By the Exhibition Stall Design editorial team · Updated 1 October 2026 · 9 min read
Short answer
A kiosk design project runs through ten stages: brief, concept, revisions, design freeze and itemised quote, organiser submission, production, pre-assembly and dispatch, build-up and handover, show-day support, and dismantle. You own four of them — the brief, the consolidated feedback, the written approval and the print-ready files — and they all sit at the front. For a 36 sq.m standard-finish build that is 4 weeks, or 28 calendar days, from the first call to doors opening.
Key takeaways
- Ten stages, of which only four need you: the brief, consolidated feedback, written approval and final files.
- Your approval is on the drawing set and the materials schedule, not on the render. The render is the sales tool; the drawing is what anyone can be held to.
- Consolidate every stakeholder's comments into one reply per round. Serial feedback from five people is the commonest cause of a compressed build.
- A day lost before design freeze is a day you can still spend. A day lost after it comes out of finishing, quality control or build-up.
- Dismantle is part of the job, not an afterthought. Clearing the stand inside the organiser's window is what protects your deposit.
- Artwork is urgent, not important-later. Printing runs last in production, so late files land on the most visible part of the stand.
What a kiosk design project actually looks like
Compact branded kiosks for retail activations, sampling and sales points.
The design is the visible part and rarely the difficult one. What actually decides whether a participation goes smoothly is a chain of handovers — you to the supplier, the supplier to the organiser, the organiser back, the workshop to the venue — where every link has a deadline and a slip anywhere shows up at the far end. Marketing heads, brand managers and event agencies who need a stall concept that is approved quickly and builds exactly as rendered benefit most from seeing that chain written down before they commit to anything.
The table below is the whole project on one screen. Read the third column first, because that is your part, and almost everything in the second column is downstream of something in the third. Timings are for a 36 sq.m standard-finish job, which the planner puts at 4 weeks — scale them up for a larger or premium build and down for a small system stall.
| Stage | What we do | What you do | How long |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Brief | Take the brief on a call, then write it back to you as a written scope so nothing is ambiguous | Share event, dates, area, open sides, goal, budget band and two or three references | Day 0 |
| 2. Concept | Produce the first layout, elevations and a visual from the aisle | Read the plan before the picture, and check it against the one thing you came to do | 2 days |
| 3. Revisions | Redraw against consolidated feedback, twice, at no cost | Nominate one owner for the file and send one set of comments, not five | 4 days |
| 4. Design freeze and quote | Freeze the drawing set, issue the materials schedule and an itemised quote | Check the quote against the drawings, approve in writing, raise the order | 2 days |
| 5. Organiser submission | Submit dimensions, height, loads and fire-retardancy certification for approval | Send the allotment paperwork and anything the organiser has emailed you | 3 days |
| 6. Production | Build, finish and print, with every material and print order raised on day one | Send final files at the start of the window, not the end | 11 days |
| 7. Pre-assembly and dispatch | Dry-build the stand, test every circuit, number the panels, pack spares and load out | Confirm who receives the truck and where stock goes before display | 2 days, then 2 in transit |
| 8. Build-up and handover | Build inside the organiser's hours, test everything, clean and hand over in person | Have a decision-maker reachable on the phone through build-up | 2 days |
| 9. Show days | Supervisor on call for running repairs, lamp changes, graphics touch-ups and consumables | Staff the stand, and tell us early if anything on it needs to change | Show duration |
| 10. Dismantle | Dismantle in reverse build order, clear within the charged window, inventory what returns | Remove products, samples, laptops and valuables before strike begins | Same night, usually |
Timings are the days each stage owns on the critical path of a 36 sq.m standard-finish build. Lead time scales with area and finish: 3 weeks base, +1 from 24 sq.m, +2 from 54 sq.m, +2 for a premium finish and +2 for a double-decker.
The schedule is soft at the front and concrete at the back. Spend your delays early, where they are free.
The ten stages, from your side of the table
Here is what each stage feels like from your side of the table, including the questions you will be asked and the ones worth asking back. The order matters more than the duration: every stage below is gated on the one before it being finished, not started.
The useful detail in each stage is the cost of delay, not the duration. Some stages will quietly swallow a week; others convert a single lost day into a night shift you pay for. The difference is not obvious from the outside, which is why it is spelled out here.
01
1. The brief — the only stage that is free to get wrong
We ask for the show, the city, the dates, your area, the number of open sides, the height limit, your budget band and the single action you want a visitor to take — then we write it back to you as a scope document. That write-back is the point of the call, because a brief that exists only in someone's memory produces a concept nobody can be held to. Where an answer is genuinely unknown, say so and it gets marked open rather than assumed. The common failure is describing a look instead of a job. Be late here and nothing downstream has started yet, which makes this the cheapest day in the project to lose.
02
2. The concept — circulation first, finish later
Expect a layout, elevations and a visual from the aisle — the view a visitor actually has, not an impossible corner angle — inside 2 days. The test to apply is behavioural: does the plan make the one thing you came to do easy? A design that guides visitors to a demo point and a meeting zone, rather than one that only looks good in a render is the brief this concept is answering, and a design that photographs well while failing that test is the most expensive kind of success. Changes cost nothing at this stage and a great deal three weeks later, so this is the moment to be difficult.
03
3. Revisions — two rounds, one voice
This is the stage where projects are lost, and it is entirely procedural. Changes to layout, graphics, finish and lighting are all still free, so the constraint is not our willingness to redraw — it is your approval chain. Collect every stakeholder's comments into a single document, resolve the contradictions internally, and send one reply. Vague feedback produces a second vague drawing and burns a round: name the element, name the problem, and leave the solution to the designer. Overrun the 4 days and the time comes out of production later.
04
4. Freeze, quote, purchase order
The design is frozen into a dimensioned drawing set, a materials and finish schedule, and an itemised quote. Insist on the itemisation: transport, installation, dismantle, electrical fittings and taxes are the five lines most often left out of a lump sum, and together they are not small. Check the quote against the drawing rather than against the render, then confirm in writing. Your purchase order releases the job to production and books the crew — without it neither the material prices nor the build-up slot is held for you. Be late at freeze and the organiser submission is late too, and that deadline is not negotiable.
05
5. Approvals — the stage with someone else's deadline
Approvals run on the organiser's calendar, not yours. The submission pack is drawings, dimensions and height, structural calculations where anything is raised, hung or stacked, the electrical load your position will draw, and fire-retardancy certification for the materials — plus an engineer's sign-off for a double-decker. Send us the manual with the brief rather than after the design, because the rules in it decide what is drawable. Wherever the show allows it, submission runs alongside production, and that overlap is the only genuine buffer the schedule has.
06
6. Production — the point of no return on changes
The workshop owns 11 of the 28 days on a 36 sq.m standard-finish job, and almost none of them are elastic. Material and print orders go out together on day one so that nothing waits behind one supplier. Spray and PU finishes need a cure cycle, which is the mechanical reason a premium build adds 2 weeks rather than a commercial one. Your only task in this window is artwork, and it is urgent rather than important-later: print is scheduled last, so late files land on the single most visible element of the finished stand.
07
7. Pre-assembly, quality check and dispatch
Nothing ships untested. The whole thing is assembled in the workshop first, which is why our crews spend build-up assembling a known object instead of discovering one: panels come numbered, graphics have already been trial-fitted, every circuit has been run under load and every lamp aimed. The parts that get damaged in transit travel in duplicate. Freight is then booked into the organiser's inward window, which is often a slot rather than a day, and 2 days in transit is a realistic allowance once a show week has every truck in the city heading for the same gate.
08
8. Build-up, testing and handover
Installation happens in hours the venue dictates, which is why the dry build matters so much: a crew that already knows the object can finish inside the window. Expect the stand to be tested rather than simply assembled — load on every circuit, every lamp aimed, every screen and cue run through. Then come and stand on it. Ten minutes in person beats an hour on the phone, and having a decision-maker reachable through build-up is the difference between a judgement call going your way and it defaulting to whatever the drawing says.
09
9. Show days — running repairs and early warnings
Once doors open the job changes from building to maintaining. Lamps fail, laminate gets scuffed by trolleys, a counter turns out to be on the wrong side of the queue, and hall power occasionally trips. A supervisor is reachable for all of it, and the only thing we ask is that problems are reported in the morning rather than at six in the evening. Everything else that happens now is yours. A stand produces footfall and conversations; it cannot qualify a buyer, take a brief or book a follow-up, and those are the things the participation is actually judged on.
10
10. Dismantle, and what comes back to you
The last stage is the one nobody plans and everybody pays for. Clearance happens inside a window the organiser sets and charges against, which means the strike sequence is decided in advance rather than improvised at closing time. Take your products, samples and valuables off the stand first. Then ask for a written list of what has gone into storage, in what condition, and what it can be reconfigured into — without that document, reusable assets become untraceable within two shows and you quietly buy them again next year.
What the supplier genuinely cannot start without
The list below looks administrative and is actually the schedule. Every delay at the front of an exhibition project traces back to one of these items sitting in somebody's inbox, because each of them belongs to a different part of your organisation. Gather them before the first call rather than during the first fortnight.
For kiosk design specifically, the items below are what a supplier genuinely cannot work without. Everything else can be decided later, and much of it is better decided later, once there is a drawing to react to.
- Your stall area in square metres and the number of open sides
- The show name, city, hall and stall number exactly as the organiser allotted them
- Brand guidelines, logo files and product photography you own the rights to
- Your budget band — a range is enough, and it is not a negotiating position
- The one visitor action the design exists to produce
- Who signs the design off internally, and how long they usually take
| What you supply | Due by | What stalls without it |
|---|---|---|
| Event, city, dates, area, open sides and height limit | The brief | Nothing can be drawn — area and open sides define the design problem |
| Your goal, in one sentence with a number in it | The brief | The layout gets designed for appearance instead of outcome |
| Products, with weights and power requirements | The brief | Plinths and sockets get sized by assumption, and corrected on site |
| Consolidated feedback | Each revision round | Rounds multiply; a third and fourth appear out of nowhere |
| Allotment letter, exhibitor manual and portal login | Design freeze | The approval pack misses a deadline that belongs to somebody else |
| Print-ready artwork at final size | Start of production | Print slides to the end of the window, where there is no recovery time |
| Final content, video and presentation files | Start of production | The first full run happens in front of an audience instead of in a prep bay |
| Site contact and delivery slot | Dispatch | The truck waits at the gate and loses its build-up slot |
| A reachable decision-maker during build-up | Build-up | Every judgement call defaults to the drawing, which is usually right and occasionally not |
| Products, stock and samples on site | Handover | The stand is finished but empty when doors open |
Nothing on this list is optional. Everything on it is quick, if you collect it in one sitting rather than one email at a time.
Approve the drawing, not the picture
The most expensive misunderstanding in this business is approving a picture and expecting a building. A render is a sales tool and a good one; it is also lit by lamps the hall does not own, viewed from a corner nobody can stand in, and surfaced with textures that are not yet a named material. What binds is the drawing set and the finish schedule.
Spend the time on the finish schedule rather than on the render. Named codes for laminate, paint, fabric and acrylic are what make "as approved" a verifiable claim, and they cost nothing to ask for at this stage.
- The 3D visual at aisle eye level, which is what a visitor will actually see
- The materials and finish schedule — laminate codes, paint shades, graphic substrates
- The graphic layout at final size, with the headline readable from the aisle
- The dimensioned drawings a workshop can build from without ringing to ask
- The revision log, so it is clear which version is current
Where the 28 days go
Ask someone how a four-week build is spent and they will describe four weeks of carpentry. In fact the workshop has 11 days of the 28, and the largest discretionary block — 8 days of concept, revision and sign-off — belongs to you. That is where projects are won or quietly lost, because it is the only part of the calendar that can absorb anything.
Added up, this is 28 days — the planner's 4 weeks for 36 sq.m. The arithmetic assumes no overlap. Real projects overlap the organiser submission with production when the show allows it, which creates a few days of slack; treat those days as insurance rather than as time you already have.
| Brief call to first concept and visual | ₹2 days |
|---|---|
| Two rounds of consolidated changes | ₹4 days |
| Design freeze, materials schedule and itemised quote | ₹2 days |
| Approval pack filed with the organiser and cleared | ₹3 days |
| Cutting, assembly, finishing, curing and print | ₹11 days |
| Dry build, load test, numbering and load-out | ₹2 days |
| Transport to the venue | ₹2 days |
| Installation, testing, clean and walkthrough | ₹2 days |
| Calendar days from brief to doors open | ₹28 days |
That is 4 weeks, matching the planner exactly — 3 base and 1 more from 24 sq.m. A premium finish adds 2 weeks for curing, a second storey adds 2 for engineering and approval, and an out-of-city venue adds transit. None of those are padding.
Exhibiting soon? Let's build your stall.
Does the stall fit the plan? Check before you design it
One part of the process nobody expects is the arithmetic. Before the design stage ends, it is worth checking that the stall you have booked can hold the number of people you are planning for. Storage takes 10% of the area up to 18 sq.m and 15% above it, a meeting corner takes 5% unless hosting meetings is an actual goal — in which case it takes 20% — and display gets the remainder.
Divide the display area by 2.5 and you get roughly how many visitors fit at once. Divide total area by 9 for the staff count. At 36 sq.m that is 28.8 sq.m of display, about 11 visitors at a time and 4 people on duty. If your footfall expectation is larger than that, the constraint is the stall rather than the design or the marketing — and the time to discover it is at concept stage, when the fix is still free.
| Stall size | Display area | Storage | Staff on duty | Visitors at once | Lead time |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 9 sq.m | 7.6 sq.m | 0.9 sq.m | 2 | 3 | 3 weeks |
| 18 sq.m | 15.3 sq.m | 1.8 sq.m | 2 | 6 | 3 weeks |
| 24 sq.m | 19.2 sq.m | 3.6 sq.m | 3 | 7 | 4 weeks |
| 36 sq.m | 28.8 sq.m | 5.4 sq.m | 4 | 11 | 4 weeks |
| 54 sq.m | 43.2 sq.m | 8.1 sq.m | 6 | 17 | 5 weeks |
| 100 sq.m | 80 sq.m | 15 sq.m | 12 | 32 | 5 weeks |
These are the planner's own figures, not estimates: storage by ratio, staff at one per 9 sq.m with a floor of two, visitors at one per 2.5 sq.m of display. The lead-time column is before any premium-finish or second-storey addition.
If you are late: what slips and what you can still save
Delay is not a failure, it is a fact of exhibition projects, and the useful question is not how to avoid it but where to put it. The schedule has soft days and hard days, and they are not distributed the way people assume — the expensive ones are at the end, long after the design decisions everyone worries about.
This is the recovery table. It is worth reading at the start of a project rather than in the middle of one, because most of the rescues listed only work if they are chosen a few days early instead of discovered on build-up morning.
| What slips | What it pushes | What you can still save |
|---|---|---|
| The brief | Nothing yet | All of it. Nothing downstream has started |
| Feedback on the concept | Every stage after it, day for day | Cut to one revision round and freeze earlier |
| Organiser submission | Approval, which has a published deadline | Submit a simpler, compliant version and build to that |
| Print-ready artwork | Printing, which runs last in production | Print fewer, larger panels; leave secondary graphics for site application |
| Final AV or content files | Bench-testing the system as a whole | Move the full run to the venue and add redundancy |
| The freight slot | Build-up, which starts without the stand in the hall | Pay for an out-of-hours delivery and a night-shift build |
| Your own staff briefing | Nothing physical — but the result | Run it in the hotel the night before; thirty minutes is enough |
| Products arriving on site | Nothing we control | Nothing. A complete stand with no product in it is still empty |
Every rescue in the last column has to be chosen deliberately, and most of them stop being available within a day or two of the slip.
There is no way to compress a cure cycle, an organiser's inbox or a hall's opening hours. Everything else is negotiable.
Where kiosk design projects go wrong, and the fix
What derails projects is rarely the design. Renders that cannot be built within the budget heads the list, and it is invisible until build-up. Ask the unglamorous questions early: which trades are in-house, which are bought in, and who is accountable when a bought-in element arrives wrong.
Next is the unwritten scope. A lump sum is not a price, it is a price with the questions removed: no named finish, no fixture count, no flooring type, no mention of who strikes the stand. Two such quotes cannot be compared, and the gap between them is usually missing work rather than better value.
The third is a schedule with no owner. Ten stages, four of them yours, with nobody tracking the handovers between them, is how a comfortable 4-week build becomes a night shift. Ask for a named project manager and a dated schedule at quote stage rather than after the order.
- Renders that cannot be built within the budget
- No material or finish specification, so the build looks different from the render
- Designs that ignore organiser height and setback rules
Getting a concept and a price
Send the event name, city, dates, stall area, number of open sides and two or three reference images. That is enough for a concept and an itemised quote, usually within 48 hours, and it is also enough for us to tell you honestly whether the timeline you have left is workable.
From ₹60,000 per kiosk. 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 the first call through to clearing the stand.
- Digital screens
- Mall and airport compliant
- Reusable builds
- Storage and lockable counters
Frequently asked questions
How long does a kiosk design project take from brief to handover?+
3 weeks for a stall under 24 sq.m, 4 weeks from 24 sq.m and 5 weeks from 54 sq.m. Add 2 weeks for a premium finish and 2 more for a double-decker. For a 36 sq.m standard build that is 4 weeks, or 28 calendar days, of which the workshop owns 11.
What exactly do I need to provide?+
Four things at the brief, and three later: the space and the dates, your goal with a number attached, brand files you own the rights to, and a budget range — then the organiser's manual at freeze, print-ready artwork at the start of production, and a reachable decision-maker during build-up. None of it is difficult. It is simply spread across several people in your own organisation.
What am I signing off on, the render or the drawing?+
Both, but only one of them is binding. A visual carries lighting a hall does not have and a camera angle no visitor will ever stand at, while the drawing set and the finish schedule are what gets cut, painted and printed. Read the schedule in particular: "laminate finish" and a named laminate code are not the same commitment.
How many revision rounds are included?+
Two, which is almost always enough when the comments arrive together. Nominate one person to consolidate every stakeholder's feedback into a single reply per round — serial feedback from five people is the most common reason a third round becomes necessary.
What happens if I am late approving the design?+
Everything downstream moves by the same number of days, because production, organiser approval and build-up cannot be compressed. You can usually recover by freezing the structure while keeping graphics open for a couple more days, but you lose the overlap between submission and production that was your buffer.
Is someone on site during the show?+
Yes. A supervisor stays reachable through show hours for lamp failures, scuffed graphics, counters that need moving and hall power issues. Report problems early in the day rather than at closing time.
Can you work to a shorter timeline than this?+
Often, but not by shortening production. Compressed timelines are absorbed by cutting revision rounds, simplifying the structure, choosing finishes that do not need a cure cycle, and paying for night-shift build-up. Share your dates first and we will tell you what is achievable rather than promise and improvise.
What goes wrong most often, and whose fault is it?+
Scope that was never written down, and serial stakeholder feedback. Neither is anyone's fault exactly — they are both failures of process. Renders that cannot be built within the budget is the third, and it is a procurement question: ask who physically does the work, in whose workshop, with which crew, before you compare prices.
How much of my own time will this take?+
Four of the ten stages need you, and all four sit at the front. Budget roughly a morning in total for brief, feedback and sign-off, plus whatever your internal approval chain adds, plus the handover at the venue. Everything after design freeze happens without you, provided the artwork arrived on time.
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