Booth Design-Basics in Europe.
We understand your exhibit is not a contestant in a beauty contest, but rather a 3-dimensional marketing tool, merely to identify your space in a trade Show. Your highly skilled sales-crew meets and greets participants in the convention, which are pre-registered with their most important information, which is relevant for you to identify their importance for your business. To make this process even easier for you, they can be recognized by their badges. To make this all a perfect and round experience for you, a badge-reader delivers all the desired customer-data right in the hands of your crew for easy follow up. As short I&D-times- and increasing labor-costs are increasing over time, it does not make sense to overdo with the booth-design.
Not so in Europe. Very seldom are the visitors of a show registered and almost never do they wear name-tags. Consequently, the use of badge-readers is a rather rare opportunity.
Now, all of a sudden your booth-design is of high importance. In comparison to the U.S., I&D times in Europe are generally lavishly available to build a palace for eternity. At the same time, (negotiable) labor-rates are not an issue, as your European exhibit-builder charges you a flat rate, instead of by the hour. In most cases, the I&D-crew is employed with the exhibit-builder and they are being paid anyway. As you have probably already learned, freight-volume is, because of non-existing drayage, also not a factor. In addition to its basic function as the 3-dimensional temporary home for your skilled sales-people, your booth now gains importance as a sophisticated sales environment that often represents your corporate identity and your sales-message, and as such it might become a significant investment.
What do you do, when you don’t recognize your potential customer on the show-floor? You have him recognize you. And that’s the purpose of your booth-design.
If you look a little closer at European Exhibitors in the next show you visit here in the United States, you might find that their sales-crew is a little more passive in their action, as you would be. That is, because they are used to being contacted by the visitors, rather than contacting them first.
American exhibitors are doing a lot of contacting in the aisle in front of their booth, using their information counters as workspace to register clients, to offer hand-outs and brochures, often candies, water-bottles or even sandwiches. European exhibitors mostly don’t leave their booth, as it proudly sits on a raised floor, sitting on a chair behind their information-counter, waiting for the client to speak to them. And they do business anyway! Thanks to an excellent booth-design, which does its part to generate success on the trade Show-floor.
I hope you've found this article interesting and useful for planning your next exhibition. If you have any questions about this or other related topics, please don't hesitate to contact me by phone at
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Copyright Horst Tondasch, 2007 - 2010