Ultimate Exhibition Guide – Part 1 – Where to Exhibit

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14th December, 2017

“Planning your Exhibition starts with choosing the right event for your business. Read our guide on how to choose the right exhibition”

Planning Exhibitions – Choosing the right event

Focal Exhibitions have been helping businesses stand out at exhibitions for some years now. All that experience has given us a good overview of planning for an exhibition, and in this series of posts, we’re going to share what we’ve learned to help you meet your exhibition goals, starting with what to think about before you even book a place.

Exhibition planning should start with a good hard look at what you want to achieve, how exhibiting will fit in with your marketing strategy, and how it will meet your business goals. Thinking that through first will ensure you pick the right events to attend that will further your goals and move your business forward.

Whilst we’re a team of UK exhibition stand designers, these lessons and tips have been learnt from servicing clients around the globe. This list will also be periodically added to, as will the entire series, as we continually develop our processes and gain valuable insights along the way.

We’ll talk more about setting your exhibition objectives and goals in the next part of the series.

Deciding where to exhibit

A good online search should bring up a variety of events that cover your business type, and a look at how professional their website is, how long they’ve been going, and the type of exhibitors they attract should tell you if they’re for you.

Once you’ve narrowed it down to a few possibilities, your next step when planning exhibitions should be to attend the exhibitions you are considering, before you book a stand. While a website and exhibitor pack can give you quite a lot of details, there’s nothing like being there to check out how well the event is run, before you hand over a good chunk of your marketing budget for a stand.

Walk around and see how everything is organised. Check if there are plenty of exhibition staff on hand to provide help and to ensure things run smoothly.
Is the exhibition well laid out with thought having gone in to stand placement, supply of power, cabling, lighting and any technical requirements, provision of break out areas, clear notifications and signposting of seminars and speakers, ease of movement for visitors, the right amount of high-quality catering so that people don’t have to queue for too long in order to get refreshments, and enough seating so that everyone can find space to sit while they eat.
Look at the pre-show publicity, and how well everything is organised. Consider whether the organisers are promoting the exhibitors and the event properly, and whether they are doing enough to attract high footfall of the right kind of attendees. Look at the event brochure for quality printing, layout and visual appeal.
Who are the speakers? Will they appeal to your target market, and are they of a high enough standard to be of value to the people you want to reach?
Does the event match the same high standards your business has?
Before you make your final decision about the show, talk to the current exhibitors and see what they think. Find out how the exhibition is going for them, and what they think about how it is organised.

If you’re satisfied with everything you’ve found out, and the show fits in with your marketing strategy and business goals, then you can book your place for the next event, knowing that your pre-planning has given you the best chance to get the most out of being an exhibitor. Planning exhibitions is crucial to a successful show and the importance of this should not be overlooked!

Putting processes in place will also make the overall day smoother, and by creating a step-by-step list from the start, it’ll be much easier to review progress and, more importantly, look back to your plan and identify any areas that need to be looked at before it’s too late.

For more information, make sure you take a look at part 2 of the exhibition stand guide from our teak of experts.