Exhibition stand designs for retail technology and systems

The Retail Technology Show will have a new home at ExCel London from 2025. Organiser Nineteen Group reports the move is in response to increased demand from exhibitors and visiting retailers.

The recent 2024 edition hosted over 400 exhibitors and attracted 12,500 retail professionals over the course of the two-day show.

The recent Bellwether report for the IPA shows a business community keen to market their products face-to-face. Quarter one of 2024 saw a record-breaking increase in event marketing spend.

Retail technology businesses are making the most of opportunities to directly market and demonstrate their products and services.

Exhibition halls are becoming more crowded, more competitive, and stand visitor time is being diluted. An inviting, attractive and compelling exhibition stand design is more important than ever.

The visuals

Choose an exhibition stand design that can host large format graphics that speak to an audience at a distance.

The graphics should cover all areas of your stand for a cohesive look and maximise the visibility of your brand from different angles. A few contractors are even able to extend the graphics onto the floor space to make a total impact.

Threshold

Consider the threshold of your stand; make the space inviting and easy for potential clients to step onto and start a conversation.

Avoid raised floors and find the right balance of counters beside gangways in order to take initial enquiries, and space further in for demonstrations. Use printed floors to entice leads onto the stand; they can even host QR codes and photo opportunities.

Tidy and integrated

Exhibition stands should be a blank canvas for your brand and messaging but they should also be able to host and incorporate features.

The basics are lighting and storage. Lighting must highlight your graphics but lighting features like backlit graphics and colour-changing LEDs will make the most impact.

Ensure your stand has the storage you require; floor space is expensive, and don’t allow it to become cluttered and messy with stacks of brochures, stock or samples. Use storage rooms, under-counter storage or branded cupboards.

Screens and showcases should be fully incorporated into your stand. Avoid cumbersome television stands and non-branded shelving or displays. Screens should be mounted on the walls of an exhibition stand with surrounding graphics that complement the video content.

Displays should be well lit and again be part of the infrastructure of the stand itself.

Sustainable

Sustainability should matter to all businesses. It certainly matters to clients considering their supply chains. Do not allow your brand to be associated with waste by exhibiting using environmentally unconscious resources.

Choose a reusable exhibition stand design so that the valuable resources used to build it can be used beyond the life of a two-day trade show. Sustainable exhibition stands save you money, communicate your brand’s environmental credentials and protect the planet’s vital resources.

Modular

The exhibition calendar for the retail technology sector is growing rapidly. Exhibiting opportunities are being found and exploited at hospitality, retail and financial shows across Europe.

Using a reusable exhibition stand system is a must but finding identical spaces at every show is a fool’s errand. Moreover, the size, space and location of your exhibit should be unique to the opportunities a show presents.

Choosing a modular exhibition stand design and build contractor will mean your stand can be reconfigured to new layouts and spaces at little to no cost. The graphics of a modular system can also be interchanged to speak to a specific audience or industry by changing language, message or imagery.

Exhibition stand features

Your exhibition stand system should be able to host playful, animated features to make an impact on exhibition day. Recent innovations from exhibition stand contractors include rotating brand headers, cut-out graphics for lighting to protrude through, lit archways and large LED screens.

Your product may even require a bespoke feature or a custom built section to effectively display your product or service. Raise these requirements with potential suppliers. Mundane, off-the-shelf solutions rarely give you the ability to inject some dynamism into your display.

Homework

Do your research and choose your exhibition stand design and build contractor wisely. Perform detailed credential checks; this should include checking online reviews on sites like Trustpilot, a potential supplier’s credit rating and looking carefully at their previous work.

Be wary of stand designers who subcontract any element of the process such as logistics, build or storage. When an exhibition only lasts two days any delay is costly.

Your stand must convey the professionalism and quality of your business; don’t settle for anything less than perfection. There is only one true quality check that matters in the world of exhibition stand building and that is a full pre-build.

If you want to guarantee everything about your stand will be perfect on the day of the exhibition you should choose a contractor who pre-builds every element of your stand and invites you to view it.

Exhibiting is full of opportunity; rewards are reaped by businesses investing wisely in their trade show calendar. A stunning, high performing, strategically planned exhibition stand sets the tone for your teams’ success at an event.

Plan early, think carefully and enjoy the highly targeted, quality lead generating world of exhibitions!