All island trade show exhibits can showcase your brand, generate sales pipeline, and strengthen key relationships. Yet large island exhibits have unique needs, offer unique opportunities, and often incorporate an extra set of design elements. Understanding these variances will boost your chances of standing out and creating a higher return on investment.
When your island trade show exhibit is 1,000, 3,000, or even 10,000 square feet, your exhibit design needs, challenges, and opportunities can vary significantly from a 20×20 island exhibit.
Here are 19 differences between large and small island exhibits, grouped into three categories:
- 4 Non-design differences between large and small island exhibits
- 8 Elements more likely to appear in a large island exhibit
- 7 Elements you have more of in a larger island exhibit
Understanding these differences can multiply your chances of success. That’s why we gathered 19 ways large islands are different, and share them here with you.
Non-Design Differences Between Large and Small Island Exhibits
Before considering your exhibit design or structure, here are several main differences between large and small islands:
1. More Budget: While it may seem obvious to some, it needs to be emphasized: If you opt for a larger booth space, you must also scale up your budget accordingly. A larger booth space won’t impress by itself – you also need an exhibit design appropriate for the larger space. Otherwise, your exhibit risks looking sparse and underwhelming. And remember, with a larger space usually comes larger show service and transportation costs separate from your cost to buy or rent an exhibit.
2. More Environmental Design: Large island exhibits by their sheer size become environments unto themselves. So, it becomes more important to create an enjoyable experience for visitors to walk through. Aim to make it easier for an attendee to self-navigate within the larger space and be purposeful on how you want them to experience your brand.
Through good environmental design using layout, color, space, height, and graphics, visitors to the Vital exhibit effortlessly know where in the exhibit they want to go. More Vital photos here.
3. More Content: Because it’s spread out over a larger show’s budget, large island exhibitors can invest relatively more in content building and high-tech audio visuals to more excitingly convey messages that differentiate themselves to attract and persuade potential buyers.
Canon Medical Group created and gave presentations at HIMSS to become a “destination booth” on the show floor. More Canon Medical Group photos here.
4. More Pressure: Event managers overseeing the design, build, and installation of a larger island exhibit have greater visibility within their company. Expectations are higher with the larger presence and investment. There are more stakeholders with a vested interest in the exhibit design, which makes it harder to make decisions in the limited timeframe.
Elements More Likely in a Large Island Trade Show Exhibit
While these elements may occur in smaller island exhibits, they are much more likely to be included in a larger island exhibit design:
5. Bigger, More Unique Structures: A larger booth space gives you the opportunity to go taller, wider, and simply bigger – plus, create more intriguing shapes and structures that beckon attendees. These structures can be freestanding or hanging, and they take full advantage of the space from floor to ceiling.
Delta Faucet’s 14,000 square foot exhibit at KBIS 2024 resembles a temporary building with a walled perimeter structure surrounding almost the entire space. More Delta Faucet photos here.
Nine wide hanging signs expressed the feeling of water while heralding the huge Brizo exhibit space. The white fabric signs changed color as the LED lights projected on them changed color. More Brizo photos here.
An expanse of LED lights shaped like triangular Sleep Number logos covered the entire ceiling of their exhibit at CES 2020. More Sleep Number exhibit photos here.
6. Zones: Often in a large island exhibit, the exhibitor will have multiple divisions, brands, or markets represented in one booth. To help visitors more easily find what they are looking for, and to better identify their overall company offerings, large islands can have defined zones for sub-brands or divisions. Those zones can be identified a variety of ways, including structurally separate zones, different branding on each zone, different flooring colors, and even aisles within their space.
As visitors passed the reception desk entering the Delta Faucet exhibit at KBIS 2024, they saw wayfinding signage and a map that showed where their 4 main divisions were located . While the entire exhibit structure worked as a whole, the different brands had distinct architectural variances. More Delta Faucet photos here.
7. Double Decks: While some small island exhibits squeeze a double deck into their limited space, larger island exhibits are better suited. They have enough space to include a double deck (and their stairs) without overwhelming the rest of the exhibit. Plus, larger exhibitors tend to have the budgets needed to include impressive double decks in their booth.
The double deck in this rental exhibit for SICK gave them plenty of private meeting space on a second level, allowing them to retain space on the ground for product demonstrations and quicker meetings. More SICK photos here.
8. Dedicated Experiential Space: Large island exhibits have greater space available for storytelling and activations that immerse visitors in an environment that helps them more memorably experience the advantages you offer.
In the center of the Sleep Number CES 2022 50 x 50 exhibit was a 22-foot tall, cylindrical LED screen featuring soothing brand animations, surrounded by six 360 smart bed pods. Sleep Number booth visitors were invited to wear a Microsoft HoloLens mixed reality headset for a sensory and immersive experience that let attendees see, feel and hear the 360 smart bed benefits. More Sleep Number photos here.
9. Vignettes: In a larger island exhibit, there’s more space to create vignettes that showcase your products within a replica of your buyer’s environment. Buyers can more easily visualize using your products with a custom vignette.
To help buyers envision how the elegance of Delta’s faucets matches the elegance of a luxury home, we built a vignette of a high-end kitchen. More Delta Faucet photos here.
10. Reception Desk: The larger your exhibit is, the more likely you will need a reception or information desk. This is where attendees go when they have a meeting scheduled with a booth staffer, or want help finding a specific product, brand or division within your exhibit. A reception desk is often placed on the exhibit perimeter, or a prominent corner.
To welcome and filter visitors into their closed space, LiSEC’s GlassBuild exhibit featured a reception desk next to the largest booth entrance. More LiSEC photos here.
11. Raised Stage: Whether it’s for a presenter, interview, panel discussion, or a performance, a raised stage is easier to fit into a larger exhibit space without harming traffic flow for the entire exhibit.
Sleep Number featured interviews with their executives as well as special guest Katie Couric on a temporary stage within their exhibit at CES 2019. More Sleep Number CES 2019 photos here.
12. Fulfilling a Specific One-Time Objective – For objectives such as New Product Launches, some exhibitors who usually exhibit in small island exhibits will temporarily scale up to a larger booth size to highlight a significant one-time objective such as a new product launch. These exhibitors want to call attention to their game-changing new product.
The Sleep Number exhibit at CES 2020 was a platform to announce Sleep Number’s launch of the new Climate360 Smart Bed. More Sleep Number photos here.
Elements You Have More of in a Large Island Exhibit
These are popular elements that are often used within any island exhibit. However, when your island exhibit is larger, you likely dedicate even more space for them.
13. More Big Products: For some industries that revolve around giant machines, their need for space to demo their big products is a top reason exhibitors go with a larger exhibit.
Almost half of Elopak’s exhibit features large, functioning packaging equipment in their Pack Expo booth.
14. More Product Displays: Bigger exhibits provide opportunity for greater merchandising, letting exhibitors reveal the depth of their offerings and making it easier for buyers to compare products on the spot.
With multiple sizable product displays, visitors to Brizo’s exhibit can compare the wide variety of product lines, styles, and finishes. More Brizo photos here.
15. More/Larger Hanging Signs: To create impressive mass, define their space, and help visitors see their exhibit from far away, large island exhibitors hang bigger signs or multiple signs. They communicate their brand message, and can also architecturally help reflect the brand’s personality.
A vivid, curved hanging sign boldly announces Vital from anywhere on the show floor, while unifying the visual look of various exhibit elements underneath it. More Vital photos here.
16. More Hospitality Space: Large island exhibitors are more likely to be leading companies with high market share, and thus often desire more hospitality space to entertain their substantial existing customer base. Hospitality space is also more prominent for companies with long sales cycles or very high average sales dollars.
In a 100’ x 120’ space, KraussMaffei’s pavilion included first and second level hospitality zones, even a full kitchen and bar. More KraussMaffei photos here.
17. More Meeting Space: Exhibitors often choose large island exhibit spaces to have more room to host comfortable conversations. Meeting space may be open, semi-private, or private, depending on length of the meetings, number of participants, desire to avoid distractions like sounds, and the need for confidentiality. Some of this extra meeting space may be added with double decks.
Most of ReSound’s exhibit at the American Academy of Audiology Show was dedicated to meeting spaces. There were even meeting spaces identified for people from specific regions of the country. More ReSound photos here.
18. More Truss Lighting: Large island exhibits require more lighting to keep from becoming dark and uninviting. And that usually means lighting hung from overhead truss. Truss lighting is a key part of creating a welcoming environment.
Truss suspended from the ceiling for the Sleep Number CES 2022 exhibit not only held white and blue LED par can lights, but also supported structures hung from the truss. More Sleep Number photos here.
19. More Storage: As you scale up your booth size, you also scale up your need for storage for staffer personal items, giveaways, and technology. Storage may be spread across multiple cabinets or an actual storage closet built inside a tower or adjacent to a conference room.
Make the Most of Your Biggest Opportunities
A large island exhibit can give you more of why you exhibit in the first place: More brand visibility, conversations, product demos, sales leads, and happy customers. It all adds up to a massive presence.
To get more out of your large island exhibit, we hope you leverage several of the ideas we shared in this article. We would love to talk to you about your next island exhibit design, to take your program to the next level.
