Three weeks out, and forty fascia names missing
The exhibitor manual went out months ago: forty pages covering build-up times, health and safety paperwork, fascia board names, stand power orders, furniture hire, catalogue entries, exhibitor badges and car parking. Each form has its own deadline, set by the contractor or the printer behind it.
Three weeks before build-up, the show team works through the list. The shell scheme contractor needs fascia names today. The catalogue goes to print on Friday, and a third of the entries are missing or are a single line. Badge names come in by email in all sorts of formats. Some exhibitors send everything to the sales manager, some to the operations manager, and some to the general inbox. A few have never opened the manual at all.
Why exhibitors miss the deadlines
Most exhibitors are not careless. The person who booked the stand is not the person organising the show, the manual is long, and nothing tells them what they, specifically, still owe you.
- The manual is the same for everyone, so each exhibitor has to work out which forms apply to their stand type.
- Forms come back as PDFs or email text and are retyped into the contractor's and printer's formats.
- There is no single view of what each exhibitor has submitted.
- Reminders go to every exhibitor, so those who have finished ignore them and those who have not miss them in the noise.
- The booking contact moves on and the show contact is never recorded.
What the chasing costs
Fascia boards with the wrong name, or the default, which exhibitors notice immediately at build-up. Catalogue entries missing or thin, which weakens the catalogue for visitors and for exhibitors who paid for enhanced listings. Late service orders sometimes carry late surcharges from contractors, and exhibitors blame the organiser. And the show team spends the busiest weeks of the year on email chasing.
Some of that paperwork, such as risk assessments for space-only builds, matters to the venue and your own safety plans. Your venue and your contractors decide what is required. What slows everything down is collecting it.
An exhibitor portal with a checklist per company
We build an exhibitor portal, linked to your stand bookings, where each exhibitor sees exactly what they owe.
- Each exhibitor's checklist is generated from their booking: stand type, size and any extras decide which items apply.
- Each item has an online form with the fields the supplier needs, such as fascia text with a character limit, badge names, catalogue entry with word count, logo upload, power and furniture orders.
- The booking contact can add a show contact, who gets their own login, so the checklist reaches the person doing the work.
- Reminders go only for outstanding items, timed against each item's deadline.
- Submissions export to the formats your shell scheme contractor, catalogue printer and badge system need, or post to them through an API where one exists.
- The show team sees a grid of every exhibitor and every item, with gaps highlighted, and can chase the few who remain.
| Checklist item | Typical deadline driver | Where the data goes |
|---|---|---|
| Fascia name | Shell scheme contractor | Contractor's fascia list |
| Catalogue entry and logo | Print and app deadline | Catalogue and show app |
| Exhibitor badges | Registration system | Badge print list |
| Power and furniture orders | Contractor order cut-off | Contractor order file |
| Stand plans and risk paperwork | Venue and your operations team | Operations review queue |
Build-up month, reorganised
Exhibitors log in, see a short list of what is left and fill it in. The show team works from the gap grid, calling the handful of stragglers instead of emailing everybody. Contractors get their lists on time in the formats they asked for. When an exhibitor claims they sent their fascia name, the portal shows what was submitted and when.
Recognise the build-up scramble?
- Your exhibitor manual is a single long PDF for everyone.
- Form submissions arrive in several inboxes.
- Fascia names and badges are retyped for contractors.
- Reminders go to every exhibitor regardless of what they have sent.
- You cannot see all exhibitors' outstanding items in one place.