Stand Production

How it works

A show opens whether your stand is finished or not. As exhibition stand builders we work to the build-up schedule the organiser sets, and we supervise from first delivery to final dismantle — at venues across the Gulf, Europe and North America.

What “on time” actually requires

The schedule is the organiser’s, not ours

Every exhibition runs on a build-up schedule the organiser publishes months ahead. It sets when your freight can arrive, which entrance it comes through, when the forklift is available, and the hour by which aisles must be clear. Miss a delivery window and the options are paying for storage or building with fewer hours than the job needs.

So production is scheduled backwards from that window rather than forwards from the day the design is signed off. The workshop date, the freight booking and the crew call are all derived from it. That is the whole discipline, and it is why a late design sign-off costs more than it looks like it should — it does not move the show, it compresses everything between.

Built twice

Why the stand goes up in the workshop first

Structures are assembled in the workshop before they travel. Panels are offered up, the stair is fitted, the graphics are hung, the electrics are run and powered. Then it comes apart, gets numbered and packed.

This is the single most useful thing a production team does, and it is invisible to the client. A panel that is four millimetres out is a ten-minute problem on a workshop floor with the whole rack of offcuts to hand. The same panel is a two-hour problem in a hall at eleven at night, with no materials, no saw, and an aisle that has to be clear by midnight.

It also means the crate arrives labelled in the order it is needed, which is why some stands go up calmly and others involve four people looking for a part.

The paperwork nobody mentions

Documents the venue will ask for

Most halls will not let a build start without risk assessments and method statements, structural calculations for anything above a set height, rigging plans with point loads, and electrical certification. Double-decks need engineer sign-off. Some venues want proof of insurance and a named site supervisor before they issue passes.

This is dull and it is also where builds fail. A stand that is designed, made and delivered but whose structural drawings were never approved does not go up. We produce and submit these as part of the build, on the organiser’s deadlines rather than ours.

After the doors close

Dismantle is part of the job

Dismantle runs on a schedule as tight as build-up, usually starting the hour the show closes and often overnight. Assets are dismantled, packed against the same numbering they arrived with, and either returned to store or shipped to the next show.

Anything left in the hall past the deadline is removed by the venue and charged to you, so the stand that gets packed properly is the stand that is still usable next year. Storage between shows, and an inventory of what you own and what condition it is in, is part of what we hold for you.