How to Plan an Exhibition: A Full Guide

Exhibiting fails on the calendar far more often than on the floor. Nothing in the process is difficult in isolation — a drawing, a form, an email list — but each has a deadline set by somebody else, and missing the early ones removes options you cannot buy back later. This is the timeline we work to on Indian shows, and who should own each part of it.

Nine to six months out: commit and book

The first decisions are the expensive ones. Choose the show against a stated objective rather than because you attended last year, and book the plot as early as the organiser opens sales. Early-bird space pricing is real and steps up in tiers, but the stronger argument is plot quality: the positions on main circulation routes, near entrances or beside anchor exhibitors go to whoever asked first.

Ask for the floor plan at the same time and read it as a circulation diagram — mark the entry gates, registration, catering and the seminar halls, and trace the routes between them. Get the budget approved in this window too, because space rental is usually payable in instalments starting here and a plot held without payment is a plot released. Owner: whoever holds the marketing budget, with sales input on which show and which audience.

Twelve to ten weeks out: brief and design

Write the brief before contacting a designer. It needs the plot number and dimensions, which sides are open, the measurable objective, the products or demos that must be accommodated, expected staff numbers, and the budget. A brief without those produces a concept that has to be redrawn, and the redraw always lands in the week you can least afford it.

Download the organiser's hall manual in the same week and read it properly. Maximum build height, whether double-decker is permitted, the aisle setback you must leave inside your own plot, sanctioned power load per square metre, rigging permission, column positions and the build-up and dismantle windows all constrain the design. Handing the manual to your builder alongside the brief is the single most useful thing a client can do.

Eight weeks out: approvals and long-lead items

Approvals are a sequence, not an event. Dimensioned plans and elevations go first, then the electrical load sheet against your calculated wattage, then stamped structural drawings for anything double-decker, rigged or over the standard height. Each stage can return with comments, and organisers reject incomplete submissions rather than chasing you for the missing part.

In parallel, book everything with a queue in front of it. Staff travel and hotels near the venue — show-week rates around Bombay Exhibition Centre, Bharat Mandapam and BIEC rise steeply and sell out. Freight, if the stand is moving between cities. Any rented AV or specialist furniture. Sponsorship inventory, if a speaking slot is part of the plan, since the good slots are allocated well before the show.

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Six to four weeks out: build and content

Fabrication and graphics production run through this window, and the client-side job is to supply artwork, product specifications and any content that goes on screen. Late artwork is the commonest cause of an express print run, which costs a premium and reduces the time available to fix a colour problem.

Ask for a proof viewed under the same colour temperature the stand will be lit at, because dye-sublimated fabric shifts perceptibly between warm and cool light and a brand colour approved on an office monitor regularly disappoints in a hall. This is also the window for a dry assembly if the stand is new — problems found in a workshop are inconveniences, and the same problems found on a show floor are emergencies.

Three weeks out: fill the stand before you build it

The highest-return activity in the whole programme happens here and is the part most often skipped. Email and call existing customers, lapsed accounts and target prospects who are attending, and book specific times on the stand. Fifteen booked meetings across three days is achievable for most B2B exhibitors and it changes the economics of the show entirely.

Run the rest of the pre-show marketing alongside it: the organiser's visitor email if you have bought placement, your own database, social posts with the stand number and a reason to visit, and the exhibitor directory listing completed properly rather than left at company name and address. Owner: marketing, with sales doing the calling — the meeting-booking part does not work delegated to an agency.

Two weeks out: brief the team

Everyone working the stand needs the same briefing, and it should be written rather than assumed. What the objective is in numbers. The three or four qualifying questions to ask. How to capture a lead and what the priority flags mean. Who covers which shift and when the rotation happens. What to do with a visitor who is out of scope, which is a skill in itself.

Agree the follow-up plan in the same meeting: who owns which segment, what goes out within seventy-two hours, and calendar time blocked in the two days after the show to do it. Follow-up delay is the largest leak in most Indian exhibition programmes and it is fixed here, in a meeting, rather than afterwards with good intentions.

Behind the build

Real shots from our Mumbai workshop and Indian show floors. Click any image to enlarge.

Build-up week and show days

Build-up passes must be issued in advance against a submitted list of names, and material gate passes are usually required to bring anything into the venue. Someone from your side should be present at the end of build-up rather than arriving on show morning — that is when snags are fixable, and it is also when you discover that a column sits where the drawing said it did not.

During show days the useful discipline is a short daily reset: fifteen minutes before doors open to check lighting, stock the literature, clear the storage and confirm who is on which shift, and ten minutes at close to review what was captured. It sounds trivial and it is the difference between a stand that looks the same on day three as day one and one that visibly degrades.

Keep a contingency of around ten per cent of the total show budget unallocated until build-up week. Something always needs it — an extra electrical point, a rented item that did not arrive, additional crew for a delayed offload, a reprint. Exhibitors without contingency make the decision badly under pressure, usually by cutting something visible, while exhibitors with it solve the problem and move on.