Choosing The Right Trade Show Booth
- Pro-Branding
- Jan 29
- 4 min read
Booth Location
Your booth location should satisfy the following criteria:
Place your booth where your target audience is likely to be present.
Ensure your booth is situated in an area with high foot traffic.
Ensure that no criterion is prioritized over another. For instance, when participating in the Oracle OpenWorld show, you may need to decide whether to position your booth in the database section or the applications section. While the database section typically draws more visitors and tends to be busier, it may not be the optimal location for everyone. The decision should be based on your target audience. If your products are designed for Oracle applications clients, you are more likely to connect with them in the smaller, specialized applications section, rather than in the larger, more crowded database section.
Once you have confirmed that you are in the appropriate hall or section of the show floor, the subsequent step is to choose the precise booth location. Ideally, position your booth near the front entrance, ensuring it is not so close that attendees merely pass by as they enter. Consider locations where people are likely to congregate, such as near coffee and snack tables, at the exit of the main presentation hall, by an escalator, or along the most commonly used path to the restroom.
Booth Configuration
The configuration of your booth can greatly influence your visibility at the event, the expenses involved, and the level of traffic you draw. The four common booth configurations are Aisle, Corner, Peninsula, and Island, each presenting its own advantages and disadvantages.
Description: This is the standard booth design featuring three enclosed sides and one open side that faces the aisle.
Advantages:
Cost: This booth space is the most affordable option.
Display Area: With its three walls, this booth setup provides ample wall space, which is beneficial for showcasing products if needed.
Disadvantages:
Poor Visibility: With only one open side, attendees need to be right in front of your booth to view its contents.
Limited Space: Aisle booths are generally smaller compared to other booth layouts, providing less room to showcase your brand, products, and team.
Description: A booth located at the corner of an aisle with two walls and two open sides.
Advantages:
Visibility: This booth provides better visibility than an Aisle booth, as it is visible from two aisles, and the two open sides allow more people to see its interior.
Design Work Needed: You only need to design graphics or structures for two walls.
Disadvantages:
Cost: This booth is costlier than an Aisle booth.
Design Challenge: The corner setup can make it challenging to design an effective booth.
Description: A booth situated at the end of an aisle featuring one back-wall and three open sides.
Advantages:
Visibility: This booth offers excellent visibility from three aisles.
Display Area: The open space allows for more displays and provides room for demonstrations and meeting areas.
Disadvantages:
Design: With only a single back wall, it can be challenging to concentrate your graphics and messaging on one wall unless you invest in additional structures.
Design Again: The booth must be designed to look appealing from all three aisles, so not everything can face forward.
Description: A booth situated at an aisle intersection, featuring no walls and open on all four sides.
Advantages:
Visibility: This booth offers maximum visibility, allowing it to be seen from four different aisles.
Height: Island booths can often be constructed taller than other types, enhancing visibility from a distance.
Flexibility: This booth design offers unparalleled flexibility and versatility—since only floor space is provided, you can construct anything you require, making it as intricate as you envision.
Disadvantages:
Cost: Renting this booth space is the most expensive option.
Cost Again: Building this booth is also the most costly, as there are no supporting walls provided by organizers, meaning everything must be constructed from the ground up or suspended from the ceiling.
Design: With no side walls to display graphics, you must creatively showcase your brand on the structures you build.
Storage: Storage within the booth is challenging, as you cannot store items like giveaways and product literature behind a back wall, unlike other booth setups, requiring you to incorporate storage into your booth design if needed.
Design Again: The booth must be aesthetically pleasing from all four sides.
Set-up and Break-down: Lacking walls to support graphics and structures, this booth type generally takes the longest to set up and dismantle, often necessitating professional labor, which increases 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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