Trade Show Display Stand Design Planning
Regardless of what your objectives are for exhibiting at your next show, your display stand serves three main purposes. First of all, you want attendees to be attracted to your display stand. Second, there will be attendee traffic in and out of it, so trade show booth design needs to address that requirement. Third, you will want your staff to be able to interact with the attendees once the attendees are in your trade show booth. Depending on your needs, you may place more importance on one of these purposes than the others, but all three of them will exist.
If your main purpose is to draw in a large number of attendees to introduce your company and its products and services to the attendees, then the display stand should help you do that. Providing multiple trade show work stations for demonstrations and presentations may be important to this purpose. In addition, you may want to offer items that will draw people to your trade show display, such as promotional items or incentives.
However, if it’s not your goal to draw in a crowd, if, instead, you’re hoping to see a select number of visitors who are key prospects, then your booth design should control traffic flow to grant access to key prospects while denying it to the masses.
Once you’re successful in drawing in your prospects, you need to have some dedicated space for your staff to sit with them. It’s during this time that your staff will be able to find out what the prospects need and explain to the prospects what your company has to offer in response to their needs. Depending on your budget, this area could include trade show furniture such as a high-top table with a couple bar stools, or it could be a whole living area complete with couches, arm chairs, coffee tables, and maybe even a bar with a staffer serving drinks. The important point to remember is that it needs to be a space dedicated to the type of interaction that you need with your prospects. (You also want to ensure that your staffers and tired attendees don’t use this space as a place to put their feet up and rest!)
When reviewing booth design ideas, it’s also important to keep in mind that the display stand may be designed to attract attendees, but it also needs to reflect your organization’s brand and look. The trade show display is an offshoot or appendage of your organization; it doesn’t stand alone – much like your business cards, brochures, and stationary, it is a part of your total advertising; everything needs to fit together with a common theme.
Keeping your goals for exhibiting in mind will help you create a some different designs for your trade show booth. Successful designs will offer some opportunity to change or modify functions at different shows. If you take the time to understand and plan these designs in advance, you’ll have no trouble making the best choice for your trade show display layout.
For more, check out the FAST method for planning or our article on trade show prospectus.