Expressive Structures – Spotlight on our Sponsorship of the Chicago Flower and Garden Show at Navy Pier
December 15, 2020
Any true Chicagoan knows that Spring does not come to the city until May. But at Navy Pier on a surprisingly cold day in March, Spring made an early appearance! We got a sneak peek at Navy Pier’s Flower and Garden show at the Hort Courture – An Evening in Bloom event and we loved every minute of it! The Flower and Garden Show is one of Navy Pier’s longest-running, annual events and it left everyone in attendance ready for the spring days to start outside.
One of the highlights of The Evening in Bloom event was a truly spectacular fashion show that took center stage. This was Expressive Structures’ first year at this event, and we were honored to be a part of the fashion show. No, none of us walked the catwalk! But we watched as audience members as the models sauntered down the stage with our set design behind them.
The fashion show featured over 10 fashion designs by designers who incorporated natural elements into their designs. Now when we say incorporated, we don’t mean a carnation on the lapel! Oh, no. These models were adorned with flowers, tree branches, leaves, thorns, moss, and more that were all perfectly constructed to create the final product. Watching the fashion show, while you are surrounded 360 degrees by nature indoors, made it feel as though you’d fallen down Alice’s rabbit hole and into Wonderland.
Some of the designs focused on a particular season. You can see above, there was even a design inspired by winter. While most of us might be trying to keep the snow at bay, this was a glorious reminder of some of the beauty within winter that can sometimes be forgotten.
Once the fashion show was finished, it was back to winding our way through the exhibits.
When you first walk into the Festival Hall, there is a garden with 20 or so different tulips and trees that is the first exhibit to catch your eye and you are welcome to walk through the garden’s dirt ground and explore. This event was truly immersive and each vendor knew how to transform their space into something that was engaging for the audience. Due to the nature of the event (no pun intended), audience members were able to quite literally walk through most of the exhibits.
While the Festival Hall is a large, industrial space when it is empty, it was transformed for this event. It did not feel like a room of impossibly tall ceilings and a concrete floor, but instead like a glorious botanical garden with exciting vendors. The vendors were scattered throughout the giant hall and because everything was so expansive, multiple laps around the space were needed to make sure you could experience everything.
You could take your photo in front of a giant replica of the Hancock Building or play a short round of golf next to a koi pond! You could even stop by some of the booths to pick up flowers, herbs, or even small succulents for your own outdoor or indoor garden!
Now it is finally May, and we are hoping that the weather will catch up with what Navy Piers’ Flower and Garden Show teased us with.
Expressive Structures & The Chicago Flower and Garden Show
Chicago custom backdrop company Expressive Structures was happy to be a sponsor of the 2019 Chicago Flower and Garden Show. We provided a 13’ tall x 16’ wide white pillow case backdrop wall and two 11’ tall x 4’ wide Acrylic columns for the Hort Courture event. You can see our products in the photos attached to this blog post. We really enjoyed the opportunity to work with the organizers of this amazing event and we look forward to the chance to be involved again in the future.
