Rapiergroup helped BAE Systems achieve the largest presence at this year’s DSEi, the world’s largest fully integrated international defence exhibition in London, England.

BAE Systems took 1,200sqm of ground floor space along with 400sqm of upper deck hospitality and meeting rooms   Further to this, there were six hospitality suites, all dressed out by Rapiergroup which overlooked Warships moored on the River Thames alongside. Two hundred people at each sitting dined in the rooms and private dining catering facilities - all booked, arranged, set up and project managed by Rapiergroup.

As part of the a world programme, our brief was to continue the effective delivery corporate brand and key messages at this event, whilst providing a really hard-working, multi-function platform serving BAE Systems wide range of show activities.

Rapiergroup’s approach began from the core message set and devising tiered presentation media, each more detailed than the last, designed to work for differing visitor demands, their lengths of attendance time and even the different daily dynamics of the show.

These included demonstrations ranging in scale from full-size, real armoured vehicles and tanks, through to real software and interactive displays of all kinds.

A special feature was a ‘virtual’ munitions expert that we created, who travelled to ‘areas of effect’ and explained the more complex capabilities.

New to the show programme was a series of 6 live ‘mini-theatres’ that featured professional ex-military service personnel as well as BAE Systems presenters.  These were all fully trained by Rapiergroup and became conversant with a suite of presentations, designed specifically for the event.

Tracking such an investment is vital, so we worked with BAE Systems event management databases and marketing teams to create these presentations which were formulated and targeted for actual delegations already on the invitation lists, using prior known areas of interest. Follow-up tracking was given, by visitor, and were all integrated into the overall measurement as part of the assessment of event success.

Theatrical impact was heightened by the main design, its ‘Ribbon and Canopy’ features now established globally as part of the high tech, innovative new BAE Systems exhibitions look.

The canopy featured an exciting array of intelligent MAC 2000’s, back-lighting a complex double-layered rigging and truss system.

This was designed to go up quickly as with only a 5 day build for the whole project, it needed to be… and we are told it looked good too!