Dress Up your Trade Show Displays
The “fashion” of trade show displays is an ever-changing thing, but you always have to be thinking about the design of your trade show booths if you want to bring in the most visitors. Of all the design elements to consider, your trade show lighting is one of the most subtly important. While few visitors are likely to visit your display solely because of your pretty lights, lighting still shapes your visitors’ responses to your booth.
Trade show booths aren’t solely a place for you to set up materials and show off your brand. They need to be someplace that visitors want to visit. Trade show lighting sets the mood, gives you an identity, and helps make your display stand out.
So, let’s take a look at some things to consider with your lighting:
Ways Lighting Can Affect The Mood Of Your Trade Show Displays
I. Be indirect.
Currently, indirect trade show lighting is very much preferred by visitors. Avoid spotlights or visible light sources in general. Look to disguise your lights in general, to create an impression of light without too many overt lights.
This isn’t just an aesthetic matter: trade shows are usually over-lit to begin with, hot, and stuffy. No one wants to hang around a booth that’s hitting them with burning incandescent lights.
You could:
- Use small floor or rail lighting aimed away from visitors.
- Employ tasteful LED light accents along the edges of your display materials.
- Use reflective sheets or even your own custom banners to catch and spread out the light.
- Glass or plastic sheets can be used to catch the light in interesting ways. (Think about the lighting in the most recent Star Trek movie, just with less lens flare.)
II. When using colors, be cool.
Some tasteful use of colored lights can work well in your expo booth lighting, making your trade show display a bit unusual.
Generally speaking, your display colors should either be neutral or aimed primarily towards “cooler” colors. This is partly psychological: again, trade shows are hot and stuffy, so you don’t want to have a booth that’s covered in earth tones. It just looks stuffy. Additionally, avoid
significant use of red lights. They really do make people more irritable and aggressive.
Just make sure you do a “reality check” with your fancy trade show lighting ideas. See what the display looks like when people are walking around, and how it photographs. What looks nice on its own may photograph poorly, or cause people inside the booth to turn unhealthy-looking colors. (Pale green, for example, makes anyone under it look like a zombie.)
III. Try being moody.
Clean, white, Apple-like displays have been popular enough for awhile that a backlash is pretty inevitable. Black is coming back as a major design element in consumer electronics, you might consider going with a darker scheme if you’re looking to be on the forefront.
In this setup, shadow and chiaroscuro become more important. Most of your expo displays would be dark-colored, probably accented with neon-colored LEDs such as purple, dark blue, or green. Lighting should still be indirect, but focused to throw shadows around your booth.
Color would then be used mostly to draw the eye. Use colored lights to punctuate the darker elements, pulling visitors’ gazes around your booth. The combination of dark materials and trade show banner stands can create an effect almost like an ocean at night.
Be careful if you go this route: it’s only likely to appeal to younger visitors, Gen-X and Millennials. Older visitors won’t be as interested.
Finally, if you have any questions, suggestions or preferences for trade show display lighting, let us know in the comments area below!