Most business owners decide to purchase their trade show display if they’re planning to attend three or more shows a year. This choice simply makes good financial sense. Should you choose to invest in your trade show exhibit, it’s wise to be informed on how best to care for and store your materials to keep them looking as good as new for each show. The last thing any exhibitor wants is to arrive at a show to discover damaged materials or lost parts.
We get it, by the end of a trade show you’re exhausted and in a hurry to leave. But in the near 50 years that we’ve been serving the trade show industry, we’ve found that displays are often damaged at the end of the trade show when exhibitors are packing up. Now, each display is certainly different, but here are a few general tips for the different types of displays:
Pop-up displays: Roll each panel separately (not stacked on top of one another). Carefully place the panels into the case. Extra tip: if you’re planning to store the display for longer than a few weeks at a time, consider taking the panels out of the case and laying them flat.
Fabric displays: Carefully fold the display and place it into the case to avoid wrinkles. For tension fabric displays, you don’t have to remove the fabric, but take extra caution with the hardware pieces to ensure everything is packed properly to avoid damaging or snapping any pieces when the display is unpacked next.
Display lights: The lights should be the first thing you take down from your display so you can give them time to cool. You don’t want to burn yourself or damage another part of your display because you tried to pack them when they were still hot.
Banner stands: Make sure when you’re breaking down your display that you’re packing each and every part. Banner stand poles are the parts that get lost the most. You also want to take special care when you’re feeding the banner back into the base so it doesn’t get folded or caught on the sides.
To avoid set-up blunders that can cause damage to your display, read the instructions and/or watch a video to take the guessing out of setting up. The last thing you want to do is blindly rush through your set up only to accidentally force pieces that don’t belong together, breaking them in the process.
Additionally, you’ll want to follow the care instructions for your trade show display. For example, do you need to use a special cleaner for your pop-up display or can you just use a damp towel? Are you allowed to use a steamer to get wrinkles out of your fabric display? If you can’t find any care instructions, contact your trade show display company to ensure you take care of your equipment properly.
How and where you choose to store your equipment matters. As we mentioned earlier in this post, making sure you appropriately break down and pack up your materials will help keep your trade show display looking as good as new. Another key component is where you choose to store your trade show materials. You always want to be sure to keep your trade show display elements in a cool, dry, pet-free and pest-free environment to avoid any possible damage.
Here at Godfrey Group, we offer exhibit storage for our customers in our North Carolina facility in Burlington, NC. Our shop is conveniently located in central NC right off of interstates I-40 and I-85 for quick access to east/west and north/south shipping routes. We offer full-service management from our NC location with the ability to repair, update, add-on, evaluate, etc. your exhibit as needed. We also offer storage in Las Vegas if your shows are primarily in Las Vegas. Get in touch for more details.
