“We’ve got a booth in six weeks and a logo file from 2014. Where do we even start?”
Every Pro Tip starts as a real client conversation. Names withheld to protect the slightly panicked.
- Decide the one sentence your booth must say, and put it up high.
- Read the show manual today. Deadlines and size rules will shape everything.
- Plan backward from show day, and know who follows up on every lead.
1. Write the one sentence your booth has to say
Before anyone opens a design file, finish this sentence: “We help ___ do ___.” That’s your headline. Not your mission statement, not your five product lines. One sentence a stranger can read while walking past with a coffee.
If you can’t agree on that sentence as a team, the booth won’t fix it. That’s a brand problem wearing a trade show costume, and it’s worth solving first.
2. Design for the aisle, not the screen
Your booth looks great on a 27-inch monitor. That’s not where anyone will see it. Picture it from fifteen feet away, half-blocked by a table, two of your salespeople and a person eating a pretzel.
- Put the logo and headline high. The bottom third of a backwall disappears behind tables and people.
- Keep the headline short. If it needs a second line, it needs a second draft.
- Save the details for eye level and the handouts. Specs belong where people stand still.
- Use one big image, not twelve small ones. Collages turn into confetti at distance.
3. Read the show manual (yes, really)
Every show publishes an exhibitor manual, and it’s full of things that quietly decide your design: booth height limits, what the venue provides, fire-rating rules for fabric, rigging for hanging signs, and the deadlines for shipping to the show’s warehouse.
Send it to your designer on day one. It’s much cheaper to design inside the rules than to reprint at the venue.
If your booth needs a tour guide, it needs a redesign.
4. Plan backward from show day
Start with the date the crates have to arrive, then work backward: shipping, printing, proofs, design, messaging. Printers and freight carriers have their own calendars, and none of them care about your launch party.
Build in a buffer for one round of “can we try it in blue?” There’s always one.
5. Bring things people keep
The hotel trash can is full of brochures by the second night. Bring a short, sharp handout that answers the next question, and swag that earns a spot on a desk instead of in a drawer.
A good test: would you carry it through an airport? If not, rethink it.
6. Decide what happens after the badge scan
The show isn’t the finish line. Before you leave for the airport, decide who follows up, how fast and with what. A QR code on the booth that leads to a page built for the show beats a home page every time.
And when it’s over, store your graphics flat and labeled. Future you, three months from now, will be very grateful.
The pre-show checklist
The Pukrufus pre-show checklist
0 of 10 readyRather hand the whole booth to someone?
We design, print and ship everything, and we’ve read a lot of show manuals.
This Pro Tip is also on LinkedIn.Send it to whoever just booked the booth.
