Too many suppliers? How to simplify your exhibition planning

Individually, none of that sounds too difficult. The problem comes when you’re the one trying to keep track of it all.

Different contacts, different deadlines, different email threads, and a growing list of things that need to come together perfectly on the same day!

For a marketing manager already juggling plenty, that’s a lot of unnecessary admin.

Bringing more of your exhibition stand under one team can make the process much simpler and leave you with far fewer people to chase.

One stand can quickly become a lot of conversations

From the outside, an exhibition stand can look relatively simple. But behind it there can be designers, printers, AV teams, furniture companies, electricians, flooring, logistics, installers and the event organiser itself.

Each one has their own questions, deadlines and requirements.

And guess who usually ends up sitting in the middle of all those conversations? You.

That can mean forwarding artwork specs to one person, checking dimensions with another, chasing a quote somewhere else and trying to work out whether the screen, electrics and graphics will all actually work together when they arrive on site.

All while doing your actual day job.

The problem isn’t just the admin

Having lots of different suppliers doesn’t only create more emails. It also creates more opportunities for things to fall through the cracks.

The graphic designer might not know where a screen is being positioned. The AV needs to work with the power that’s been ordered. Furniture needs to fit the final layout. Flooring may need to be installed before other parts of the stand can go in.

None of those things is particularly complicated on its own.

The challenge is making sure they all work together.

Because on build day, you don’t want to discover that everyone has delivered exactly what they were asked for, but those individual pieces don’t quite make one finished stand.

Give one team the whole picture

This is where bringing more of your exhibition stand planning under one team can make life considerably easier.

Instead of you coordinating every individual element, you give us the brief, and we bring the stand together.

We can look after the stand design and graphics, flooring, furniture, lighting, AV, electrics, practical requirements and installation, while also dealing with the organiser information we need along the way.

You’re still involved in the decisions that matter, how your brand should look, what you want to communicate and what you need the stand to do.

You just don’t need to manage every conversation happening behind it.

Send us the exhibitor manual

Exhibitor manuals aren’t usually anybody’s idea of exciting reading, but they contain a lot of the information needed to get your stand from an idea to something that can actually be built.

Artwork deadlines. Build times. Height restrictions. Electrical requirements. Delivery information. Health and safety paperwork. Venue rules.

Rather than you working through it and trying to decide which bits apply to your stand, we can handle the relevant details as part of the project.

It’s one less document sitting in your inbox waiting to be dealt with.

Fewer people for you to chase

This is probably the biggest benefit.

If the flooring needs checking, we sort it.

If the screen position changes and that affects the graphics, we can deal with it.

If the organiser needs information about the build, we can handle that too.

And if something changes, because something nearly always changes, you have one team who already understands the whole project.

You don’t have to explain the change to five different companies and then make sure they’ve all spoken to each other.

That alone can make planning an exhibition feel considerably less like another full-time job.

It can make the stand better too

Simplifying the process isn’t only about saving you time.

When the same team can see the full stand, you can make decisions together rather than in isolation.

The graphics can be designed around the layout. Lighting can highlight the areas you actually want people to notice. Screens can be positioned where movement will catch attention, and the content can work with the rest of the messaging rather than competing with it.

Furniture, storage and refreshments can be considered as part of the space instead of being added at the end because somebody remembered you needed somewhere to sit.

Everything has a job to do, and everything needs to work together.

One brief doesn’t mean one-size-fits-all

Handing more of the project to one team doesn’t mean choosing an off-the-shelf stand and losing control of how it looks. Quite the opposite.

Whether you have a shell scheme that needs transforming or a larger space-only stand, we can bring together the different elements around your brand, your space and what you want to achieve at the event.

That might mean a modular framework, reusable graphics, screens and AV, bespoke furniture choices or a few carefully chosen enhancements to make a standard shell scheme feel much more considered.

The point is that you have one team looking at all of it.

And then there’s build day

By the time the event comes around, the last thing you want is to arrive at the venue and start working out who is responsible for what.

Who has the graphics? Has the flooring gone down? When is the furniture arriving? Where’s the screen? Has the organiser approved everything?

A properly managed exhibition stand design and build should mean most of those questions are answered before you get there.

Our job is to deal with what’s happening behind the scenes so that, when your team arrives, they can focus on the reason they’re actually at the exhibition.

Take exhibition management off your to-do list

You’ll still have plenty to do before an exhibition.

Inviting customers, promoting your attendance, arranging meetings, briefing your team, sorting travel and probably answering the inevitable last-minute question about whether somebody remembered to order the brochures.

Managing six different stand suppliers doesn’t need to be on that list too.

At Rocket, we can take your stand from the initial brief through design, graphics, AV, flooring, furniture and the practical event requirements, right through to installation.

One team. One project. A lot fewer emails for you.

Got an exhibition coming up? Send us your stand details and exhibitor information, and let us take care of bringing it all together.