Speaker 1: Tradeshows and events are some of the best ways to promote and sell products and create brand awareness. The process of designing, building, delivering, managing and storing a custom tradeshow exhibit is a journey that is essential to help an event marketing strategy succeed. Step 1. Identify your goals. What are your objectives? Goals include lead generation, brand awareness, education, building relationships, short or long-term sales. After you've established your goals, assessing your needs is next. When is the first show or event? What size exhibit will you need? And will you need multiple sizes for future events? What is your overall budget? Will you need to display products in your booth? Will you need space for demonstrations or presentations? Will you need a conference area? Will you need assistance in designing graphics for your booth? Describe the look you desire. Conservative, elegant, high-tech, minimalist. Describe the feel you desire. Open, symmetrical, freeform. Will you need shipping, storing and logistics support for your exhibit assets? Step 2. Finding an exhibit partner is the second most important step in designing a tradeshow exhibit. They will design an exhibit around your goals and will take the requirements and design with those in mind. Choose a partner who is seasoned, experienced and offers services such as graphic design, installation and dismantle, and asset management. Step 3. Planning and planning the exhibit build. The next step is for the exhibit partner to decide, based on goals, budget, timeline and other factors, the path the exhibit should take. Fully custom, meaning the exhibit was designed entirely from customized materials. Semi-custom, which combines some of the customized elements with some standard pieces. Systems, which is based on modular building blocks and off-the-shelf elements. Step 4. Share the concept. The exhibit partner will share exhibit designs with your brand, goals and budget in mind. They may nail the first concept or there may be tweaks to achieve the perfect look. After the exhibit design is finalized, they will work with expert project management and detailing teams to lay the blueprints for building the exhibit and bringing the design to life. During this phase, project managers and detailers determine the building blocks and materials required as well as ensure that the exhibit will be produced within the desired timeframe. So far, we've covered the need to identify the exhibiting goals, select the exhibit partner and finalize the exhibit design. The exhibit partner has started the process of planning for the exhibit build. The next phase is in the graphic design and overall construction of the exhibit. Step 5. Once the team finalizes the exhibit's manufacturing blueprint and plan, guidelines and graphic templates for the design of the display will be provided. This is a critical step in the process and one that should be driven based on the exhibit design selected. Many exhibit partners can design the graphics for the exhibit, but some exhibitors prefer this be handled by in-house creative or graphic design agencies. If independently designing the graphics, connect the graphic designer with the exhibit partner. They will give important guidance such as positioning the message at high, middle and low points in the booth and keeping exhibit graphics simple and not text heavy. Step 6. Building the exhibit. With a detailed blueprint and finalized graphics, the exhibit moves into production. Expert teams fabricate the elements of the exhibit, including extrusion cutting, tube bending, welding, woodworking and more. Graphics experts, comprised of expert print and finishing machine operators and seamstresses, produce the graphic artwork on a variety of materials such as fabric, satin, sheer, vinyl, PVC, canvas and more. Once graphics are printed, they proceed to graphic finishing to be cut to size and sewed. Depending on the size, materials used and complexity of your exhibit, production may last 2-4 weeks. During this time, the trade show partner is closely working with the production teams to ensure quality and timeliness. Step 7. Many exhibit partners offer a booth preview of the exhibit once completed. This allows for quality review, final tweaks and changes to be made before it ships to the show. This is also a great opportunity to train your booth staff on how to work the booth at the show. The exhibit continues on its journey to its first trade show or event. Step 8. Producing the custom trade show exhibit is only one piece of the complete exhibiting program. Some companies have internal teams that manage the logistics, installation, dismantle and storage of exhibit assets but may use their exhibit partner to assist in these areas. Exhibit partners can handle all show planning, coordination and ordering electrical, rigging, storing, AV, furnishings, shipping, installation and dismantle, storage and more. Depending on your level of internal resources and exhibiting schedule, these management services can save time and stress in the long run, making it easy so that all you need to do is show up. There are a lot of steps involved with designing and building a custom trade show exhibit. Understanding the goals and finding the right exhibit partner are the most important steps in achieving your trade show ROI. NMLOC has expert exhibit partners across the country and around the globe who can assist along every step of the process. To learn more about custom trade show exhibit design and management, visit www.nmloc.com.