The Essentials of Exhibition Stands

4 minute read 18 Oct 2024
Although often as small as 3m x 3m, a lot goes into exhibition stands. When it comes to making an impact at exhibitions, your stand is your stage. This guide will walk you through the essential elements needed to ensure your exhibition stand stands out and achieves your event goals. 

Step 1. Purpose and Goals

Before diving into the design, it’s crucial to define the purpose of your exhibition stand. Are you looking to generate leads, launch a new product, or simply increase brand awareness? Clear objectives will guide your design and strategy.

Step 2. Marketing 

The first step to attracting visitors is promoting your presence before, during, and after the event. Use social media, email, and your website to let people know you’re exhibiting. During the exhibition, consider live updates and interactive competitions to engage attendees onsite. After the event, follow up with leads to keep the momentum going.

Step 3. Designing to stand out

Your stand should be an extension of your brand and should integrate your brand colours, logos, and messaging (consider branded outfits for your exhibition staff too). A well-designed stand has a strong visual identity as it is crucial to standing out amongst other stands and competitors. 

Think creatively about how to grab attention!

For example an open space invites attendees walking past. Good lighting can highlight key areas of your stand, and high-quality visuals such as print banners and digital screens can increase presence and visibility. A theme, promotion, interactive element, or competition will facilitate better engagement with customers and enhance your booth.

Functionality should also be integrated into the design, ensuring there is storage, comfortable seating, and accessible power sources (maybe even a built-in coffee machine).

Step 4. Utilising technology

Engage your audience with interactive elements such as touchscreens, product demonstrations, or VR experiences. These not only attract visitors but also provide a memorable experience that can set you apart from competitors. 

Ensure to make the most of this investment by ensuring these elements add value to your attendees or showcase important information such as downloadable content. Replacing business cards and brochures with scannable QR codes and digital screens is also an example of using technology to enhance the stand and collect data more efficiently.

Step 5. What to give away

Promotional giveaways are an integral part of exhibiting. Let’s be honest who doesn’t want to go to a stand if they are giving away your favourite chocolate, or the chance to win a hotel stay? A competition is a great way to engage with attendees.

Always try to gift something that will be useful or desirable to attendees so it doesn’t just get thrown away and remember to ensure it is branded so the guests remember who got them it. 

To be sustainable consider gifting zero-waste items such as an experience, membership to eco-friendly organisations, or plant a tree in the attendee’s name. Some of our favourite eco-friendly products to gift include planting kits, beeswax soaps, recipe kits, and reusable straws.

Consider putting recycling bins at your stand for packaging and coffee cups or a donation point for all those unwanted pens!

Step 6. Exhibiting sustainably

Single use exhibition stands can be notoriously unsustainable. Follow the 5 Rs model to reduce your impact. For example refuse to use paper items across all stages, reduce footprint by only using local crew, and recycle, reuse, or donate all materials post-event.

Reduction is key when building your stand. Opt for recycled, biodegradable materials and energy efficient lighting or a modular solution that can be reused exhibition after exhibition.

Measuring your footprint can be a great indicator of where to improve and also allows you to offset your carbon footprint equivalent into positive projects.

Step 7. Measuring ROI

After the exhibition, evaluate the performance of your stand against your initial goals. How many visitors did you get? How many leads were collected? How many sales were made? How many times was your content downloaded?

Gather feedback from your team and attendees to identify what worked well and what could be improved. This will help you refine your strategy for future events. 


Need some help with your next exhibition stand? Broadsword can help from initial ideation and design to build. Contact us at hello@wearebroadsword.com