As a marketing tool and brand management strategy, trade fairs and exhibitions are necessary for organizations across all industries. But often, the costs related to the events may be very expensive, making it difficult to participate. Modular concepts have become the new way to rein in costs, while still making the necessary brand statement.
This article aims to shed light on what leads to the increase in exhibition costs and how the application of modular stands can help reduce it. It’s pertinent to understand that the escalating costs of traditional exhibition booths is also due to the increasing competition within the market.
The Overview of Exhibition Expenses
Conventionally, brands have been participating in stands that are built especially for the occasion. But constructing one-off booths from the ground up for each fair is a costly process. Some key costs include:
-
Permanent booths: Specialized stand contractors charge a lot of money for blueprinting and constructing a stand from scratch. Since stands are normally built from scratch, they cannot be reused, increasing the cost.
-
Transport: Certain stand components, such as large equipment, structures, and accessories, often have to be disassembled, packed, and transported to the next event in another city/country, which is costly.
-
Storage: It requires the brands to set up specific storage facilities to store components when not in use during exhibitions, contributing to higher costs in accommodation.
-
Wastage: The current structure of a particular design may require complete redesigning in order to be appropriate for the next event, and this may lead to wastage.
The Modular Solution
Modular stands, on the other hand, are relatively cheaper than customized stands while at the same time offering a measure of flexibility regarding design. Key advantages include:
-
Renting vs Building – This is especially beneficial when the brands do not want to invest in the construction of the modular structures, as they can simply rent the existing components, including walls, shelves, counters, etc.
-
Scalability – Modules can be disassembled with ease and used in other places when planning another event. New connectors are used, and assembling and disassembling the components is quite easy.
-
Inventory Management – Modular and small pieces can be stored more compactly, requiring less storage between different events, thus cutting inventory costs.
-
Flexibility – Modularity offers flexibility, including adaptability to new layouts or changes in design trends, in contrast to fully custom stands.
-
Transport efficiency – There will be efficient packing and shipment since the modular pieces are considerably small, thereby reducing space, hence less transportation costs.
Innovations Driving Adoption
Technology innovations have made modular stands even more flexible and budget-friendly:
-
Smart Design Software – Web-based, easy-to-use 3D design tools such as Modular Genius help the brand design modular stands, see them in the actual virtual space, and even work out how much they will cost without involving a technical person.
-
Increased material versatility – Cloth, glass, and metal screens appear in the modular build in conjunction with wood or melamine. This offers a lot more possibilities in terms of design.
-
Lighting Control – In most modular systems, LED strips and fittings for walls and ceilings can be quickly and effectively used to include dramatic light effects in the stands. This brings about achieving the goal of custom builds at lower costs.
-
Incorporation of Multimedia – Modular kits have been developed to include integrated monitors, media walls, speakers, and high-speed connections. And this makes it easier for brands to provide audio-visual messaging with significant impact.
Exhibition participation is an important aspect of any company’s promotional strategy, and this article seeks to look at the future of this aspect.
Some Extraordinary Benefits You Must Consider
Multi-Use Flexibility
-
Components used in exhibitions can be arranged modularly, the costs of which can be spread over several exhibitions to offset the initial costs of acquiring any component.
-
From the very same components, new layouts are formed for other displays.
-
Other cost saving methods can be achieved with the different combination of the modules in any combination and arrangement.
Customization Options
-
Modular systems allow for a great number of sub-assemblies and are usually built with the use of standardized parts and assemblies.
-
Sustainability helps in changing and adapting to various configurations of the space depending on the dimension of the exhibition.
-
Such changes are cheap because components are usually easily replaceable, and technologies can be modified at little to no cost.
Sustainability Benefits
-
Sturdy modular stands that can be used time and again are environmentally friendly because they produce less wastage at exhibitions.
-
To minimize the carbon footprint occasioned by transporting materials, it is recommended to rent modular systems.
-
To summarize, using parts produced from recycled materials is a perfect fit for sustainability objectives.
Ease of Use
-
This is achieved by providing assembly instructions and labels, ensuring that the modular stands can be assembled and labeled without professional skills.
-
Sections and connections such as those where lighting fixtures can be plugged in and unplugged avoid complicated wiring.
-
Also, cable management is quite helpful as it makes electrical implementation neater and less complicated.
Today’s Choice for the Future
Modular stands are fast becoming the construction model of choice for contemporary industry exhibition attendance strategies. As the technology and components of the earth continue to mature, the cost will decline even more.
This would have encouraged larger audience participation, thus making exhibitions as part of the communication mix an important tool, even for startups and mid-sized businesses. Other changes taking place in associations are also directed toward adopting the modular infrastructure concept to reduce the cost of constructing venues.
In the end, one can observe that with the help of modular stands, exhibitions become a low-cost way of branding for enterprises of any scale and in various industries, and an effective tool for increasing the level of organizations’ competitiveness.
The Bottom Line
Modular stands have been established as an effective, cost-efficient and portable concept to facilitate such events to a broader base. While modular construction is poised to become a trend in the near future, exhibition participation is to remain an essential component of the complex communication strategies for committed brands even for the specialized ones in the future.
