By the Exhibition Stall Design editorial team · Updated 1 October 2026 · 9 min read
Short answer
A drone light shows brief needs thirteen fields: company and what you sell, event and venue, load-in and show dates, the surface or screen dimensions, show times and repeats per day, available power and rigging points, one primary goal with a number attached, who you want to reach, what is being shown, who is producing the content and in what format, what has to carry a spare, budget range, and who approves by when. Fill them all and you can compare quotes line for line. Leave any blank and the supplier has to assume — and an assumption is always priced for the worst case.
Key takeaways
- Send the identical brief to every supplier. Quotes are only comparable if they answer the same question.
- State one primary goal with a number attached. "Build brand awareness" and "book 40 distributor meetings" produce two completely different results at the same cost.
- Surface or screen size and the number of runs do more to the price than any creative decision. The crew bill often exceeds the hardware bill.
- Share the venue's power, rigging points and curfew. They decide what is physically possible before anyone discusses what would look good.
- Say who is producing the content, in what format, and by when. It is the longest-lead item on most AV scopes.
- Name the approver and the decision date. The real timeline is usually your sign-off chain, not the workshop.
What a good brief is actually worth
A spread of quotes is usually read as a spread of competence. It is far more often a spread of guesses. Fix the dimensions, the dates, the specification and the outcome and competent suppliers converge; leave those open and each one fills the blanks differently, which is exactly what produces three prices that cannot be reconciled.
This is why briefing well is a commercial skill rather than a creative one. Event managers, corporate communication teams and agencies running conferences, launches, dealer meets and public shows are the people it costs most, because they are the ones who have to defend a comparison internally. On drone light shows the figures move with show duration and number of event days, equipment size and specification (screen size, projector brightness or drone count) and content creation and programming time — none of which a supplier can know unless you write it down.
The second reason to write it down is time. A brief with every field answered produces a concept and an itemised quote inside 48 hours. A brief with four fields missing produces a clarification email, a reply two days later, a second clarification, and a proposal in week two — out of a schedule that also has to contain content production and a rehearsal. The brief is the cheapest week you will ever buy back.
Three quotes 40% apart usually means three different jobs were priced, not that one supplier is expensive.
The fields, their reasons, and worked answers
Read this as the template itself rather than as advice about one. Each row names a field, explains what decision it feeds, and shows a usable answer. The example column belongs to one organisation — pharmaceutical company, running a three-day medical conference — and the same brief is written out in full further down.
Read the middle column carefully. Every one of those reasons connects to a decision somebody has to make within the next few days, which is why vague answers do not simply produce vague results — they produce delayed ones.
| Field | Why it is asked | Example answer |
|---|---|---|
| Company, brand and what you sell | Sets the design language, the technical register of the graphics, and whether the work should read as engineering-led or consumer-facing | Pharmaceutical company, running a three-day medical conference |
| Event name, city and venue | Determines freight, crew availability and the rules the design has to satisfy | Annual partner conference, hotel ballroom; venue confirmed |
| Load-in, rehearsal and show dates | This is the deadline everything is reverse-engineered from, including whether night-shift labour is needed | Load-in and rehearsal the day before; show as per the run order |
| One primary goal, with a number | This is the sentence the design is a solution to. Without it the work optimises for looking finished | Run 40 sessions across three days with no technical downtime and recordings of every one |
| Who you want to reach | Sets how open or how focused the whole thing has to be, and from how far away it must read | Practising clinicians and hospital department heads; 600 delegates |
| Brand assets and references | Print-ready files decide whether graphics can be produced at all; references tell the designer what you mean by words like "premium" | Logo in vector, brand guidelines, product photography; three reference images with a line on each |
| Budget range | Without it the first concept lands above or below your band and a revision round is wasted | ₹4–5 lakh, excluding venue charges and GST |
| Approvers and decision date | Reveals the real timeline, which is usually your approval chain rather than the workshop | Marketing head approves; sign-off within five working days of the concept |
| Surface, screen or room dimensions | Everything downstream is sized from this: how many projectors or panels, and what processing they need | a 12 × 7 m projection surface in a hotel ballroom |
| Available power and rigging points | Determines what can physically be hung and powered at that position, and whether a generator or distribution board is needed | To be confirmed on a site visit; venue curfew applies |
| What has to carry a spare | Tells the supplier which single points of failure you are willing to pay to remove | Main stage with confidence monitors, two breakout setups, recording of every session, and a technician per room |
One page, filled in like this, is enough to produce a proposal and an itemised quote without a single clarifying question.
Copy this blank template
Paste the block below into an email or a document and fill it in. Keep the headings exactly as they are and send the identical text to every supplier you are approaching, because the moment one of them receives extra detail the comparison is worthless.
Do not describe the references, attach them — and annotate them. An unannotated image is ambiguous: the designer cannot tell whether you liked the shape, the lighting, the colour or the fact that it was busy in the photograph.
- Company / brand, and what you sell:
- Who buys from you, and who you want to reach at this event:
- Event name, city and venue:
- Primary goal, with a number attached:
- Secondary goal, if any:
- What is being shown, demonstrated or revealed:
- Brand assets attached (logo, guidelines, product photography):
- Reference images attached, with a line on what you liked about each:
- Budget range, and what it excludes:
- Who approves, and by when:
- Anything the venue or organiser restricts that we should know about:
- Whether you need the quote itemised, and in what format:
- Load-in date and available hours:
- Show dates, running times and repeats per day:
- Available power at the position, and rigging points:
- Venue noise limit and curfew:
- Content: who is producing it, in what format, by when:
- Who calls the cues on the day:
- What must carry a spare (projector, server, radio channel):
What a usable brief actually reads like
A filled form is not automatically a good brief; the answers have to be usable. Here is the same information written out properly, in six short paragraphs, by the organisation in the example column above.
Notice how little of it is about appearance. Appearance is the one thing a supplier can propose; everything else has to come from you.
01
Context: the business and the buyer
We host a clinical conference each year for about 600 delegates, with a main stage and two breakout rooms running in parallel. Speakers are practising clinicians who arrive with their own slides, often on the morning of their session, and some present remotely. Last year we lost most of a session to a laptop that would not connect.
02
Where it happens, and how often
We are working with a 12 × 7 m projection surface in a hotel ballroom — two show nights, four runs each night. Power and rigging points need checking on site; the venue has a noise limit and a curfew, and we can load in the day before with a rehearsal slot that evening.
03
The outcome, with a number on it
The primary goal is reliability: 40 sessions over three days with no technical downtime, and a usable recording of every one for our education portal. Secondary is speaker comfort — confidence monitors and a clear countdown, because our speakers are not professional presenters. We would rather spend on redundancy and a technician in every room than on a larger screen.
04
The elements we cannot do without
On the night: main-stage presentations with slides and video, plus two breakout rooms. The must-haves are main stage with confidence monitors, two breakout setups, recording of every session, and a technician per room. We will deliver content in whatever format you specify; what we need back from you is the cut-off date for final files and a view on what to do if one arrives late.
05
What we intend to spend, and on what
₹4–5 lakh for the technical scope, excluding venue charges and GST. We would rather spend on redundancy and crew than on a larger screen. Please cost content, hardware, crew and rehearsal as separate lines so we can see the trade-offs.
06
The decision
Our conference committee approves, which meets weekly, so build a week of decision latency into any schedule you propose. We are briefing three suppliers. Please be explicit about what carries a spare, what happens if a speaker arrives with an incompatible laptop, and who is in the room during each session.
The same brief, costed line by line
A brief that complete can be costed without a single clarifying question. Below is the itemisation it produces for a 12 × 7 m projection surface in a hotel ballroom, two show nights, four runs each night. Priced mainly by drone count and show length; share your event date, city and audience size for a quote. So read the figures as an illustration of where money goes on a scope like this, not as a price list — the total lands inside the stated ₹4–5 lakh range, which is the real test of whether a budget field was useful.
What to take from this is the split, not the number. 35% is projection and playback hardware; the remaining 65% is content, rigging, power, crew, rehearsal and transport. Within a single figure those lines are invisible and interchangeable, which is exactly why a brief should ask for them separately.
| Projection hardware — projectors, lenses, media server | ₹1,40,000 |
|---|---|
| Content — design, animation and warp-mapping to the surface | ₹95,000 |
| Rigging, truss and distribution boards | ₹48,000 |
| Technicians and operators across both nights | ₹62,000 |
| Site survey, test run and rehearsal | ₹25,000 |
| Transport, both ways | ₹30,000 |
| Indicative total for the scope, before GST | ₹4,00,000 |
Illustrative, to show where the money sits rather than to price your show. A real quote is built from surface area, projector count, content duration and crew days. Venue charges and GST sit outside it.
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Why filling it in is worth twenty minutes
If you only read one part of this page, read this. Nothing in a quote can be left unpriced, so a blank field forces a decision: guess low and risk the job, or guess high and carry it in the price. Commercially, suppliers guess high. The blank field is therefore not neutral — it is a surcharge you chose without knowing it.
And you cannot see it happening. Nothing on the document says "priced for the worst case because the constraint was not stated". You see one number above another and read it as a difference in price, when it is a difference in guesswork.
| Field left blank | What the supplier has to assume | What it does to the quote |
|---|---|---|
| Primary goal | A general-purpose approach | Work that presents well and achieves nothing in particular |
| Who you want to reach | A broad, mixed audience | Sightlines and headline sizing pitched at the wrong reading distance |
| Brand files | Artwork will be supplied later | Production slips to the end, where it is most visible if it goes wrong |
| Approvers and decision date | One reviewer, fast turnaround | Revision rounds run out, and the extra ones push production |
| Surface or screen dimensions | Nothing can be assumed | No quote at all, because projector and panel counts follow from this one number |
| Show times and repeats | A single run | The hardware is right and the crew bill is wrong |
| Available power and rigging | The conservative case | Either an unnecessary power line, or a rig the venue will refuse |
| Content format and delivery date | Content arrives in good time | The first full run happens in front of your audience |
| Redundancy requirements | No spares | One projector, one server, and no answer if either fails |
| Who calls the cues | The supplier will | No rehearsal with the person actually triggering the show |
Every row here is a reasonable response to missing information. That is the point: the cost is not caused by the supplier, and it cannot be negotiated away afterwards.
A blank field is not neutral. It is a surcharge you chose without knowing you were choosing it.
What a drone light shows brief needs beyond the basics
Beyond the standard fields, a drone light shows brief benefits from a few specific additions. They get omitted because they read as engineering questions, but every one of them is answerable in a word or a figure, and each moves the price enough to be worth the sentence.
Where you have no view, say "advise us" — a supplier will happily recommend, and will price the recommendation. What they cannot do is price a blank.
- Screen size and pixel pitch, or projection surface dimensions and ambient light level
- How many times the show repeats per day, and the total number of event days
- Who is producing content, and whether it exists yet in the right aspect ratio
- Available power at the position, rigging points, and the venue's noise and curfew limits
- Whether a technician is needed through show hours, and when the rehearsal can happen
How briefs go wrong
Long briefs are not better briefs. The ones that work are short, numeric and specific about outcomes; the ones that fail are long, adjectival and specific about appearance. Below are the failures worth avoiding, in rough order of how much time each one costs.
The worst of them is the brief that describes a look instead of a job. "Clean, premium, impactful" is three words that constrain nothing — every supplier agrees with all three and none of them can act on any of them. Replace each adjective with the audience behaviour you want and the brief starts doing work.
The other expensive habit is sending a slightly better brief to each successive supplier. The result is a set of quotes answering different questions, and a decision made on the quality of the presentation rather than the scope behind it.
- Deleting fields that do not apply, so the supplier cannot tell "no" from "forgotten"
- Three goals of equal weight, which means the result has to compromise all three
- Logos supplied as a low-resolution image lifted from a website
- No named approver, so revision rounds expand until production is squeezed
- Describing a look instead of a job — adjectives in place of audience actions
- Reference images with no explanation of what you liked in them
- Dates missing, so the schedule and any rush cost are both unknown
- No budget range, which produces either an unaffordable concept or an under-designed one
- Five pages of company background and no single sentence about the outcome
- A different, improved brief sent to each supplier, destroying comparability
Send the brief and get a quote
Email it or paste it into the enquiry form, attachments included. What comes back is a concept and an itemised quote, normally inside 48 hours, plus an honest view on whether your dates are workable — which is worth more than the price if the event is close.
Priced mainly by drone count and show length; share your event date, city and audience size for a quote. We design free with every confirmed fabrication order, build in our own workshops, prepare and file the organiser drawings, and put one named project manager on the job from brief to dismantle. If your dates are tighter than the brief suggests is comfortable, say so in the brief and we will tell you honestly what is achievable.
- Custom 2D and 3D sky formations and brand logos
- Launch-site safety plan and backup drones
- Licensed operators and permission coordination
- Music sync and live event cue integration
Frequently asked questions
What should a drone light shows brief include?+
The venue and the surface, the dates and show times, the goal and the money — then the audience, what is being shown, who is producing the content and in what format, what has to carry a spare, your brand files, and the name of whoever signs it off. One page covers all of it.
Should I share my budget with suppliers?+
Yes, as a range. Without it a supplier either designs above your band — which costs you a week and ends in a redesign — or below it, which costs you the show. A range is not a negotiating position; it is the constraint that makes the first concept useful.
How long should the brief be?+
Short enough to read in two minutes. The useful brief is a list of answers, not an essay: the scope, the dates, the goal, the money, the contents, the approver. Company background can be one sentence; everything a supplier needs in order to quote fits on a single page.
Should I send the same brief to every supplier?+
Yes, and resist improving it as you go. It feels efficient to add detail you learn from the first conversation, but it guarantees that the figures you receive answer different questions. If you learn something worth adding, send it to everyone the same day.
What does a scope like this cost?+
The worked example on this page comes to ₹4,00,000 before GST for a 12 × 7 m projection surface in a hotel ballroom, two show nights, four runs each night — but drone light shows is quoted per show, so treat the proportions as the planning tool rather than the total. The largest line is projection and playback hardware at 35% of the figure, and venue charges sit outside it entirely.
How quickly will I get a concept back?+
Within about two days, if the brief is complete. The delay in practice is never the drawing; it is the round trip of questions a half-filled brief generates — and that round trip happens at the start of the project, where you can least afford it.
What is the single most important field?+
The primary goal, with a number in it. Dimensions and dates are the fields a supplier cannot work without, but the goal is the field that decides whether the work is any good — reach and depth optimise differently, and the same budget spent on each produces unrecognisably different results.
Does this template work for drone light shows as well as for a plain stall?+
The core is the same; the additions differ. A drone light shows brief needs a handful of further lines that change the quote materially, and they are listed on this page. They sound technical but each is a yes, a no or a number.
Who should write the brief internally?+
Whoever will own the approval. The common failure is a brief written by marketing without sales, or by sales without the people who have to get the product to the venue, and the gaps surface as change requests after sign-off. Collect the comments first, publish one brief.
Drone Light Shows near you
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