What you need to know if you’re attending an overseas exhibition

What you need to know if you’re attending an overseas exhibition

Exhibiting at overseas events can be a great way to promote your products and generate international awareness about what you do. The exposure to the broader audience overseas exhibitions give can be essential in breaking into foreign markets and securing export business.

As with any trade show, there are opportunities for issues to arise, but more so with exhibiting abroad due to quite often heavy expense and long distances they involve.

For some though, this slight risk is worth the huge potential reward. So, what do you need to know about attending an overseas exhibition to produce great results?

Proper Planning

Before you begin to plan your stand or journey, you must assess whether the venture and cost of your trip will mean success for your business.

There is no point in spending thousands of pounds to attend an exhibition to only find out it was unsuitable for your business and gain a few hundred pounds in revenue from unqualified leads.

Do your research and ensure that the event not only looks ideal for your business, but really is. Contact the organisers and request floor plans, visitor demographics, and exhibitor and speaker details to really assess whether the clientele could become assets to your business and will become invaluable contacts to you later on.

It may even be a wise decision, if circumstances allow, to register and attend other exhibitions abroad to simply assess the conditions – make connections to help you when you exhibit, see how the competitors measure up, and discover innovative ways to make your marketing stand out.

Preparation checklist

The preparation for an exhibition is not done overnight. You’ll want to be planning almost a year in advance in order to stand the best chance at having your exhibit run smoothly.

  • 6-12 months before – do your research and look at funding options.
  • 5-6 months before – book your space (try and get the best space you can!) and begin promoting your appearance at the event.
  • 4-5 months before – book your transport and hotels, and make sure your marketing materials are ready (print, freebies etc).
  • 3 months before – have your vaccinations and check travels documents (passports etc). Read the exhibitors manual and familiarise yourself with any pending deadlines.
  • 2 months before – plan the layout of your stand and ensure you have all the necessary equipment like lighting. Consider and finalise your equipment transportation options (freight, shipping options and delivery etc).
  • 1 month before – ensure you have a list of price conversions for your services as you’re selling in a country with potentially a different currency. Organise your finance for your trip and ensure you have changed currency. Create a packing list and gather equipment.
  • 2 weeks before – Ensure you have all necessary documentation like travel documents and exhibitor passes.
  • 1 week before – double check arrangements and pack your suitcase. Research any cultural considerations and implications and make sure you know this in order to make a good and respectful first impression.

Access and support

If you know a particular show would do wonders for your business but you simply can’t afford it, there are services available to help make this opportunity accessible for you.

The UK government’s Trade Access Programme (TAP) provides funding for those businesses, covering some of the costs of exhibiting at overseas trade shows.

The Department for International Trade (DIT) partners with TAP to confirm a number of shows annually that would provide good business for UK companies and the support from these two organisations allows the grants to be put in place.

The grants available can be anywhere between £500-£2500 provided they do not exceed the business’s own expenditure on things like exhibition space costs and stand costs.

If cost is an issue and this money needs to be allocated to other resources, remember there are always alternatives to the recommended guidelines that could save you money elsewhere.

Consider hiring someone to ship stands to your exhibition rather than renting one there – this can work out a lot cheaper than most people expect.

It is crucial to plan changes like this in advance to help your overseas exhibiting make an impact and stand the best chance of gaining a positive response. Choosing the right exhibition methods for each show will help attract people to your stand and make overseas exhibiting worth it for you.

To browse our range of stands, sort your printing or outsource your exhibition management, visit our website and get in touch today.

The Difference between Shell Schemes and Truss Stands

The Difference between Shell Schemes and Truss Stands

When it comes to an exhibition, you will want to choose a stand design that best showcases your brand and fits the purpose of the event. Two popular styles of exhibition stands include shell schemes and truss stands.

But which type of stand is best for what you’re trying to achieve? Here is a breakdown of two of the most popular stand designs so you can decide which will suit you better.

What are shell schemes?

Shell schemes are a type of booth that include 3 (or less) panelled modular walls supported by a frame.

With this, a board containing your company name can be placed across the top of the frame, and carpet is often used to decorate the floor.

The empty set design allows you to decorate and completely personalise your set design to your needs.

Often, lighting is offered as an extra, as well as the option to add electrical sockets and display equipment.

Sometimes this will be included in the initial cost, but it is best not to assume and contact the exhibition organisers if you have any questions.

How can you use shell schemes?

Your stand is key in helping portray your company and products, so it is crucial for your stand to reflect this.

Wall panels can be decorated with posters, graphics, charts and photos – so make sure to be aware of the stand size before you go printing huge graphics that then won’t fit.

However, it does mean your graphics can be interchangeable, again leading to more customisation opportunities within your stand design.

The space inside the booth can be used as you wish, to include banners, pop ups, stands and tables, but make sure you leave enough space to stand yourself!

Your stand is meant to be inviting and entice people into conversing about your brand, so utilise the space you’re given to your advantage.

Pros and Cons of Shell Scheme Stands

This stand is completely compact and sleek – you don’t use any of your floor space in the construction, and the thinner walls themselves aren’t weak despite their composition.

Shell schemes are often provided by exhibition organisers which is the perfect option for the exhibitors using public transport or smaller cars to get to their exhibitions. It’s a fuss-free way of doing exhibitions and perfect for those of us who want a really quick and easy set-up.

Shell schemes, however aren’t as universal, it is not a ‘one size fits all’ approach that can be used, unlike truss stands, where parts can be added or taken away to fit the shape or size of the event.

These stands are widely used at exhibitions so you won’t stand out by using a shell scheme stand, imagine an exhibition full of the same stand but different graphcs – this could potentially happen at some exhibitions.

What are truss stands?

Truss stands are sections of metal or plastic bars forged together to create a lattice of material that fits together to form your stand.

The stand comes in different shapes and sizes, allowing you to fix them together to create a uniquely shaped or heighted stand to suit your needs.

These are completely modular which means extensions can be added or removed at any time depending on your given exhibition space.

How can you use truss stands?

Plastics and resins with thin tubing frameworks are being used by more and more manufacturers, making them more lightweight and flexible in terms of adjusting for space and height purposes, which is brilliant for hanging professional graphics.

 Be sure to check with the manufacturer the load bearing specifications before planning your stand – 200m2 stands come with a light fixing and table, but other exhibitors will have different specifications about what can and can’t be used depending on the material the stands are built from.

Pros and Cons of Truss Stands

One of the huge benefits of truss stands is their flexibility in terms of customisation. There are almost no limits in terms of size, height and shape as parts can be fixed together to build these stands to any requirements.

The durability of the stands is not to be doubted either – they are often considered much better for larger graphics and displays due to their higher load capacities.

This stand will make you stand out from the crowd, in a sea of shell scheme stands you stand will tower over them and attract attention.

The cons of truss are that they are often bulkier, and dependent on material, and you do have to be able to transport your stand from event to event with the space to assemble and de-assemble your stand.

Overall, the type of stand you choose really depends on where you’re exhibiting and for what purpose of your stand is.

Truss stands suit both indoor and outdoor exhibitions equally due to their adaptable nature, whereas crammed inside exhibitions may suit shell schemes more as there is more chance to use the assigned space you’re allocated.

If you need more information on truss stands and what their benefits could do for your company, please see our page for more information or get in contact today.

Setting Objectives for Exhibition Success

Setting Objectives for Exhibition Success

Setting objectives before your exhibition will benefit your business and your stand hugely on the road to exhibition success.

What is an Objective for Exhibitions?

Your objectives could be related to sales, lead generation, building brand awareness or networking. These categories will allow you to define what you want to achieve and therefore what your objective should be.

Here are some good and commonly used examples of exhibition objectives:

  • The number of leads which you want to collect.
  • The number of people you want to talk to in order to increase brand awareness.
  • The number of completed surveys.

These are just a few of the topics on which you could base your objective around.

It’s important to make sure all of your objectives are based around the SMART target theory; this means that your objective must be: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timely.

How to Decide Which Objectives to Set

Ultimately, your exhibition objective should reflect and reinforce your businesses marketing goals and plan.

An easy way to decide which objectives to set is to ask yourself a few questions. The main one being, what do you want to get out of this event? There will be a reason for you to be exhibiting so use this to work out your objective.

Another way you can determine your objective is to write down all of the goals you have for this event. Goals can be smaller or be broader than an objective, for example: sell your product, collect business cards or attend a networking event.

Once you have all of these goals written down, hopefully, there will be a pattern of what you want to achieve and the relation they have to each other. Your goals help you to achieve your objective, so use these to determine your main objective.  

What are the Benefits?

The main benefit of setting objectives is that you and your team have something to aim for on the day of the show. This is proven to produce better results than if you go to an exhibition with no objective.

Having something to aim for that can be measured will motivate your team and mean that you will have something to measure your success against.

Not only this but you will be able to determine your ROI of the exhibition a lot easier than you would without goals and objectives, this is important to determine whether that event is worth you taking part in again.

Tips for Planning for Your Next Exhibition

Tips for Planning for Your Next Exhibition

Planning for an exhibition is so important for the success of your day, it can really benefit your experience. However, a lot of people don’t know where to start when it comes to planning for an exhibition. This is why we have compiled a few of the things you need to be thinking about before your next show.

Stand Location

As soon as you know which exhibitions you will be attending it is a good idea to try and book your stand space. This can be the make or break for any exhibition stand. It doesn’t matter if you have the best exhibition stand in the world – if nobody is walking past you will not be attracting the attention that you want.

Most exhibition venues will allow you to reserve your space as soon as you book as an exhibitor, but this will need to be done well in advance in order to reserve the best spot. You will need to reserve your spot at least six months in advance to get one of the prime, high traffic spots.

Being in the middle of the room is not always a good thing, people tend to congregate here meaning there will be a lot of distraction which will impact your stand. Try picking the spots near coffee and food places or toilets, people will always be heading to these places throughout the day, and you will have a chance to catch them on their way in or out.

WiFi

It is a good idea to check whether your venue has wifi before you go even if you weren’t planning on using it. If there is wifi you may want to take advantage of this feature by using online videos or features, however, you do need to be prepared in case the connection is extremely slow due to everyone using it.

One of the main reasons you will need wifi is for social media updates throughout the day – many people forget about this. You will want to be posting on all social channels throughout the day, so if the venue has no wifi, you will need to ensure that you have some sort of data connection on a phone or similar device.

If there is no obvious sign as to whether there is wifi, get in touch with the event organiser on social media or email. They will be able to tell you.

On Your Stand

You need to know exactly what will be on your stand at the event. Will you be running competitions, have branded goods, need a computer for a presentation? Knowing all of this well in advance will keep the stress levels low closer to the time.

If you are running a competition, you will need to plan the prizes and how it will work before you get to the venue. Similarly, you will need to order any branded goods that you do not already have, for example, another batch of business cards or branded pens.

A presentation or a slideshow of images is sometimes a nice idea to catch people’s attention or for you to use in your conversation for examples. This will mean creating a presentation and ensuring that you have a working laptop for your stand on the day.

Transport and Accommodation

This is the first step of attending an exhibition but is usually the last thing that you think about. If you are taking a team with you, you need to ensure that everyone can get to the venue whether that is all together or separately. Next, you need to ensure that you can get your stand there, this may mean renting a larger car to fit your team and stand in.

Some of the larger exhibitions run over multiple days – if this is the case you will probably need to book accommodation for you and your team. Be quick when booking your accommodation because all the other exhibitors will have the same idea.

These are just a few things to think about before you attend your next show. Planning should start months in advance for each show in order to be completely prepared. If you want some help with planning your next exhibition, get in touch to talk about our exhibition management services.

X-Sketch: 200m2’s Exhibition Stand Designs

X-Sketch: 200m2’s Exhibition Stand Designs

Here at 200m2 we give our clients all the say in how they want their stand to look and what they want to be included. To aid this process we created our piece of design software called the X-Sketch, this allows our customers to customise and design their stands exactly how they want it.

Our modular stands mean that our customers can have greater control over their design and are able to be heavily involved in the process. This software is arguably the easiest piece of exhibition design software out there which means that anyone can use it.

Using this software, you can design and redesign your stand until it’s 100% perfect for your business. You can reconfigure the stand yourself using the software which is made into a reality using our range of modular stands. We can create the stand that you design in real life.

In this video you can see just how easy the software is to use and see just some of the features that are available for you to use:

You have complete flexibility and the freedom to create what you want with no input or all the input you need – whatever will work for you. This piece of software can be used as many times as you need to so you are able to redesign your modular stand virtually depending on your exhibition space. This allows you to prepare and plan for every exhibition using this one tool.

It is so easy to use and has a very intuitive layout to make this design tool accessible for all of our customers. We think that this piece of software is vital for our customers to use when designing their stands and also when preparing for shows, this is why we do not feel it would be right to charge you for our software. It is completely free to download and is compatible with both windows and mac computers.

You can even print off your designs to work from when you are assembling your stand at an exhibition. Why don’t you have a go at designing your very own exhibition stand and see what you can create: Download here.

Designing your own exhibition stand is not everyone’s cup of tea and some of you just may not have the time, we will design your stand for you free of charge if you do not want to design it yourselves. The choice is yours and there is no obligation even if we do design it for you!