This week’s guest blog is from Smart Display, who know a thing or two about exhibitions!
“We design and build exhibition stands for businesses across the full spectrum of industry
sectors and, if there’s one issue that unites them all, it’s sustainability. We all have a
responsibility to play our part for the planet and, whatever brief we take, our potential
customers want to know how our core values can align with theirs when it comes to a
sustainable approach.
And as industries go, we are pretty wasteful. Most exhibitions last for two or three days, so it
doesn’t take a genius to work out there’s a lot of potential for waste. Traditionally, stands
were designed using the cheapest materials possible, installed for the event, dismantled
three days later and thrown into a skip. If brands had several trade shows per year, the
process was repeated, and that was lot of landfill piling up on the conscience of the events
industry.
Thankfully these days are different. Like most stand builders, we use an adaptable system
for structures that can be reconfigured from one client to the next. It’s lightweight, which cuts
back on the carbon footprint of transportation, and we re-use as many elements as possible,
storing them on behalf of the client for future re-use time and time again.
But as a creative industry, recycling shouldn’t be at the expense of making the right impact in
the aisles. Brands want to re-use as much as possible, but they need the stand to look fresh
too. Sometimes the key message can change from one season to the next, rendering the
previous season’s graphics redundant. Or the launch of a new product may require a whole
new platform, and the reconfiguration of last year’s stand.
Our advice is always to invest into the bespoke components that are unlikely to change. This
could be a slatted ceiling in your brand’s key colours, or a custom counter-top in a finish you
want to use again and again. Re-using these quality elements reinforces your brand
presence from one event to the next, promoting consistency, reassurance and familiarity to
your customers.
Your stand design can evolve around these anchor features from one event to the next to
keep the look fresh and contemporary. We do always recommend keeping your fabrics,
because our system is very versatile. Even if a message changes, we can recycle and
reproduce one panel of fabrics, re-using the ones that are still relevant. Even when
orientations change, it is generally possible to re-use as many fabrics as we can within the
new stand structure.
Finally, we encourage brands to get creative. Our design team is well-versed in combining
flair and function, and they love a challenge. Just last month, a new client came to us
wanting a brand new stand design to herald its new era of development, but they felt guilty at
the prospect of wasting some new tool kits they had bought recently to display their product
which no longer aligned with their aesthetics. Our designer’s solution was to factor the cases
into the design, transforming each case into a bespoke laptop plinth that became a bespoke
style feature that blended seamlessly with the design. The stand has been awarded Best
Stand Build every time it’s been built, so the design certainly worked.
There is so much potential to create a striking stand build that is almost all rented, re-used or
recycled, without any compromise to the overall aesthetic of your temporary brand
environment.”
Visit Smart Display’s website here: https://www.smart-display.co.uk/
