Leveraging Larger Booth Spaces At Trade Shows

Matt LaBruzza - EP Blog

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Today, exhibitors are poised to leverage larger booth spaces at trade shows more than ever before.

In the past, bigger booth spaces went to established exhibitors that placed heavy, costly custom booths on them. However today many smaller, fast-growing young companies are moving into this floor space with open, inviting, cost-effective booths. This is happening for some very good strategic reasons.

Location – It’s no secret that the larger booth spaces are located in the prime show floor real estate, known as the golden triangle. This is the space closest to the main entrance where attendees enter and fan out. Having a booth in this location means you will have prime exposure to the show’s attendees. For a three-day show, think of how many times each attendee will see your overhead signage and walk by your booth.

Elbow Room – Attendees will linger in a larger booth space. They will wander around to see your products and services, read your info and even join in on your demonstrations. A larger booth space is more inviting to browsing and learning before engaging booth staff. In smaller booth spaces you don’t have this luxury. If you need more space, going vertical to a double deck can’t compare with the advantages of larger, more open booth space.

Go Big Strategy – We all know the phrase “Go big or go home”. This applied back in the days of yellow page advertising and it still applies today on the internet and the trade show floor. Today’s decision-makers are realizing that if you’re going to play the trade show game, play to win. Jump in with both feet and come away with the most quality leads.

Renting compliments this strategy best.

Too many people buy a trade show exhibit and are locked into selecting only booth sizes that match the exhibit they own. When you rent your larger island rental booth, you are able to work with one of our rental specialists to tailor your rental exhibit design and maximize the booth space you landed on the show floor. With minor changes, a 20×20 rental booth can fit beautifully in a 30×30 booth space and give helpful elbow room for attendees and booth staff. With a few more changes, that same trade show rental booth can morph to fit even larger island booth spaces. The options really are quite vast!

Consider how easy it is to swap out a smaller reception area with a larger one ideal for a larger island booth space. Items like reception counters, walls, towers and signs are the booth elements that easily resize to allow the booth to fit any booth space. Furniture sets can even be resized. As exhibit designers we often go with bar height seating for smaller booth spaces and lounge seating for larger booth spaces. Swapping furniture is just as easy as swapping reception areas when you work with a rental partner that offers a good selection of reconfigurable booth elements – like Exhibit People, of course.

So the next time you’re brainstorming ways to stand out and get noticed, don’t think about cheesy giveaways. Think about investing in the larger booth space. Done smartly, you could have a major leap in exposure with a expertly designed, cost-effective trade show rental booth.

Interested in more details?

Here are some examples:

• Freestanding LED video walls can resize easily without having to change the video content you invested in. LED Video walls are 1′ square tiles that connect to build a wall. Just keep adding rows and columns and these walls can go from big to crazy big fairly easily. If you have a large exhibit space, you may want a larger LED video wall.
• Interlocking tile flooring has come a long way and it’s amazing how many larger trade show booths we see with interlocking tile floors – the low cost one time use tiles are the most widely used. These tiles come in some trendy colors and patterns that we love. This won’t be for everyone but these could work great for the majority of exhibitors right up to the Sony’s and Samsung’s of the show.
• Modular hanging signs are the latest trend. Depending on your branding, it could be possible to have a 2 or 3 piece hanging sign. One that grows with complimenting elements for larger booth spaces but can also work great using only the main smaller sign for smaller booth sizes. This is possible only with 2-sided flat signs. But here again, do you really need a 4 sided sign if your 2 sided sign is huge and crazy cool? It’s unlikely to go overlooked. We need to remember that people are always moving around the show floor and your 2-sided sign will get noticed many times during the day.
• Graphics can be modular too. Sure, it’s easy to print graphics as your walls and towers change size, but with some clever creativity you can reuse portions of graphics as your booth size changes. 3 panels of a 10 panel mural can work great for your smaller booths. This takes a tad more planning in the design stage but its easy for us to show you concepts of a small, medium and large booth re-using many of your printed graphics. If we can reuse 50%, we consider that a win because we never want the booth to limit your potential to stand out. Reusing 50% allows you to remain familiar while changing 50% allows you to always look fresh and interesting. Smart right?

Let’s think outside the box together.

Let’s keep your booth efficient and reconfigurable while leveraging today’s trends for more authentic and approachable booth environments. Your booth must be impressive in its design, fit and finish, but there’s no need to dress to impress. Casual-comfortable is in style and fortunately this translates into more booth for less money.

Let’s have a no obligation brainstorming discussion. We would love to learn about your company and tell you more about how we specialize in smart booth rentals. If that goes well, we’d love to develop a design concept to show you what we think would work super well for your company!