Choosing The Right Booth
- Udi Ledergor
- Feb 8, 2024
- 4 min read
Booth Location
You want your booth location to satisfy these two conditions:
Locate your booth where your target audience is.
Locate your booth where there's lots of traffic.
Do not sacrifice one criterion for the other. I'll explain by way of example: If you are exhibiting at the Oracle OpenWorld show, you need to decide whether to locate your booth in the database area or in the applications area. The database area gets more traffic and is usually busier. So that's the place to be! Right? Wrong. Well, at least not necessarily right. It all depends on who your target audience is. If you are selling to clients of Oracle applications, you are far more likely to meet them in the smaller, dedicated applications area of the show than you are in the larger, busier, database area.
Once you have confirmed you are in the right hall or section of the show floor, it is time to choose the precise booth location. Ideally, you want to be somewhere close to the front entrance, but not too close, so people do not just walk past you on their way in. Look for potential congregation areas - near the coffee and snack tables, near the exit of the main presentation hall, near an escalator or even on the most common path to the restroom. Yep.
Booth Configuration
Booth configuration can make a huge difference to your visibility at the show, to the price you pay and to the traffic you will draw in. The four common booth configurations are Aisle, Corner, Peninsula, and Island. Each have their advantages and disadvantages.
Description: The most common booth type with three walls and one open side, facing the aisle.
Advantages:
Cost: This is the least expensive booth space.
Display Area: Thanks to its three walls, this booth configuration gives you a lot of wall area, which can be useful if you need it to display products.
Disadvantages:
Low Visibility: Because of its single open side, visitors must be directly in front of your booth to see what is inside.
Size: Aisle booths tend to be smaller than other booth configurations, so you will have less area for displaying your brand, your products, and your staff.
Description: A booth located at the corner of an aisle with two walls and two open sides.
Advantages:
Visibility: This booth has better visibility than an Aisle booth, because your booth is visible from two aisles and the two open sides mean more people can see what is inside.
Design Work Needed: You only need to design graphics or structures for two walls.
Disadvantages:
Cost: This booth is more expensive than an Aisle booth.
Design Challenge: The corner configuration can be challenging to design an effective booth for.
Description: A booth located at the end of an aisle with one back-wall and three open sides.
Advantages:
Visibility: This booth has great visibility from three aisles.
Display Area: The open area allows you to display more and have room for demonstrations and meeting areas.
Disadvantages:
Design: With only one wall at the back of the booth, you may find it challenging to condense your graphics and messaging to a single wall unless you invest in other structures.
Design Again: You have to design the booth to look good from all three aisles, so you cannot have everything forward-facing.
Description: A booth located at an aisle crossroad with no walls and four open sides.
Advantages:
Visibility: This booth has the ultimate visibility - everyone sees your booth from four different aisles.
Height: Island booths can often be built higher than other booth types for even more visibility from afar.
Flexibility: This booth configuration is as flexible and versatile as it gets - since you only get floor space, you can build anything you need, and make it as elaborate as you can dream of.
Disadvantages:
Cost: This is the most expensive booth space to rent.
Cost Again: This is also the most expensive booth space to build for - since you get no supporting walls from the organizers, everything you want in the booth must be built from the ground up or hanging from the ceiling.
Design: Since there are no side walls to display graphics on, you will need to be creative about displaying your brand on the structures you build.
Storage: In-booth storage is a challenge, since you cannot store anything like giveaways and product literature behind a backwall, as in other booth configurations, so you will have to design storage within your own booth structure, if you need it.
Design Again: The booth needs to be designed to look good from all four sides.
Set-up and Break-down: Since there are no walls to support any of your graphics and structures, this booth type tends to take the longest to set-up and break-down, usually requiring professional labor, which adds costs.
Booth Size
Common wisdom has it that a bigger booth is better, but that is not always the case.
Yes, a bigger booth means more room to grab visitors' attention and more rooms to display products and hold meetings, but it also means designing them and building a bigger, more expensive booth and staffing a larger area to make sure all your visitors are catered to.
Bottom line: to maximize visibility and effectiveness at the show, get the largest booth you can afford after taking into consideration the extra staffing, design and construction.
Take Away Tips
Tip #1: Locate your booth where your target audience is.
Tip #2: Locate your booth where there is lots of traffic.
Tip #3: An Aisle booth is your best option when budget is restrictive.
Tip #4: A Corner or Peninsula booth is a great tradeoff between cost and visibility.
Tip #5: An Island booth is the ideal configuration for standing out, but also the costliest.
Tip #6: Get the largest booth you can afford, but do not forget staffing, design, and construction.
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