In October of 2007, Solutions By Design covered the DARPA STO booth, and followed up with a story on the DARPA VSO booth in the November issue. The saga continues, as the booths have been nominated for LiveDesign's 2007 Excellence Award.

The DARPA STO booth.

Both booths represent close collaboration between DARPA, Williams/Gerard Productions, and Production Plus. Hours of work and thought went into each of the booths from all the collaborators. For Production Plus, it was a technological triumph that nearly the entire company had a hand in producing.

The DARPA VSO booth.

To see it gain some measure of prestige was a satisfying reward. "Obviously, it would be cool to win, but the recognition is really the prize," reasons Alex Axotis, general manager at Production Plus. "It's nice to see good work having a life beyond the trade show floor."

Production Plus looks forward to more challenging projects from the trade show end of the business in the future. "It's something we'd like to pursue," says Axotis. "I think our performance on DARPA shows that we are capable of some pretty amazing work. In such a competitive pool, it's tough for a trade show booth to make a splash. But we're always excited to try and push through to the next level."