illy Coffee

Illy Coffee entered the Sweets & Snacks Expo 2025 with an ambitious goal: to create a booth that embodied their premium Italian heritage while driving both consumer engagement and high-value B2B sales. With a broad product ecosystem spanning whole beans, capsules, ready-to-drink beverages, and professional coffee machines, Illy needed a space that felt warm, purposeful, sustainable, and irresistibly inviting. Authentic Exhibits crafted a modular “Barista Boutique” environment that blended sensory experience with retail psychology, resulting in a 55% increase in B2B sales within the hospitality sector and a dramatically improved lead-to-opportunity conversion rate.

Size: 10x20 Deluxe Pro Functional Booth

Sector: Food & Beverage · Manufacturing & Industrial

Show: Sweets & Snacks Expo

Location: Las Vegas Convention Center – West Hall

Year: 2026

Booth for Illy with branding and product displays, featuring a large white board with text about sustainable quality, two men and one woman talking, and various product shelves and displays on a checkered floor.

An exhibition booth for illy featuring wooden tables, display panels, and branding, with four people engaged in conversation and a large illuminated screen in the background.

Trade show booth with wooden display units, a backlit display, and various branded merchandise including apparel, jars, and small boxes. The booth features illy logos, potted plants, and a black-and-white checkered floor with white text reading "Auth

Display booth with Illy branding, featuring products and merchandise, and a large sign emphasizing sustainable quality with a hand holding a small plant.

Interior of a modern retail display booth with black and white checkered flooring, wooden display shelves showcasing product packages, a white pot with a green plant, a wooden lectern with red "illy" branding, and black walls with star-like ceiling l

Challenge

Illy faced the difficult task of presenting a wide and varied product lineup without overwhelming attendees or diluting their premium brand identity. They needed a booth that filtered for their Ideal Customer Profile—decision-makers from Hotels, Restaurants, and Cafes—while still providing an inviting space for B2C product testing. Sustainability was non-negotiable, requiring eco-friendly materials that aligned with their corporate values. Most importantly, the booth had to feel warm, human, and café-like rather than industrial or sterile, while also functioning as a conversion engine for their high-margin machines and accessories.

Solution

Authentic Exhibits designed the “Barista Boutique,” a multifunctional modular system built around a sustainably sourced wooden pegboard infrastructure that delivered both aesthetic warmth and operational flexibility. This framework allowed Illy to organize their products into distinct, boutique-style collections, creating a curated retail feel rather than a typical trade show layout. An open “Tasting Theater” formed the heart of the booth, removing barriers and encouraging sensory engagement through aroma, flavor, and conversation. The space seamlessly transitioned throughout the day—serving as a B2C tasting station in the morning and a B2B negotiation zone in the afternoon—maximizing usability and cost efficiency.

Impact

The booth exceeded performance expectations, functioning as both a crowd-magnet and a conversion engine. The boutique aesthetic captured the attention of hundreds of attendees, while the strategic layout naturally funneled qualified HoReCa buyers toward the sales team. As a result, Illy achieved a remarkable increase in B2B sales, with hospitality-sector conversions rising from 4.5% to 7%, and significantly strengthened brand awareness among premium audiences. By organizing their diverse offerings into an elegant, sustainable narrative, the booth transformed casual tasters into long-term partners and proved that thoughtful functional design can drive meaningful commercial outcomes.