Overview

Lion at FDIC

Lion designs and manufactures protective gear and training equipment for firefighters and first responders. At the Fire Department Instructors Conference (FDIC), the fire service industry’s largest annual event, Lion needed two things simultaneously: a strategically designed customer experience for its biggest show of the year, and a solution to manage seven semi-trucks of existing exhibit assets produced by other exhibit houses over the years.

When Lion brought their program to Downing Displays, none of it had been built by Downing Displays. Rather than treat that as a complication, Downing Displays supplied a formal transition plan — a proprietary process covering supplier notification, asset recovery, phased intake, and program benchmarking — to move Lion’s program without disruption, beginning before a single asset arrived.

Every item received at Downing Displays’ 30,000-square-foot storage facility in Milford, Ohio, was inspected on intake and documented in a detailed inventory created for both Lion’s records and Downing Displays’. Once the team had a clear picture of what Lion owned, existing assets were incorporated directly into the design and layout of the new exhibit, maximizing the value of what was already there.

The result was a seamless program transition and a 100-by-50-foot show-floor presence, anchored by an approximately 12-by-20-foot LED video wall showcasing Lion’s EVO line as the centerpiece of the exhibit. Attendees tried on and demonstrated products throughout the show, and the Lion booth ranked among the busiest on the floor. The Lion relationship has since expanded. After experiencing what a managed program infrastructure looks like, Lion now also works with Downing Displays on new exhibit builds.