ExhibitPower wasn't designed by software engineers guessing at workflows from their laptops. It was built by an operator who watched his own team struggle — then spent nearly three decades fixing it.
Craig Koopersmith founded Sabre Technologies, the parent company that would eventually give birth to everything that followed. For its first years, Sabre operated as a B2B marketing services firm — primarily serving oil and gas clients — while building some trade show exhibits along the way.
In June 2000, Sabre acquired Total Solutions Marketing and shortly thereafter rebranded it as Skyline Displays of Houston — entering the exhibit industry as a full Skyline dealership. The business grew steadily, and with it came all the operational complexity that the industry's available software simply wasn't built to handle.
Bob Babine, owner of 2020 Exhibits, introduced ExhibitForce — and wouldn't sell it in Houston. Skyline dealers around the country started adopting it. Craig's team pushed hard: "We need this kind of system. It's a game-changer." And like so many ideas that change everything, the thought hit: "Why not build it ourselves?"
With minimal cash and an eager young developer hired from India, ExhibitPower version one went live. It was, by Craig's own admission, horrible. But the 50% that worked was a vast improvement over spreadsheets, emails, and sticky notes. Training time for new Asset Management Coordinators dropped from two years to just 90 days. The first EP users broke into smiles at the ease of using it. Craig was hooked.
Craig began designing EP2 alone — sketching workflows on whiteboards during late nights in his home office, informed by watching his own coordinators wrestle with off-the-shelf software, devising elaborate workarounds just to track a simple shipment. "Why doesn't it just..." they'd start, then trail off in frustration. EP2 would address real pain points, tested under deadline pressure. Released in 2012, it was better than EP1 — and still, it helped immensely.
Craig spent 10 days alone in a villa designing EP4 — combining the best of EP1 and EP2 into one fully integrated platform. He'd also seen a bigger vision take shape: thousands of Project Managers doing duplicative work, the same show data entered over and over, an industry built on collaboration but operating in silos. What if all that collective knowledge lived in one shared system? EP4 was released in 2017.
Innovative Environments was founded in late 2017, selling its first project — the food court and live entertainment venue at Austin Bergstrom Airport. EP, designed for trade shows, now had to serve a custom manufacturing operation. Autumn Thompson, IE's superstar Multifamily Design Consultant, captured it perfectly: "It's a round peg in a square hole." The feedback was noted.
In 2022, the investment level increased significantly — a larger development budget, an upgraded team, and a clear mandate to build something the entire industry could run on. EP5 launched in 2024. In June of that year, Steve Smith joined as Integrator. After a three-hour walkthrough of 40+ integrated modules in Craig's command center — twin 27-inch curved monitors, walls covered in workflow diagrams, twenty years of iterations visible in layers — Steve leaned back and said: "This is different. It's not software forcing people to work differently. It's software that works the way people actually work."
Craig had told him plainly before that meeting: "I've poured nearly twenty years, over 20,000 personal hours, and $2.5 million into ExhibitPower. My heart, soul, and a good chunk of my life. It almost works — like a boat that's seaworthy but not yet world-class. Your job will be to get everyone actually using all of it all the time."
ExhibitPower AI launched in March 2026. Nearly two decades. Two million dollars. 60+ integrated modules built from real operational experience, not guesswork. A shared vendor network aggregating intelligence across the industry. And a team that still runs its own companies on the same platform every single day. "The entire industry could run on this," Steve said. That's the plan.
Every version of ExhibitPower was tested where it counts — inside live, operating companies with real deadlines, real clients, and real consequences.
Craig watched his own coordinators wrestling with off-the-shelf systems, devising elaborate workarounds just to track a simple shipment. "Why doesn't it just..." they'd start, then trail off in frustration. He grasped something the software industry missed: software should be designed by the people actually using it, not by engineers guessing at workflows from their laptops.
He also saw a bigger opportunity. Thousands of Project Managers across the industry were doing the same duplicative work — entering the same show data, the same venue details, the same vendor contacts, over and over. The industry depended on collaboration but operated in strict silos, each with its own system walled off from the others.
What if all that collective trade show knowledge lived in one system? Not just one company's data — but shared intelligence across the entire network? That vision has been the north star of every ExhibitPower version since.
Every feature traces back to a real workflow problem watched firsthand. No theoretical features — only tools shaped by watching real people hit real walls.
Vendor ratings, show knowledge, and industry benchmarks aggregated across the network — because what one company learns shouldn't stay a secret from everyone else.
EP works best when every employee uses every module every day. That's not a sales line — it's how the system was architected, and how the companies that built it actually run.
The full operating system for exhibit houses. 60+ modules covering every function from first lead to final invoice — sales, production, inventory, rentals, purchasing, quality, finance, HR, and reporting.
$1K–$15K/mo883+ rated exhibit vendors across 28 categories — I&D labor, AV, flooring, cleaning, logistics, and more — searchable by city, rating, and specialty. Built from 20 years of IE's own vendor relationships. Always free.
Always FreeAI-powered marketing automation and real-time lead capture for exhibitors. Pre-show campaigns, mobile lead capture with voice-to-intelligence, automated follow-up, and ROI tracking — all in one workflow.
Per Show or SubscriptionRequest a demo and we'll walk you through the platform that's been refined across six major versions, three decades, and two operating companies — now available to yours.
Tell us what you need and we'll show you exactly how ExhibitPower AI fits.