How to plan an exhibition when it’s only one part of your job

For most marketing managers, exhibitions are just one part of a much bigger workload. You might be responsible for making sure the company looks great at an event, but you’re also managing campaigns, websites, social media, content, emails and everything else that comes with the role.

That’s why exhibition planning can quickly become a much bigger job than expected.

So, how do you keep it manageable?

Start with what you’ve actually booked

Before you start looking at exhibition stand ideas, dig out the booking information and find out exactly what you’re working with.

How big is the stand? Is it shell scheme or space-only? What does the organiser provide? Do you already have flooring, electrics or lighting included? When are the important deadlines?

It sounds obvious, but this information gives you a much clearer picture of what needs organising and helps avoid unwelcome surprises down the line.

If you’ve booked a shell scheme, for example, you don’t necessarily need a completely bespoke stand build. With the right exhibition graphics, flooring, lighting and a few carefully chosen additions, you can completely change the look of the space you already have.

Work out what you really need

There are a lot of things you could put on an exhibition stand. That doesn’t mean you need all of them. Think about what you’re actually trying to achieve at the event and how your team will use the space.

If you’re demonstrating something, perhaps you need a touchscreen or TV. If the team will be having longer conversations, you might want seating. If you have brochures, samples and giveaways, you’ll need somewhere to display them, and somewhere to hide all the boxes they arrived in!

Knowing this early makes the exhibition stand design much easier. It also stops the stand gradually filling up with things simply because somebody said, “Could we add one of these?”

Get the important decisions made early

The event might be months away, but exhibition deadlines have a habit of creeping up quickly. And usually, it isn’t just you making the decisions.

Graphics need approving. Messaging needs checking. Somebody wants to change the tagline. Somebody else has just remembered a product they definitely want featured.

Leaving plenty of time for those conversations means you won’t be chasing approvals a few days before artwork needs to go to print.

You don’t need every tiny detail sorted months in advance. But getting the big decisions made early makes planning an exhibition much less stressful later.

Don’t try to say everything on the stand

When lots of people are involved internally, everyone naturally wants their bit of the business represented.

Before you know it, your exhibition graphics are trying to explain everything the company has ever done. Visitors don’t have time to read all of that.

Think about who is attending the event and what you most want them to know. Give them one clear reason to stop, then let your team do the rest.

Keeping the messaging simple also makes the design cleaner, the stand easier to understand and, conveniently, gives you less copy to get approved.

You don’t have to coordinate five different suppliers

This is often where exhibition planning starts eating into your week.

You have one company supplying graphics. Someone else is doing the flooring. The screen is coming from somewhere else. The furniture needs ordering. Then somebody needs to make sure it all arrives at the right venue, at the right time, and actually works together.

Or you can hand the whole lot to one team.

At Rocket, we can look after the exhibition stand project management as well as the stand itself.

We can bring together the design, graphics, flooring, furniture, lighting, AV and installation, so you’re not stuck in the middle trying to coordinate everyone.

You still get to make the decisions about how your brand looks and what you want the stand to achieve.

We just take care of making it happen.

Think about the boring bits too

Every exhibition has them. Who is delivering everything? Who’s meeting the build team? Where are the boxes going during the show? Who’s taking everything down afterwards? What happens to the graphics when the event finishes?

None of that is particularly exciting when you’re thinking about exhibition stand design, but it’s exactly the sort of thing you don’t want to be figuring out the night before the event.

Sorting the practical details alongside the creative ones means there are fewer things left hanging around on your to-do list.

Make the next exhibition easier too

If this isn’t your only event of the year, it’s worth thinking ahead. You don’t necessarily need to start again every time.

Our modular exhibition system can be adapted for different stand sizes and layouts, while reusable exhibition graphics can be used across multiple events.

So when the next exhibition appears in the calendar, you already have something to work from.

You might update a message, change the layout or add something different for a particular audience, but you’re not facing a completely blank page every time.

And when exhibitions are only one part of your job, anything that makes the next one easier has to be a good thing.

Let us take some of it off your list

You don’t need to become an exhibition expert just because you’ve been put in charge of the stand. Tell us which event you’re attending, what space you’ve booked and what you’re hoping to achieve, and we can help you work out the rest.

From exhibition stand design and graphics to AV, lighting, furniture, flooring, installation and dismantling, we can bring everything together and manage the stand from start to finish.

Leaving you with a little more time for everything else on your list.

Need to get an exhibition off your to-do list? Talk to us about how we can help manage your stand from design through to installation.