Fair preparation
Briefing your stand staff
Uğur Yılmaz · Brand & Visual Communications Manager · 3 min read · Last updated:
Short answer
What should a stand briefing cover?
A briefing has five parts: the goal of the fair and what counts as a qualified conversation; the shift plan and who is on the stand when; the opening question and the short version of the product story; how conversations are recorded; and the rules for standing and behaviour. Run it the day before, inside the built stand — a briefing held in a meeting room is not remembered on the floor. Half an hour is enough, but hand out a written page as well.
Sharing the goal
Most teams walk onto the floor without knowing what the fair is for. State the goal as a number: how many qualified conversations, in which product group, from which countries. Define "qualified" as well. It counts if it lasts five minutes, is with a decision-maker or someone close to one, and ends with contact details; someone taking a catalogue and walking on does not count.
That definition tells the team where to spend time. Without it everyone gets equal attention, and at the busiest hour of the fair the real buyer waits at the edge of the stand.
The second benefit is that the end of the day can be discussed in measurable terms. Ten minutes of debrief each evening sets the rhythm for the next day. Three questions in that meeting: how many conversations, which product drew the most questions, what changes tomorrow. The answers go in a notebook, and the skeleton of the post-show report writes itself. Hand the goal out in writing as well; a number said aloud is forgotten by the second day.
Shifts and standing
A fair day is long and nobody holds the same attention for eight hours. Write a shift plan: how many people on the stand in each slot, who is on a break, who is walking the hall. Unplanned breaks all land on the same hour and the stand empties.
The rules for standing are simple but go unobserved until written down: no clustering at the entrance, no sitting with a phone, no talking among yourselves, stand at the visitor’s eye level. People will not walk past a group blocking the way in; three staff at the opening cut off the traffic coming down the aisle.
Show the team how many seats the meeting area holds and where the store sits. Those positions shift with the stand type, so walk the built stand together once. On that walk, also show where the distribution board, the fire extinguisher and the cleaning kit are. A team hunting for those during show days is hunting in front of visitors. Footwear belongs in the briefing too; for eight hours on your feet it is not a detail.
Recording what happens
The record of conversations is the only lasting output of a fair. Whatever the method — badge scanner, paper form, phone app — everyone must use the same one. Mixed methods mean three lists that cannot be merged afterwards.
Four fields are enough: company and person, product of interest, next step, urgency. Do not use long forms; filling one in while the visitor waits ends the conversation. Keep the note short and finish it in the evening.
Make this the last item of the briefing: a conversation with no record did not happen. The follow-up list comes out of these notes, and it usually goes cold about a week after the show. Test the method once before the fair. If badge scanners are used, check them on build day; if it is an app, install it on every phone in advance and log everyone in. Prepare an offline fallback in case hall connectivity is weak. That preparation takes half an hour and protects the only lasting output of the fair.
How many people should be on the stand?
Work it from the number of simultaneous conversations you expect. A crowded stand deters as much as an empty one; build the shifts accordingly.
Do you need staff who speak the language?
At an international fair, yes. Each shift needs at least one person who can hold a technical conversation; an interpreter breaks its rhythm.