Trade fair material for your home market: language, formats, timing

Who at home works with the material

For an exhibitor from abroad, the show in Germany is often only half the audience. The other half sits at home: management that wants to see your stand (booth), a sales team that needs pictures for customer meetings, distributors who want to announce the new product in their region and a marketing team that has to fill local channels during the show week.

Each of these groups needs something different. Management wants a quick overview on the first evening. Sales needs clean product and conversation photos for presentations. Distributors need material without internal language and with space for their own logo or text. Local media and trade press need a short text, a caption and a high-resolution picture.

The most common mistake is to plan the shoot for the German show and think about the home market only when the files arrive. Then the video has German subtitles nobody at home can read, the clips are horizontal while the home team posts vertically, and the material lands when the office at home has already closed.

Language: what needs translating and what does not

Photos need no translation. Captions, file names and alt texts do. Video is where the language decisions matter most, and there are three workable approaches:

• Video without language: music, pictures and short text overlays. It works in every market and is the safest choice for a recap film. More in our guide to trade fair video without language.
• Interviews in the home language: your managing director speaks in the language of the home market, and the international version gets English subtitles. The answer sounds natural, and both audiences are served.
• Interviews in English with subtitles: the international standard. For the home market, the subtitles are translated into your language.

At Pixer, the crew conducts interviews and writes subtitles in English, German, Arabic and Persian. If your home market needs another language, ask for a version without burned-in subtitles and for the approved English text as a separate file. Your own team or your distributor can then translate it and add their version without anyone re-editing the film.

Keep text in the picture to a minimum: every burned-in word has to be exported again for each language.

Formats: one shoot, different channels

The channels at home are often not the ones used in Germany. Teams in mainland China work with WeChat and Douyin rather than LinkedIn or Instagram; in the Gulf, many business contacts are kept on WhatsApp and Instagram. Tell the crew in advance which platforms your home team uses, so the right formats are shot on the day and not cropped later.

Our packages already include a 30-second highlight video and vertical clips; the Full Day package adds a 90-second film and interviews. What matters is saying in the brief which version goes to which market.

Timing: when the material has to be at home

A show post has the most effect while the show is still running. For your home market, that means the material has to arrive in time for the working day there, which may be hours ahead of or behind Germany. Head office in Shanghai starts work while the halls in Germany are still dark; a team in New York starts its day in the German afternoon. Details and a table of time differences are in our guide to time zones and show content.

A realistic rhythm for a show day looks like this:

1. During the day: a first selection of edited photos, usually the same day, for internal updates and a first social post.
2. In the evening: the best images of the day, so the home team can post at the start of their next working day.
3. Within 24 hours after the event ends: the complete edited photo set, the highlight video and the vertical clips.
4. After your approval: additional language versions of subtitles and captions.

Plan press work at home around this rhythm: a press release with a photo from the first show day reaches editors while the show is still news.

A handover plan in five steps

1. List the recipients: who at home receives what, for example management, sales, marketing, distributors and press.
2. Assign channels and formats: for each recipient, note the platform, the format and the language.
3. Brief the crew: send the list together with your shot list before the show. Our guide on how to brief a trade fair photographer shows what else belongs in it.
4. Name one receiver: one person at home receives the download link, sorts the files and forwards them. Otherwise ten people download everything and nobody knows which version is final.
5. Prepare captions: write caption templates in English and in your home language before the show, so only names and details need to be added.

Clarify rights at the same time. Usage rights in our packages are unlimited; if distributors or partners abroad will use the material, mention it in the brief so it is clear from the start. For people in the picture, especially visitors and staff, check consent before material is passed on to third parties.

Common mistakes

• Only German subtitles: of no use at home. Agree the subtitle languages when you book.
• Only landscape video: vertical clips cropped from landscape lose the subject. Shoot 9:16 on the stand.
• Files too large for daily use: send phone-sized versions for WhatsApp and full resolution for print.
• Material without context: photos without names or captions are hard to use for someone who was not there.
• Distributors forgotten: partners abroad sell your product. Give them their own selection with neutral pictures and no internal content.
• Delivery at the wrong time: a set that arrives as the office at home closes for the weekend loses two days.

The short version

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Common questions