Sometimes, your exhibition space isn’t ideal – you’re left with only a small amount of space and can’t do everything you wanted with your stand. You might think at first that this will have a negative impact on your marketing efforts and your results. However, there are ways and means to make the most out of your space to help you get the best results.
If your exhibition space is a little different size-wise than what you expected, we have some top tips to help you maximise the effectiveness of whatever space you’re given.
You can never be too prepared so it’s always a good idea to keep some of these in mind when attending an expo.
Define Your Needs and Wants
You’ll need to prioritise at this stage, separate your stand equipment and elements into two areas – needs and wants.
Sort everything by its importance, what you need to have in order to achieve your goals on the stand, and what you would ideally take if you had enough space.
This means you’re able to best allocate your space and budget spend to the most crucial items that will be necessary for optimum lead generation on your stand, but you’re not wasting it on things you can’t even bring due to a lack of floor space.
Decide Your Layout – Think Up Not Across
Once you know your needs and wants, you can start to design your stand layout.
This is so much easier now you know your stand size, and you can effectively position these elements to ensure you’re not cramped or on the other hand, that you’re filling the space.
Of course, begin by placing the most important ‘needs’ into your stand space plans, and if you find you have room leftover, work through your priority list to fit the other ‘wants’ onto your stand.
Only by doing this can you truly plan the space you can and can’t afford to give away, maximising the effectiveness of the allocated space you do have to your most important stand features.
No matter how small your stand might be in terms of square footage, if exhibition rules allow it, build upwards! If you can have a stand that takes up a bit more space vertically than it necessarily does horizontally, by-passers won’t even notice that your actual stand space might be smaller than competitors!
If you’re struggling for floor space, try hanging banners and shelving – any promotion you can do off the ground are great as you’re saving yourself valuable metres, and it’s even better if you can catch people at eye level.
Think About Your Colour Scheme
Colour can have a huge impact on how big and spacious your stand appears. Lighter brighter colours can expand the space you have and reflect light better, making your stand look bigger – if you want to maximise the effect of this, choose clean whites for your exhibition walls, this will help to brighten and widen your space.
In terms of the other elements of your booth, you’ll want to make sure they’re colours that complement each other. This will help your stand look more professional and put together – no matter the size, matching and complementary colours help tone down an otherwise chaotic stand.
Smart Furniture Choices
Your furniture will help with effectively using the space you have available too. If you find your space to be too large, invest in some chunkier furniture that might hide blank space.
Alternatively, if you’re looking to increase the size of a small booth, use sleek and minimal furniture that takes up less space, or opt for specially designed furniture (e.g. corner tables) to make the most of the available area.
The Best Banners
Believe it or not, banners can take up a LOT of space if you don’t think them through. If you have got a small space, don’t fill an entire quarter of your floor space with a roller banner, as this cuts of valuable space for customers and cant also appear as a barrier to your stand if you try and move it forward to combat this.
Try and think about maybe hanging a banner from the back of your stand rather than bringing a bulky one that takes up crucial room.
It’s the little things like this that can make the biggest difference.
Keep Staff Numbers Low
There’s nothing worse than battling for space with the people on your stand. In some cases, the phrase “two’s company, three’s a crowd” becomes literal! Try not to clutter your booth with staff – if customer’s cant squeeze in they might be put off stopping to talk if they’re creating any form of a barrier.
Just because you can’t fit too many staff members on your stand doesn’t mean you shouldn’t bring them though – it doesn’t hurt to have your team wandering round and generating leads away from your stand!
If you’re looking to find the ideal exhibition stand to suit your needs, take a look at our available stands here.
