While the majority of exhibitions indoors have some lighting in the exhibition hall, your particular stand may not have enough light to show your products properly. Relying on the lighting at the hall can be a costly mistake, especially if you turn up and discover the stand next to you has used material to cover the main lights and create an eye opening exhibition stand using special lights.

Here are five ways you can use lights to attract attention at your exhibition stand.

Feature a Product
A common way to use lighting effectively is to feature a particular product on your stand. Backlight your pop up display or use spotlights to showcase the newest product in your range. Spotlights on the floor can cause trip hazards for staff, so you might want to consider where you place the spotlights for the best effect while ensuring OHS issues are considered.

Use Coloured Lights
You do not have to only use plain old, boring white lights to attract attention. Neon lighting used judiciously can attract attention to your stand. Alternatively, use light to show up your theme colours by adding reflectors to the light globes in the right colours. If you have a light green colour theme, try using a green reflector light to enhance the atmosphere of your trade show stand.

Create a Welcoming Atmosphere
This is essential if you want to use the stand to allow people to make a deal on the day of the trade show. You can use lights on the floor to subtly lead people into your stand or point people into the seating area. Look at your stand from every angle and see how the lighting makes your stand welcoming. Avoid lights that glare straight into the eyes of passers-by – or people will just pass by!

Light Up Your Signs
Use spotlights, downlights, and uplights to light up your signage. You can add small downlights to the top of your stand and light up the exhibition stand sign provided by the exhibition organisers. You use your signs to attract attention to your stand, so it makes sense to make sure people can see your signs. Lighting on a sign can really attract attention to your exhibition stand.

Create Shadows, Patterns, and Depth
Your exhibition stand is three-dimensional, so why not use lights to add depth to your space. You may intentionally want to create some shadows (where you can hide boxes of promotional products) and highlight particular areas in your stand with brighter lights (such as where your products are).

Pay attention to how you design the lighting of your exhibition stand and you will reap the benefits by attracting more attention to your stand.

Think about trade shows, expos, and conferences you have attended yourself. What are the stands you remember the most? Usually, you will remember the stands with some kind of audio effects and brilliant visual displays. Many people find it easier to remember watching a video or DVD showing the product in use than to remember seeing a product statically displayed on a shelf.

Audio Effects Bring Customers In
A trade show will bring a huge crowd walking past your exhibition stand. However, walking past is not enough: you need the potential customers to stop long enough to get details and turn the potential customers into genuine sales. Sound will attract people in and will, at the least, make customers stop and have a look at your stand, instead of just meandering past.

You can hire a speaker system and present a running commentary on your product. Even playing soft music in the background can be enough to make your stand more attractive to people walking past. Hiring audio conference equipment can also allow you to employ a spruiker who can entice the crowd in to your stand.

Many people remember what they see, and exhibitions which provide a visual impact are generally among the most memorable. Hiring a flat screen or plasma television for your exhibition stand can certainly add both sound and moving pictures to your display, attracting far more people.

You can show a two or three minute looped video which demonstrates the wonders and benefits of your product. This can be extremely effective, especially if your product is too big or impractical to effectively demonstrate within the exhibition stand. You cannot effectively demonstrate a jet ski or a wake board within a conference centre, for example, but showing a video of the water toy in action will help you to sell your product at the exhibition.

Video or movies are not your only options to create a visual impact for your exhibition stand. Hiring pop up display stands or display stands that rotate or move can add an effective crowd stopper. Catch a movement in your peripheral vision as you walk past and you are sure to stop to see what it was.

Banner stands and signage can add visual impact to your exhibition stand. Pull down banners and pop up display stands are very effective in attracting attention.

Make your exhibition stand visually attractive with a colour scheme that accentuates your company’s logo colours to add further impact to your marketing. Hire exhibition furniture in your company colours and see how many people remember your stand. Match these colours to any giveaways or samples you provide and these visual effects will certainly aid potential customers to remember your exhibition stand.

Audio and visual effects add the final touch to make your exhibition stand memorable and different from your competitors at the trade show. Sounds, lights, movement, videos, graphics, pop up displays, and banner stands will all work together to make your stand very attractive to passers by. Make an impact by adding audio and visual elements to your trade show stand.

It has been proven that lighting can evoke a different emotion depending on colour and intensity. A lot of money has been spent on research in this area. For instance, red is known to evoke hunger – think all the fast food logos. Blue; trust – investment funds logos, and turquoise has a  calming effect – new age/alternative therapies. A strong white glare screams to ‘look over here’ whilst a soft blue lighting can say ‘come, sit down and talk to us, we’re relaxed and trustworthy’!

Be aware of what overall ‘feeling’ you want to evoke – but also be aware of what your focal point is. Strong lighting works literally a beacon to your exhibition stand. It will draw people in to one specific focal point.
Everyone knows that low or dim lighting is more ‘peaceful’ than a bright glare. Use it for rest areas, when you want people to stay a while and relax a little. Maybe flick through a few brochures while they are there. Or for a beauty show stand or herbal remedies. But if you are launching or promoting a new electronic gadget you want throw as much bright light around as possible. Use spotlights which scream “Look at me”! You want to excite people not relax them.

Lighting can create more atmosphere that any other tools on hand at your exhibition or trade show. It can be dramatic, exciting, inviting or comforting depending on what message you want to put out there.
You can also use lighting as a navigation tool. Lead people around your stand. Use gobos which can throw your logo onto wall or flooring to draw people in to your stand. Use spotlights to highlight areas. Use backlighting to best show off your products. Use lightboxes, uplights, downlights, recessed lights, neon lights, shelf lights, track lights etc. etc.

If all this is way too confusing let our exhibition stand designers help you out. They will be able to take this into consideration and even show lighting effects on the design concept. Not only this, we will also be able to advise on any electrical issues and limitations.

Make lighting be a ‘feature’ on your exhibition stand.