By the Exhibition Stall Design editorial team · Updated 1 October 2026 · 13 min read
Short answer
4–6 weeks is the working answer for octanorm & system stalls, measured from brief to the first build-up hour. Work out your own figure instead of using an average — start at 3 weeks, add 1 from 24 sq.m, 2 from 54 sq.m, 2 if the finish is premium and 2 if there is a second storey — which puts a 12 sq.m system build at 3 weeks, a 36 sq.m custom stand at 4, the same stand in premium finishes at 6, and a two-storey 72 sq.m stand at 7 to 9. Below ten days the organiser's deadlines, not the workshop, decide what is possible.
Key takeaways
- Book floor space three to six months ahead — the plot you get decides the brief that follows.
- Count backwards from the first build-up day, not from the opening of the show. Build-up often starts two or three days earlier.
- A premium finish genuinely adds two weeks, because curing time cannot be shortened by adding crew.
- Submit drawings a week before the organiser's deadline; that week is the only free margin in the whole programme.
- Hold one buffer week between completion and dispatch, and refuse to spend it on an early change of mind.
- Lead time: 3 weeks base, +1 from 24 sq.m, +2 from 54 sq.m, +2 premium finish, +2 double-decker.
The real lead time for octanorm & system stalls
Aluminium octanorm and maxima systems for shell-scheme upgrades, pavilions and budget-friendly participation.
Expect 4–6 weeks between the brief and the first build hour. That is a range because the stand sets the lead time, not the diary, and the formula behind it is published rather than improvised: start at 3 weeks, add 1 from 24 sq.m, 2 from 54 sq.m, 2 if the finish is premium and 2 if there is a second storey. Put your own numbers through it and the answer stops being a rule of thumb.
The numbers come out as 3 weeks at 12 sq.m, 4 at 36, 6 for a premium 36, 5 at 54 and 7–9 for a 72 sq.m double-decker. Where a permission or a certificate is involved — two storeys, rigging, a pavilion, restricted airspace — plan eight or more, because no amount of production speed shortens an approval.
Add your own decision-making to the front of every figure here. Choosing the show, approving the spend and naming the approvers routinely takes longer than building the stand, and booking the space happens three to six months before any of it — which is also when the good corner and island plots disappear.
Week by week, working backwards
Read this as the spine of the plan. Each row names a milestone, the week it has to close in, and the work that is standing still until it does. The weeks assume a standard-finish custom stall at 4–6 weeks, so shift them all earlier if your stand is bigger or more heavily finished.
Most exhibitors read a schedule like this as a list of tasks. Read it instead as a dependency chain. The question for any week is not "are we on track" but "is anything downstream of us already waiting", and the answer is in the third column.
| Weeks out | What has to be finished | Blocked until it is |
|---|---|---|
| 8–6 | Show chosen, space booked, area and open sides confirmed, budget band agreed | Everything. A stand cannot be designed before its footprint exists |
| 6 | Brief issued: goal, products, height limit, references, brand assets at print resolution | Concept work, which otherwise starts on assumptions and is later redone |
| 5 | Concept and layout approved by everyone who can reverse it, on one version number | 3D visualisation, costing and the technical drawing set |
| 5 | Materials, finishes and lighting specified; itemised quote signed | Procurement — no workshop can buy board against a render |
| 5 | Electrical load calculated circuit by circuit and the services order drafted | The organiser's power order, which is cheaper before its deadline |
| 4 | Print-ready artwork released at final size with bleed | Every printed surface, which is most of what a visitor actually sees |
| 2 | AV, furniture, flooring and plants confirmed; crew and passes arranged | Delivery slots, which are allocated in the order they are requested |
| 2 | Staff roster, briefing notes and qualifying questions agreed | Lead quality, which is a training outcome rather than a design one |
| 1–2 | Pre-build or part-assembly in the workshop, snag list raised and closed | Dispatch. Nothing should load with snags still open |
| 1 | Transport booked, vehicle passes issued, unloading slot confirmed | Arrival time, and therefore the build hours you actually get |
| Build-up | Flooring, structure, electrical, graphics, cleaning, handover inspection | The handover, which then happens after doors have opened |
| Show day −1 | Staff briefed, stock placed, lead capture tested, snag list signed off | Day-one lead quality, which you do not get a second attempt at |
Shift the whole table earlier by whatever your stand adds to the base — a week from 24 sq.m, two from 54, two more for premium finishes and two for a second storey. At 9 weeks, a premium double-decker is doing structural work while a small stand would still be writing its brief.
What size does to the schedule
Bigger stands are not simply more of the same work. They carry more approvals, more trades competing for the same hours and more weight through a single loading dock. Everything in the table comes from the planner: storage at 10% up to 18 sq.m and 15% above, a default 5% meeting corner, display as the remainder, staff at area ÷ 9, and lead time from the formula.
The column people ignore is staffing, and it belongs next to lead time. At 9 sq.m you need 2 people and 3 weeks. At 100 sq.m you need a rostered team and 5 weeks before any upgrade — and getting a dozen people briefed to say the same thing takes as much lead time as the joinery does.
| Stall size | Display area | Storage | Visitors at once | Lead time |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 9 sq.m | 7.6 sq.m | 0.9 sq.m | 3 | 3 weeks |
| 12 sq.m | 10.2 sq.m | 1.2 sq.m | 4 | 3 weeks |
| 18 sq.m | 15.3 sq.m | 1.8 sq.m | 6 | 3 weeks |
| 36 sq.m | 28.8 sq.m | 5.4 sq.m | 11 | 4 weeks |
| 72 sq.m | 57.6 sq.m | 10.8 sq.m | 23 | 5 weeks |
| 100 sq.m | 80 sq.m | 15 sq.m | 32 | 5 weeks |
Standard lead is the planner's figure. Premium adds 2 weeks for finishes that need a spray booth, veneer and curing time. A double-decker adds a further 2 weeks on top, which is why a two-storey 72 sq.m stand is a 7–9 week project rather than the 5 weeks the size alone would suggest.
What has to be sequential, and what does not
Most of a stall project is not sequential, which is why a six-week programme does not need six weeks of anybody's undivided attention. Graphics production, furniture hire, AV rental, flooring, giveaways, travel and lead-capture setup can all be arranged while a workshop is cutting. What cannot overlap is the spine: brief, layout, specification, organiser approval, production release, fabrication, inspection, dispatch.
There is exactly one item that compresses everything downstream of it, and it is almost never the build. It is print-ready artwork, with organiser approval a close second. Printing a brand wall takes hours. Getting final artwork, at final dimensions, with bleed, signed off by a brand team that has not been told it is standing on the critical path, routinely takes weeks — and every printed surface on the stand is queued behind it.
Manage the chain, not the task list. Pull approval and artwork forward, let furniture, giveaways and travel drift, and accept that a slip on the spine is a slip of the whole project — because nothing sits between dispatch and the first build-up hour.
01
Strictly in order
Eight steps, strictly in order, each one genuinely waiting for the last: brief, layout, specification, approval, release, build, inspection, dispatch. The temptation is always to start the next one on an assumption, and the result is always paying for the same work twice.
02
Run these in the waiting weeks
Work out which tasks nothing else depends on, and let them float. Furniture selection, giveaway ordering, hotel bookings and staff briefing material all fall here — useful, necessary, and completely harmless if they slip by a few days.
03
The items with real lead times
Identify the two or three items that cannot be bought locally at short notice and commit to them first. In practice that means screens and LED, anything imported, and the steel behind a raised or two-storey structure.
04
Dates you are given, not dates you set
A handful of dates in every project belong to the organiser or the venue: when drawings are due, when approvals come back, when services must be ordered, when you may enter the hall and when you must be out of it. Plan the controllable work around them rather than the reverse.
05
The single compressor
Print-ready artwork. Fascia, brand wall, backlit panels, counter graphics, hanging banner and every substrate proof wait behind it. Set the deadline, name one owner, and treat a slip there as a slip of the whole project rather than of one task.
Count backwards from the first build hour, not from the opening day.
Three stands, three different timelines
At 9 sq.m the project is small enough to be mostly administration: 7.6 sq.m of display, 2 people, one van, 3 weeks — and the weeks are spent queueing for approval and artwork rather than for fabrication. The failure mode here is a careless brief rather than a tight timeline.
The 72 sq.m double-decker is engineering before it is joinery: a staircase that needs certifying, a structural drawing reviewed separately by the organiser, loads checked against the hall's rating, 57.6 sq.m of display and 8 staff to brief. The formula says 7 to 9 weeks; plan eight or more, because the parts you cannot accelerate are the parts in the middle.
The difference that matters is not the number of weeks but what each week is for. On a small stand the weeks are a queue. On a large one they are genuine work in sequence — engineering, then approval, then fabrication of load-bearing elements, then a longer build-up that often needs night shifts to finish inside the organiser's window.
| Compared | 9 sq.m | 24 sq.m | 72 sq.m, two storeys |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lead time, standard finish | 3 weeks | 4 weeks | 7 weeks |
| Display area | 7.6 sq.m | 19.2 sq.m | 57.6 sq.m |
| Staff on the floor | 2 | 3 | 8 |
| Visitors inside at once | 3 | 7 | 23 |
| Extra approvals in the path | Fascia name and declared power load | Drawings, load and fire certificates | Structural certificate, staircase and floor loading |
| Where the time actually goes | Artwork and organiser approval | Fabrication and finishing | Engineering, approval and a longer build-up |
The difference between the standard and premium rows is drying and pressing time. It is the one part of a build that extra crew cannot shorten, which is why it appears as weeks rather than as cost.
Exhibiting soon? Let's build your stall.
The usual causes of a late stand
Projects rarely slip by a month. They slip by four separate weeks, each of which felt reasonable at the time, and the fourth one arrives during build-up. Every item below has caused a late stand, and every one of them is visible in advance if somebody is reading the dependency chain rather than the task list.
Watch for sub-contracted builds with no quality control and non fire-retardant materials rejected at the venue. Neither shows up in a quote and both show up in a schedule, usually in the last fortnight when there is no time left to respond to them.
- Late arrival on site that eats into build-up time
- Hidden extras for electrical, carpet or dismantling
- Sub-contracted builds with no quality control
- Non fire-retardant materials rejected at the venue
- A stakeholder on leave during the only week their sign-off was scheduled, with nobody delegated to decide
- Payment milestones lagging the production schedule, so finished work waits in a workshop over an invoice
- A resubmission after a rejected organiser drawing, which costs a working week nobody had allowed for
- A show date that moves earlier while the brief, the approvals and the artwork deadline all stay where they were
- No buffer week, or a buffer week spent early on a change that could have waited
- Internal approval with more reviewers than the schedule assumed — each additional person who can say no is a week, not a day
- Freight booked for the wrong vehicle type, discovered at the loading bay rather than at the workshop
- Artwork supplied at screen resolution or at the wrong dimensions, so everything printable restarts from the beginning
Other people's deadlines
Think of the programme as two schedules laid on top of each other. One is production, which is predictable and can be compressed with labour. The other is approvals and access, which is neither. Late stands almost always come from the second schedule, which is why submitting early is worth more than working faster.
Put the external dates on the plan first, then fit your own around them. And where there is a submission involved, go early: a week of margin in front of an organiser deadline is the cheapest insurance in the project, because it is exactly what a rejection costs.
- The venue's own event calendar, which decides how much time there is between the previous show moving out and yours moving in
- Rigging inspection slots, booked across every exhibitor who wants to hang something that week
- Forklift and dock availability, which is shared and therefore queued rather than scheduled
- The return of the stamped approval, which is a queue shared with every other exhibitor in the hall
- Structural and fire certification, which cannot be produced retrospectively for material already standing in the hall
- Insurance documentation in the name and format the organiser specifies, which takes longer to correct than to produce
- Venue labour rules, which decide whether your own crew may work or whether you must use the hall's
- The dismantle and clearance window, with overstay charges attached to the far end of it
If your show is in 7 to 10 days
The urgent answer is yes, with conditions. Everything that takes time to decide or to dry comes out, and what is left is a system build with printed graphics assembled by a crew working extended hours. That is a legitimate product, and it is not the same product as a planned build.
At the urgent end, the limit is material and finish rather than labour. A workshop can run night shifts; it cannot make veneer or PU paint cure faster, and it cannot conjure a laminate that is out of stock in the city. That is why an urgent build is a system or modular build with fabric graphics — those are the materials that go from order to finished in days rather than weeks.
Past a certain point the constraint moves outside the supply chain entirely. No fee shortens an approval queue, produces a structural certificate retrospectively or reopens a closed services order. So the first two questions on a short-notice job are which venue and which date, because those decide feasibility before design enters the conversation.
- Revision rounds. One concept, one round of changes, then the design is frozen and stays frozen
- The savings of a planned build. Night-shift labour and express freight are real costs, and at six weeks they are avoidable ones
- Choice of graphic substrate — whatever prints, dries and mounts inside the window
- Premium finishes: veneer, PU paint and anything that needs a spray booth and curing time
- Reuse value. An urgent build is specified for this week rather than for the next three shows
- A second opinion. Decisions get made once, by one person, and are not revisited
- A proper pre-build. You will inspect photographs, or you will inspect on site, and neither is as good as standing in front of it
- LED walls and specialist AV, unless the exact specification happens to be uncommitted that week
Working backwards from your own date
Do this once, on paper, before anybody briefs a designer. It takes ten minutes and it is the difference between a schedule you are managing and a schedule that is managing you.
You are looking for five numbers on a calendar — first build hour, dispatch, production release, submission deadline, artwork due. Once those exist, every other task has somewhere to sit, and any request that breaks one of them is really a request to move the show.
01
1. Count back from the first build hour
Not the first show day. Build-up frequently opens two or three days before doors, and your deadline is the first hour your crew can legally get into the hall. Confirm it from the organiser's exhibitor manual rather than from last year's memory.
02
2. Apply the formula to your actual stand
Take your own square metres and finish level through the formula rather than borrowing somebody else's answer. The result is a specific week, and that week is the one your brief has to be out in.
03
3. Put the submission date in first
Submission dates are published months ahead and they do not move. Put that date on the plan before anything else, and give yourself a week of margin in front of it for a resubmission you hope not to need.
04
4. Put artwork ahead of production release
Printing and mounting are quick; approval is not. Giving artwork its own earlier deadline, with one named owner, removes the most common single cause of a late stand from your schedule entirely.
05
5. Keep a week in reserve
Every project needs one week it is not allowed to touch. It will be used — something always needs it — but it has to still exist when that happens, which means refusing to spend it on an early improvement.
Send the dates and we will send the countdown
Give us the dates and the plot and we will do the arithmetic. You get a concept, an itemised scope and a countdown specific to your show rather than a generic calendar, usually within 48 hours of the brief.
3D design is included with every confirmed fabrication order, the build happens in our own workshops, and the organiser submissions are ours to prepare. One project manager carries all five dates from brief to clearance, because a schedule shared between two owners has none.
Frequently asked questions
Do I count the weeks from the show date or from build-up?+
From the first hour of build-up. That is often two or three days before doors open, so counting from the opening date quietly gives you a deadline you have already passed.
What happens if the organiser rejects our drawing?+
You resubmit, and the round trip typically costs a working week. That is the main argument for submitting early rather than on the deadline, since a week of margin in front of the submission absorbs a rejection without touching production.
How long does a double-decker take?+
7 weeks at standard finish and 9 at premium by the formula. Plan on eight or more in practice, because a structural engineer's certificate and a separate organiser review of the two-storey drawing both sit on the critical path and neither can be accelerated.
Why does a larger stall need longer?+
More area means more approvals, more parallel trades, heavier elements to move through one dock and a longer build-up. The formula reflects it directly, so a 54 sq.m stand is 5 weeks against 3 for a 12 sq.m one.
When should I book the floor space itself?+
Three to six months ahead for most shows. Corner and island plots are taken first, and the position you end up with changes the design brief — the number of open sides alone decides the layout, the lighting runs and how many staff you need.
Does the city change the lead time?+
Not the production weeks, but it changes transport time, crew availability in a busy show week and whether night-shift labour is permitted. Those affect the last fortnight rather than the formula.
What is the most common cause of a late stand?+
Print-ready artwork arriving late, with organiser approval second. Both block large amounts of downstream work, and both are usually owned by somebody who has not been told they are on the critical path.
How much buffer should the plan carry?+
One week between planned completion and dispatch, left unspent. It exists for a rejected drawing, a failed delivery or a material that turns out to be unavailable, and a buffer spent on an early change of mind is not a buffer.
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