Zach Selch talks with Anne, a booth designer from Kalman, about what makes trade show booths actually work. She breaks down a 52 m² space into four sections with eight meeting areas and explains how to choose between layouts that prioritize meetings versus product display.
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I'm at Medica, and there are about 10,000 vendors here with booths. I walked around the other day, looked at about 3,000 of them, and there were 2 that really struck out that I really liked, not necessarily from an aesthetic perspective, but specifically from the perspective of a sales manager, as booths that were really designed to help drive sales. And then I talked to my friend, Anne, who's a booth designer, and it turns out she designed both of them, which was pretty incredible. Literally, I looked at 3,000, 4,000 booths over a course of about 8 hours and picked out 2 of them that I really liked, and they both were hers. So I asked her if she would join me and just talk a little bit about why she designs booths the way they do— she does, and what pointers she has for sales managers who are talking to booth designers. And also, I'm going to give a little plug. She's from Kalman.
Hi.
I think she's second-generation booth designer, right? Your dad was a booth designer and your brother is a booth designer.
That is correct.
So it's like a family business, right? It's like dealing with the baker down the street who's been in business for 100 years. They have booth design in their blood. And I've been dealing with them, certainly their name, for 25 years. And I've been dealing with Ann for at least 15 years. Anyway, I'm gonna pass this over to Ann and I'm gonna ask her basically why she designed the booths the way she did and what she can, what type of tips she can give people for talking to their booth designers to get the best results at a trade show?
Thank you, Zach. When I am designing a booth, the most important thing for me is to take a thorough brief from my client. It's important for me to understand what their goals are for the show. So on one of the booths that I designed today, there were several different divisions of the company, and each one of them wanted meeting space. What we tried to do was maximize the available space have as many meetings going on as possible while we still had an area for product display. Each division brought their own product. They wanted to be able to talk about it and then have meetings about it. So we divided up the floor into 4 different sections. We tried to give each division their own meeting space, their own product display space, with also area for storage and kitchens and things like that.
Excuse me, and this is— what about How big is this?
This is 52 square meters.
52 square meters, 8 meeting spaces including 1 private space, correct, and storage. That's pretty incredible.
Correct, and we even created banquette seating and we custom-made the cushions, and the cushions remove and underneath is all storage so that when they unpack their freight, they could keep the boxes and they don't have to wait until midnight on the last night of the show to wait for their deliveries to be returned. Everything is on the booth.
That's great.
Yes. There's another booth that I designed where they only needed one meeting space. They had so much product and they just wanted to be able to stand and talk about their product. So what we were able to do was fill the booth with furniture that was custom-made to be able to showcase their product in the best way, while we had a meeting space that they could invite guests to if they needed to. But really the focus was to keep them in the booth focused on the product and talking about it there.
So if I were a first-time— if I were If I was for the first time commissioning a booth and I was talking to somebody like you, what would you suggest I should tell them?
What I would need to know from any client is what is their goal. Do they have product that they want to display? And most of them do, but not all of them. If they don't have product to display, are they there for meetings? Are they private meetings or just informal meetings? What is their goal? The better I can understand my client's goal at the show, the better I am able to design a booth that works for their needs. Great.
Thanks a lot, Anne. Thanks a lot, Anne, and good luck. Remember, when you're ready to grow your international sales, reach out to us. We can help.
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