Question: We have a trade show coming up in Las Vegas. What is the best way to purchase the right type of displays for our firm?”

Answer: This is a good question to ask, but hopefully you’re not asking us a week before the show! While that may seem like a funny comment, you would be surprised, or maybe not that surprised, at how often clients believe we can pull rabbits out of hats when it comes to trade show displays and graphic. If we have a week, we can sometimes pull rabbits out of hats, but it’s on a case by case basis. And it’ll cost you rush fees!

So, assuming that you’re more organized than some of the clients we’ve had in the past two weeks, and you actually have, say a month before the show, you have enough time, if you focus on the trade show graphics now, to make some very solid decisions on what kind of displays you’ll be needing.

There are some things we’d ask you when you call for trade show displays. Usually, you should be able to provided us a map of the convention center and your booth location, so that we can see which direction traffic is most likely to come from (or if it’s a 50/50 chance of show goers passing your booth from both directions, or if you’re on a corner, all four directions.

Once we’ve determined traffic flow, we’ll want to make certain that at least a noticeable portion of your graphics are perpendicular to traffic in order to attract convention attendees glances and hopefully more.

So, let’s create a hypothetical booth for you. As you’re likely not a high roller like an auto manufacturer or a major computer company, you’ll likely score an 8′ x 8′ booth about halfway through the convention center with normal bi-directional foot traffic. The first thing you’ll want is some double sided retractable banners or another type of double faced sign that you can place perpendicular to traffic. This is important as the United States Sign Council has estimated, based on thorough testing, that perpendicular signage is twice as likely to be seen as parallel traffic is. These signs or banners will do the trick to catch potential customers’ eyes.

As you have an average to small booth, it would be advisable to have an 8′ x 8′ pop up display as your booth’s back drop, or a banner wall. The main logos and advertising message should be toward the top of this display as people or other items might block items placed lower on the back wall.

At the front of the booth, it could be a good attention getter to have a multi-media TV screen giving a product demonstration of your key product that you’re advertising at the show, or any other advertising you want people to see regarding your service or product. Another popular way to get leads is to have a drawing, often giving away one or more of the items you’re promoting. So, you might have a table at the front of the booth with a drawing box on it, as well as it being a good place to place business cards and brochures in case you don’t have a brochure dispenser stand.

If there is room at the sides of the booth for advertising, fabric banners can be hung from the divider curtain rods that delineate the booths. Or, you could have more tables with table top signs on easels or mini pull up fabric banners. Or if your products are small, like kitchen items, more examples of what your company or store sells might be in order to place on these tables. It is a good idea to have table runners or fabric banners created for tables to hide the space under the table so you can store boxes or brochures or merchandise under them, and these banners can also be useful if printed with advertising messages or logos as well.

Hopefully that will give you a few ideas of how to effectively design a trade show display. Good luck at the show!