Your fair calendar decides the stand type

4/8

reusable types as a share of the total

Stand types

The three-column table

The table is simple: the year’s fairs down the left, floor area and open sides in the middle, city on the right. Most companies already hold all three facts, but never in one place; marketing has the calendar, procurement the space contract, logistics the freight file.

Brought together, the table names the type on its own. Three fairs, all between forty and sixty square metres, two at home and one in Germany — that table points to a modular system. One fair, two hundred square metres, island, heavy product — that table points to custom timber.

The table has a second use: it keeps space bookings consistent. Booking a different size at every show breaks the idea of reuse before it starts. Our stand types page sets out which type works in which size range.

Managing differences in size

The fairs on a calendar are never exactly the same size. A gap between forty and sixty is manageable: buy the set for the larger show and leave part of it in store for the smaller one. A gap between fifty and two hundred is not.

Where the gap is wide there are two routes. Either buy a set for the size you repeat most often and hire extra modules for the large show, or treat the large show as its own project and dedicate the set to the smaller ones. Both are sound; mixing them is not.

Open sides work the same way. A set designed for an in-line stand is open at the back on an island and will not carry a layout seen from four directions. Draw the set against the most demanding frontage on the calendar.

The city column

The city column means freight, and freight quietly changes the type decision. Taking a timber stand to a fair at home creates no problem beyond filling the vehicle. Taking the same stand a long way means a cost billed on volume and a customs file.

A modular system wins twice here: it is small in volume and standard in parts. Dismantled and cased, a system takes far less space than a timber stand of the same size. On distant fairs that difference alone can settle the type.

If the calendar includes fairs abroad, add freight and customs time to the table. The type decision is not only about cost but about how many days ahead the stand has to reach site. Our exhibition stand services page covers that planning.

What if the calendar changes during the year?

A system set gives flexibility: an added fair is covered with the same parts. With a timber stand a new fair means a new build.

Which type should we start with in the first year?

In the first year the calendar has not settled, so starting small and flexible makes sense. Once the second year’s table is clear, a system investment rests on firmer ground.