How Surgere Reinvents Its Manifest Exhibit Every Year With a Flexible Rental System

Surgere approaches Manifest each year with a clear belief: earning the attention and trust of an executive-level audience means showing up with an exhibit that feels fresh, intentional, and substantial.

There is a business reason behind that approach. Surgere’s technology, customer offering, and story continue to evolve, so the team does not want to communicate the same message at Manifest year after year. The challenge is creating that kind of substantial, evolving presence while staying within a practical budget and avoiding the limitations of a permanent booth system.

For the past three years, World Class Displays has helped Surgere turn that approach into a flexible exhibit program built around rental.

Project Snapshot (TL;DR):

Client: Surgere
Industry: Supply chain technology / asset tracking
Booth Dimensions: (2026 Show) 40'x50'
Exhibit Type: Island Exhibit, Rental
Primary Structure: Aluvision framing with REFlex lightboxes
Key Features: Large-format arches, SEG fabric graphics, vertically mounted 100" monitors, illuminated graphic towers, suspended overhead branding
Show: Manifest 2026 at The Venetian in Las Vegas
World Class Displays’ Services: Exhibit rental, custom graphics, flooring rental, rigging, electrical coordination, installation, and onsite management

The Challenges: Keeping the Exhibit Fresh, Flexible, and Credible Year After Year

Manifest puts Surgere in front of a high-value, executive-level audience, so the exhibit needs to make a strong first impression, communicate a complex technology story clearly, and create space for meaningful conversations.

For Surgere, that creates three core challenges:

Keeping the brand story fresh each year - Surgere’s technology, offering, and messaging continue to evolve, so the team does not want to bring the same story back to Manifest year after year.

Finding a rental partner with enough quality and flexibility - Surgere wanted the freedom of a rental model without sacrificing the scale or polish of the exhibit. Its previous vendor’s rental inventory did not offer the quality, visual range, or hardware options the team needed.

Creating an open environment for storytelling and conversation - The booth needed to support multiple points of entry, clear messaging, and natural interaction so attendees could move through the space, understand Surgere’s technology, and engage with the team without unnecessary barriers.

“Our story evolves, technology evolves, what we offer to our customers evolves, and we don’t tell the same story year over year.”

- Michael Schwabe

The Solutions: A Flexible Rental Exhibit Built for Presence, Reinvention, and Conversation

For Manifest 2026, World Class Displays built Surgere’s 40'x50' exhibit around a flexible rental system that could deliver a substantial custom presence without requiring Surgere to own the underlying hardware.

Creating a Fresh, Credible Presence

WCD used Aluvision framing, REFlex lightboxes, large architectural arches, illuminated SEG graphics, vertically mounted 100" monitors, and suspended overhead branding to give the exhibit scale and visibility on the show floor.

For a technology company like Surgere, where the product itself is not something attendees can simply pick up or inspect, the exhibit also needed to help carry the story. Large-format graphics, video, and messaging gave the team multiple ways to communicate what Surgere does while creating a polished environment for executive-level conversations.

Using Rental to Make Annual Reinvention Practical

Surgere wanted the freedom to rethink its Manifest presence each year without continually purchasing and storing new exhibit hardware. WCD’s rental inventory gave the team access to large-format structural components, lightboxes, arches, monitor integrations, and other hardware that could be configured around a new creative direction.

That flexibility is paired with WCD’s planning and design expertise. Surgere’s team can bring the goals and vision for each year’s show, while WCD helps translate them into a workable exhibit plan, identify options the client may not have considered, and keep the program grounded in budget.

“They’re challenging me and giving me things to consider that I may not be aware of just because I don’t have some of that breadth and background that they possess, that expertise.”

- Michael Schwabe

WCD also supports the execution behind each exhibit, including graphics, flooring, rigging, electrical coordination, installation, and onsite management, helping Surgere carry a new creative direction from planning through show floor execution.

Keeping the Booth Open for Storytelling and Conversation

The 40'x50' footprint was designed to stay open and approachable from multiple directions, with no enclosed spaces interrupting the flow of the booth.

Instead of concentrating Surgere’s story in one location, graphics, video, and messaging were distributed throughout the footprint. That gave attendees multiple ways to enter the experience, encounter different parts of the brand story, and engage naturally with the team.

The Result

Across three years at Manifest, Surgere has been able to keep evolving its exhibit presence while maintaining the scale, polish, and sense of investment it wants for an executive-level audience.

That approach has also produced meaningful business outcomes for Surgere. A direct customer the team first connected with during its first year using the 40'x50' exhibit later became a paying customer and now ranks among Surgere’s top five to ten accounts by revenue. Michael Schwabe also points to shorter lead cycles and new customer opportunities as signs that the investment in brand presence, storytelling, and messaging continues to pay off.

The relationship has also reduced the burden of executing a major show. With World Class Displays supporting planning, design, budgeting, account management, and show-floor execution, Michael can spend less time overseeing the exhibit and more time focused on the event itself.

“That allows me to treat the entire World Class team as an extension of my own, where I don’t have to feel like I’m constantly checking in or looking over somebody’s shoulder to ensure that it’s done. I just know it’s gonna be handled.”

- Michael Schwabe