Lighting and rigging for exhibition stands requires precise planning and expertise. Venues, such as ExCeL London, NEC Birmingham and exhibition halls worldwide require stand designs, plans and rigging specifications as part of their booking process. If you get it wrong, it can cost a lot in extra venue fees, particularly when it comes to hanging from their ceilings.

Bespoke Rigging for Exhibition Stands

Whether you need ground supports or a flown rig, involving a rigging expert from the early stages will ensure your stand is safe, meets the venue’s specifications and it could save you money in the long run.

At The Production People, we work with exhibition stand designers and venues to ensure that there are no unforeseen costs or issues during the build process.

Do you need flown or ground support?

You may need both, let’s take a look…

Flown rigs are suspended from the ceiling points within an exhibition hall. Typically, a flown rig provides a stable and safe platform for overhead banners and lighting equipment.

Ground support truss can form the basis of an exhibition stand structure. Built from the ground up, it provides solid supports for lighting, screens and audio equipment. It can also be clad in graphics. The choice is yours.

Hanging Banners and Lighting Overhead

If you are planning to hang banners from the ceiling or incorporating professional lighting within your exhibition stand design, it’s important to involve a rigging expert from the beginning.

They will advise on the weight loads, and the number of ceiling points that will be required. In other words, the more weight you are planning to fly overhead, the more points you are going to need. This expert knowledge will ensure your venue and build fees are accurate from start to finish.

Ground Support Truss For Exhibition Stands

If your exhibition stand incorporates professional event lighting, screens or any kind of technical equipment, you are going to need ground support truss. This will form a solid structure for your exhibition stand that you can use to:

• Clad with graphics
• Mount screens and banners upon
• Rig lights and audio visual
• Build multi-level staging and ceiling heights

Rigging for Exhibition Stands Do’s and Don’ts

There are several important factors to ensuring the rigging for your bespoke exhibition stand meets the criteria of your host venue.

Do:

• Ensure you employ the services of an expert rigger. Check with the host venue if a LOLER certified rigger is required. There’s more information about this on the Health and Safety Executive website.
• Plan your exhibition stand design with the support of a technical production expert.
• Produce technical drawings/plans for the riggers onsite. They will be working to a tight timeframe and will need this information to work from.
• Include banners and event lighting within your design with the correct weights and power requirements.
• Check the trim height for the venue so that your flown items (banners, lighting and accessories) remain the same height as the other stands.
• Check access times and relay this to the riggers and build team as soon as possible. Load in times are often specified by the venue, and there is often a small window. If you need to access the site at a specific time, you will need to speak to the venue.
• Allow enough build time to meet the deadline.

Don’t:

• Exceed the trim heights of your flown items. The trim heights are set to ensure consistent look for lighting equipment and banners suspended from the ceiling. Essentially, it ensures not one stand has an advantage over another.
• Let the rig overhang the walkways or other stands. You must stay within your stand area. Riggers will use your technical drawings as their instruction manual when setting up, so they need to be 100 percent accurate and up-to-date.
• Specify last minute equipment without checking the load weights with a lighting/rigging expert.
• Wing it or assume you know. When you are designing an exhibition stand, make sure you have sufficient knowledge of the load weights and rigging equipment that will be required to achieve your desired look. You will need this information to ensure the costs of designing and hosting an exhibition stand are accurate.

How to Avoid Astronomical Fees at Exhibition Halls

The best way to avoid astronomical fees at the host venue is to ensure your technical plans are correct in the first instance. The requirements of each exhibition hall varies, so it’s crucial that you check the specification, access and build schedule.

The venue’s in-house rigging team will sign off on all flown rigs and ground supports for health and safety, so if its not right, you will need to correct the problem and pay additional fees in order to do so.