Visitors see your stand for three or four days. Photos and videos show it for years. Thinking about the camera at design stage avoids colour casts, reflections and hidden logos. These are the points to raise with your stand builder.
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Stand builders design for the human eye. The eye balances colours, looks straight through reflections and reads a stand in three dimensions. A camera does none of that. It shows a crop, exaggerates contrast and turns a glossy surface into a bright blotch.
Many exhibitors know the result: the stand (booth) looked great in the hall, but in the photos the brand colour is off, the logo is cut off at the top and the glass showcase mirrors the hall ceiling. Retouching can rescue some of this, but not much of it.
The good news is that most of these points cost nothing at design stage, because they are choices between equivalent materials and positions. This matters even more if you are exhibiting in Germany from abroad and working with a local stand builder you have never met: the brief is your main chance to shape the result. Take this guide into that conversation as a checklist. What you can still improve on the finished stand shortly before the show is covered in preparing your stand for photos.
Large, strongly coloured surfaces throw their colour onto everything in front of them. A red back wall makes faces look flushed, a green one makes them look pale. You barely notice it in the hall. In photos it is obvious.
Your logo needs strong contrast against its background. A light logo on a light wall is hard to read in a small social media image, which is exactly where most people will see it.
Reflective surfaces are the most common photographic problem on trade fair stands. They show the hall ceiling, lamps, neighbouring stands and sometimes the photographer.
If gloss is part of the concept, as it often is for premium brands, that is fine. The photographer then has to work with positions and angles, and that takes time, ideally before the hall opens.
Hall lighting is usually cool, even and comes from above. It is fine for seeing, but not for good pictures. Your own lighting makes the biggest difference if it is planned properly:
LED walls and monitors are a subject of their own. Depending on their refresh rate, they can show bands or flicker in photos and video. Ask your stand builder about the refresh rate and make sure brightness can be adjusted. The details are in photographing screens and LED walls.
Most stand photos are taken from the aisle, and most visitors first see your stand from there too. Check the design for:
Before every job at Pixer we agree the main views with the client and photograph the empty stand from exactly those positions before the hall opens.
You can hand these questions straight to your stand builder when you review the first design:
Also ask for renderings from aisle height, not just bird's-eye views. Those views are the closest preview of how your stand will look in photos, and they help your photographer plan the shoot. If you are working with limited floor space, see small stand, big impact.
Large strong surfaces behind meeting areas tint faces. Use colour as a band or logo panel instead.
Glossy floors, acrylic and glass reflect the ceiling and lamps. Matt finishes are photographically safe.
Match every light on the stand and light meeting areas softly from the front.
Ask for the refresh rate and keep brightness adjustable, otherwise bands can appear in the image.
The main brand message must be visible from the main aisle above the visitors' heads.
Storage door, cables and sockets do not belong in the main view of the stand.
At the first design, not during build-up. Materials, lighting and logo position can be changed at design stage at no extra cost. On a finished stand, usually not.
Small highlights, yes. Large reflections in floors, glass or screens take a lot of work to remove and often look artificial afterwards. Avoiding them is cheaper than retouching them.
Hall lighting, stand lighting and the material all shift colour. Test a sample under similar light and match the colour temperature of your stand lighting.
Yes, especially a small one. A few well-aimed lights on product and meeting area improve photos more than extra floor space would.
Yes. We shoot the empty stand before the hall opens from the main views agreed with you. Those images are also useful for your stand builder and for planning next year's stand.
Your stand is designed and should look as good in photos as it does in the hall? Send us the show, your stand number and a rendering if you have one, and we will tell you which positions we will shoot from.
We reply within 24 hours. During a show week, WhatsApp is fastest.
