Brands are always seeking a way to enhance their presence on the trade show floor. Usually they try to either increase the size of their exhibit space, or to improve upon their trade show booth design. While space is an easy fix, trade show booth design can be complex. Using decades of experience and both quantitative and qualitative data, we have determined these are the most essential components of superior trade show booth design:
Signage and Trade Show Booth Design
Signage is very important to trade show booth design. The signage your brand chooses will either grab trade show attendees’ attention immediately or get lost in the noise. Central elements of great signage are size, color, visual enhancements, and placement.
In exhibits that are over 20’ x 20’, there’s a lot of room for brands to get creative with their signage. Popular trends include large double-sided fabric-enhanced signage hanging over the exhibit. Additional trends include large digital signage and double-sided branded walls. At the American Academy of Opthamology show, Absolute Exhibits used each of these signage elements in the trade show booth design of Physiol Intraocular. As a result, attendees could spot their booth from across the exhibit hall, drawing more traffic.
Signage should also be colorful and feature strong visuals. This can be incorporated into walls, displays, and more. It does not need to clutter every location your brand’s logo appears, but it should feature strong color and visuals in areas where your signage appears around the booth. At the Consumer Electronics Show, Absolute Exhibits produced a booth for Polaroid which featured strong and colorful visuals to highlight the signage. This included a 2-tiered fabric-enhanced hanging sign with screen printing beneath.
Artistic Displays
The exhibits that attract the most traffic often display creative and inventive artistic displays. Exhibitors incorporate artistic displays into their trade show booth design to draw attendees’ eyes from across the exhibit hall. With oversized 3-D designs and installations, brands are able to bring attendees into their brand story. For example, at the Consumer Electronics Show, Absolute Exhibits produced a booth for Kodak which featured large pedestal mounted oversized cameras. Visually stunning, they also contained a semi-gloss oversized photograph that was set to an actuator. At various intervals, a flash would go off and trigger the photograph to extend from the camera and then return. Show attendees loved these cameras and flocked to the booth to see what else was in store.
Promotional Displays
Promotional displays are key elements of trade show booth design. At every trade show, exhibitors are eager to show off promotional videos, product demonstrations, and more. The reason for this is because promotional displays build engagement and attract interest of trade show attendees. Exhibitors want to stop attendees with splashy promotions to have a deeper discussion about their goods and services. However, there’s no one way to accomplish this. There are many ways to incorporate promotional displays in your trade show booth design.
One original idea we had was to show a custom video at the Universal Asset Management booth during Aviation Week. In the booth Absolute Exhibits produced, we used a hanging LED seamless 4k video wall to show their promotional video. This attracted a lot of attention and drew a large crowd.
While these trade show booth design elements seem obvious, they are critical to engaging more trade show attendees. Designing a superior exhibit often means starting with the basics and building from there. Once assembled on the trade show floor, attendees will take notice.
