By the Exhibition Stall Design editorial team · Updated 1 October 2026 · 13 min read
Short answer
Ask an event management company vendor where the work is produced and who supervises it, which lines the quote excludes, what drawings you sign before cutting starts, who lodges the organiser paperwork and by when, what each payment milestone releases against, who is on the floor during show hours, and what happens to the stand after the show. Then grade the answers on specificity, because that is what predicts delivery.
Key takeaways
- Put the same questions to three vendors and write the answers in three columns. The gaps do the work for you.
- Ask what the quote excludes, never whether everything is included — the second question always gets a yes.
- Insist on approving dimensioned drawings rather than a render before fabrication starts.
- Grade answers on specificity: a name, a date, a document or a number beats any amount of reassurance.
- Ask what your area can physically hold — at 36 sq.m the honest answer is about 11 visitors and 4 staff.
- Ask what happens after the show. Dismantle, clearing and storage are where unpriced costs hide.
Reading the answer, not just asking the question
The hard part was never the questions. Any vendor will tell you the work is in-house, the price is all-inclusive and their team will be there. What you need is a way of hearing the difference between a sentence that commits to something and a sentence that merely sounds right.
So each question below comes with what a good answer sounds like and what a weak one reveals. The pattern is consistent across all 15: a strong event management company partner answers with a name, a date, a document or a number, while a weak one answers with a reassurance. "We have done hundreds of these" is a reassurance. A supervisor's name, a workshop address and a day you can come and look is an answer.
Keep to the order. Each stage asks things that are still answerable truthfully at that point: capability before you shortlist, scope while the quote is being built, documents before money moves, logistics once the build is done. Out of sequence, the same questions produce politer and less useful replies.
Stage 1 — before you shortlist (questions 1 to 4)
These decide who is worth briefing at all. Ask them on a call, before any design or pricing conversation, because they are about the firm rather than about your project — and because the answers are much harder to tailor when the vendor does not yet know what you want to hear.
Underneath, they all probe the same thing — whether the firm owns the work or brokers it. Written for large exhibitors, government bodies, export councils and multinationals who want a single accountable partner for the whole participation, this guide exists because that answer usually surfaces during build-up week, when it is far too late to act on.
01
1. Can I see photographs of finished projects at my size, from a show you can name?
A good answer brings on-site photographs with the show, the city, the stall area and the year attached, including shots of the stand occupied by staff and visitors rather than empty at handover. A bad answer is renders only. A render proves somebody can design; only a photograph proves somebody can build, and the gap between the two is where most disappointment lives.
02
2. Can I visit the workshop or studio this week?
A good answer is a day and an address. A bad answer is any version of "later" — nearer the show, after the order, once the design is approved. The request is routine for anyone buying something fabricated, so reluctance to host it is itself the finding, and you get that finding before spending a rupee.
03
3. Which parts of this scope do you buy in, and from whom?
A good answer names them without being pushed — nobody owns everything, and print, AV, furniture and freight are routinely bought. What you are listening for is whether the person knows their own supply chain. A bad answer treats the question as an accusation, which usually means more of the scope is bought in than they want to discuss.
04
4. Who physically does this work — your own team, or a sub-contractor?
A good answer is honest about the split, because every firm buys something in: print, AV hire, furniture, freight. You want to hear which trades are owned and which are bought, followed by an address. A bad answer is either a vague "we have a partner network" or a flat claim that everything is in-house with no site you can visit — the second is usually the same as the first, with less candour.
At quoting stage: questions 5 to 8
At this point the brief is out and the quotes are coming back. Everything below exists to stop you comparing two different stands by their totals. None of it is hostile; the supplier who itemises properly is the supplier who will not be arguing with you in March.
Quoted per event after a brief; we share a line-item budget before you commit. The variables that move an event management company price are well known, and the list below is all of them. Ask a vendor which two matter most on your job: a confident, specific ranking means the quote was built, and a vague answer means it was guessed.
- Total area and number of co-exhibitors
- Scope (design, build, AV, furniture, logistics, manpower, hospitality)
- Number of cities or shows in the programme
- Approval layers with organisers, embassies or departments
01
5. What is driving this price, and what would make it cheaper?
A good answer names the real drivers for your brief and then offers a trade: less custom joinery, a simpler finish, a reused frame, fewer graphic panels. A bad answer is a flat discount with no change to the scope. A number that drops on request without anything being removed means the first figure was padded, or the next one is thinner than it looks.
02
6. Are transport both ways, installation, electrical fittings and dismantle inside this figure?
A good answer goes line by line, yes or no, without hedging. A bad answer is a general "yes, everything's included" — which is the reply this question always draws, and the reason to put it as four separate questions. These are the four scopes most often missing, none of them is optional, and all of them get bought at show-week rates when they surface late.
03
7. Is GST included, and what is the pre-tax total?
A good answer gives both figures without being chased, because that is the only way two quotes can be compared on the same basis. A bad answer is ambiguity, or a total that quietly changes basis between the proposal and the invoice. Ask also which organiser or venue charges will be billed through the vendor rather than directly to you.
04
8. How many light fittings, and where exactly?
A good answer is a count and a set of positions — spots on the brand wall, track over the product, a backlit panel at the entrance. A bad answer is "lighting included". Hall lighting is designed for the aisles rather than for your stand, which makes the lighting count the line most responsible for whether the stand reads as funded or forgotten.
Before you sign: questions 9 to 12
This is the stage that decides whether you have a contract or an understanding. Each gap left open here is one you will meet again in the hall, at a moment when you have no leverage and no time.
Nothing in this stage touches aesthetics or cost. It is entirely paperwork: what gets signed, when, and by whom. Those are the variables that separate a stand built to the agreement from a stand built to whatever was remembered.
01
9. Who prepares and submits the organiser paperwork, and by what date?
A good answer lists the actual documents — stand drawings, electrical load, material certificates — names who lodges them, and states the organiser's deadline from memory. A bad answer is "the organiser will tell you what they need", which pushes a hard deadline onto the party least equipped to meet it. A rejected submission costs build-up days nobody has spare.
02
10. What happens if you are late?
A good answer is uncomfortable but specific: here is the slack in the schedule, here is who we call, here is what we would do. A bad answer is that it has never happened. You are not really looking for a penalty clause — you are looking for evidence that somebody has thought about the failure case before being inside it.
03
11. Can I see the production schedule, with dates on it?
A good answer is a schedule with drawing release, print, joinery, dry build, dispatch and installation on separate dates. A bad answer is a delivery week. The intermediate dates are the whole value: they are what let you notice a slip while it is still a week early rather than on build-up morning.
04
12. What insurance and site documentation do you carry?
A good answer arrives immediately, because any firm working regularly in exhibition halls keeps it to hand. A bad answer is a promise to check and come back. It is a dull question with a revealing answer — it separates contractors who work in venues every month from those about to find out what a venue requires.
Before build-up: questions 13 to 15
Save these for the fortnight before the show. By then production is finished and everything that can still go wrong is logistical. It is also the stage buyers most often skip, which is precisely why asking gets you an unpolished answer.
What the show finally has to deliver is a participation plan where every touchpoint, from the pavilion entrance to the VIP lounge, is designed to move visitors toward a meeting. These questions test whether anyone has planned for the hours in which that actually happens, because a stand still being assembled at ten in the morning on day one delivers none of it.
01
13. When will the stand be finished, as distinct from when build-up ends?
A good answer is an hour, comfortably ahead of doors opening, with cleaning scheduled after it. A bad answer uses the organiser's deadline as the plan. Finishing at the deadline leaves nothing for the snag list, and every stand has a snag list.
02
14. Who is on the floor during show days, and how fast can they reach my stand?
A good answer is a name, a location and a response time. A bad answer is a central number. Show-day problems tend to be small and urgent — a blown lamp, a loose panel, a screen that will not wake — and they only stay small if somebody is already in the building.
03
15. Who dismantles and clears the stand, and what happens to the reusable elements?
A good answer is the same crew, inside the organiser's dismantle window, with the reusable frames and graphics named and a storage arrangement stated. A bad answer is silence, because dismantle was never priced. This is where deposits are forfeited, penalties are charged, and assets you paid to fabricate quietly go to landfill.
Exhibiting soon? Let's build your stall.
Question, good answer, warning sign
Some answers sound fine and mean nothing. The rows below are those cases side by side with what a real answer looks like. It works best as a call sheet; reading it afterwards is reading it too late.
| What you ask | A good answer sounds like | A warning sign |
|---|---|---|
| How many lights | A count and a position for each one | Lighting included |
| What happens after the show | Dismantle inside the organiser's window, elements into storage | No answer, because dismantle was never priced |
| Can I see finished work | Photographs from a named show, with the stall area and the year | Renders only, or images with nothing attached to them |
| What materials are quoted | Board thickness, finish and fire treatment, named | Premium quality, with no specification |
| What do you need from me | A dated list of inputs | Nothing, we'll handle it |
| Who does the work | An address, a supervisor's name and a date you can visit | A partner network, or a visit that is always better scheduled later |
| What would make it cheaper | A scope trade — simpler finish, fewer panels, a reused frame | A flat discount with no change to the scope |
The good column is almost always the shorter one. That is the quickest heuristic in this guide — specifics are compact, and reassurance needs room.
The capacity question worth adding
A final question, and the most revealing of the lot: what will my area actually hold? It takes an event management company vendor about ten seconds to work out, which means an evasive answer is not a limitation of the question.
Storage takes 10% of the area up to 18 sq.m and 15% above it. A meeting corner takes 5% by default, or 20% when booking meetings is the actual purpose of the show. Display is whatever remains. Divide display area by 2.5 and you have how many visitors fit at once; divide total area by 9 for how many staff the stand needs on duty.
Why it matters: footfall expectations and stand capacity are usually set by different people who never compare notes. If your campaign is built around a volume of visitors the stand cannot physically hold, the constraint is the stand, not the marketing — and that is a conversation to have at briefing stage, not on day one.
| Stall area | Display | Storage | Staff on duty | Visitors at once | Build weeks |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 9 sq.m | 7.6 sq.m | 0.9 sq.m | 2 | 3 | 3 |
| 18 sq.m | 15.3 sq.m | 1.8 sq.m | 2 | 6 | 3 |
| 24 sq.m | 19.2 sq.m | 3.6 sq.m | 3 | 7 | 4 |
| 36 sq.m | 28.8 sq.m | 5.4 sq.m | 4 | 11 | 4 |
| 54 sq.m | 43.2 sq.m | 8.1 sq.m | 6 | 17 | 5 |
Figures follow the published ratios — one staff member per 9 sq.m (minimum 2) and one visitor per 2.5 sq.m of display. Build weeks exclude your own approval time.
Answers that should end the conversation
Not everything here needs weighing against the price. The first group holds the failures peculiar to event management company, the ones you cannot recover from in a hall; the second holds the behaviours that reliably precede them.
- Too many vendors with no single point of accountability
- Inconsistent branding across co-exhibitor booths
- Budget overruns from scope that was never itemised
- Delayed approvals that compress build-up time
- A deadline on your decision that belongs to their cash flow rather than your show
- A material specification that says premium and names nothing
- Reference images that cannot be tied to a show, a size or a year
- A delivery week offered in place of a dated production schedule
- No answer at all on dismantle, clearing or storage
- Every question fielded by the salesperson and none by anyone who builds
- Fabrication offered without drawings for you to approve first
Ask what is not included. The answer to "is everything included?" is always yes.
Turning replies into a decision
Keep one page with the vendors across the top and the questions down the side. You are not scoring eloquence — you are looking for the empty cells, which are invisible in a phone call and obvious in a grid.
Finally, judge the whole set rather than the individual replies. The stand is a means to a result, and a supplier who is flawless on logistics but blank on what the show is for will build exactly what you specify — including your mistakes.
- Who does the work, and the address where it happens
- What the quote excludes, in writing and signed
- The build-up arrival slot, crew size and shift hours
- The show-day backup plan and who is on the floor
- Who submits the organiser paperwork, and the deadline
- The material specification, including the fire treatment
- The date on which you will approve dimensioned drawings
Ask all three at once
Send all three vendors the same brief and the same questions: show name, city, dates, stall area, number of open sides, budget band, and two or three reference images with a line on what you liked about each. Identical inputs are what make the replies comparable, and how quickly and precisely a vendor answers before you have paid anything is the best available preview of how they will answer during build-up week.
We answer all of them in writing. Design is free with every confirmed fabrication order, fabrication happens in our own workshops, we prepare the organiser drawings and the approvals, and one project manager stays on the job from brief through dismantle.
Frequently asked questions
Should I ask about things that could go wrong?+
Yes, and the quality of the answer matters more than the content. A vendor who describes the slack in their schedule, the spares they carry and who they would call has thought about failure. One who says nothing has ever gone wrong has not.
When should I ask about build-up?+
A week or two before the show, once production is finished. Ask for the arrival slot, the crew size, the shift hours and the hour the stand will be finished and cleaned — not the hour build-up closes.
How many vendors should I put these questions to?+
Three, with the same brief. Two gives you nothing to calibrate an outlier answer against, and five is more work than the comparison repays.
Should the answers be in writing?+
Yes. Scope, inclusions, exclusions, drawing dates, milestones and the named site contact all belong in the quote or the contract. A verbal answer is a recollection, not a commitment.
What should I ask about the venue's rules?+
Ask for the height limit, whether rigging is permitted, the fire certification the organiser requires, and the date drawings must be submitted. Specific knowledge of one hall beats a claim to work in every city.
How do I know if my stand is the right size?+
Ask the vendor what it can hold. At 36 sq.m the arithmetic gives about 28.8 sq.m of display, room for roughly 11 visitors at a time and 4 staff on duty. If your footfall expectation is far above that, the constraint is the stand rather than the campaign.
Is it reasonable to ask to visit the workshop?+
Entirely. It is a routine request for anyone buying a fabricated product, and the reaction to the question is informative even before the visit happens.
What should I ask about dismantle?+
Who does it, whether it happens inside the organiser's window, what is cleared, and where the reusable frames and graphics are stored afterwards. Unpriced dismantle is where deposits and penalties surface.
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