBITOR staffers grabbed their clubs and their cameras and made the pilgrimage to Deutschland for EuroShop 2008, searching for inspiration and hot new ideas. And the show delivered an uber idea buffet, serving up 15 halls full of retail and exhibit-design furnishings and fixings, and feeding inspiration-starved attendees all-you-can-eat portions of inventive ideas, fresh for the taking.

EXHIBITOR scoured the 15 halls for five days straight and walked away with scads of inventive ideas - not to mention sore feet and more than our share of beer and pretzels. Thus, heeding the advice of Robert Louis Stevenson who said, "Keep your fears to yourself, but share your inspiration with others," you'll find our staff's most awe-inspiring discoveries on the following six pages. But given the super size of EuroShop's helpings, we were bound to have leftovers. So if the following highlights leave you hungry for seconds, grab a doggie-bag full of delicious design inspiration by visiting www.ExhibitorWebLinks.com.

May the following (below) satisfy your appetite for inspiration, and satiate your desire for inventive design. Guten Appetit! e