Poster image - technical/creative advice needed!

[Frogstar]

I'm working on a poster for an event i'm organising (it's a debate about engineering/architecture in the recession). My current plan for the background image is something like the image attached; a load of sad, abandoned hardhats in an empty room.

What i'm really after is any advice as to how i can give this scene a real atmosphere of stillness and abandonment - as if it's a place that's been untouched for a long time.

So far on my to do list are: find some suitable textures for the walls and floor (some bare concrete or something), maybe change the lighting (it's currently the sketchup sun and sky, which is all i know how to use...).

There's going to be some large text over the image somewhere, so it doesn't need to be too perfect, but it does need to be engaging.

Any advice/comments/criticism would be more than welcome!

[Meelis]

Make window a really dusty. Scratch some text on it, light rays might point on hardhats under heavy moss. Maybe some little shy animal in worker dungarees peeking behind hardhat.

[WytRaven]

I would say if you are going for hard and cold then you want it to look like construction stopped and never started again . So bare dirty concrete for walls, perhaps with some nice cracks forming and a little crumbling around the window sill. The hats should be textured to show age and neglect. The effectiveness of this image will come down to texturing and lighting rather than geometry.