Trade Show Table Covers – Is Yours Boring?
The average trade show has over 400 booths and presenters and can have thousands of attendants. With so many people in one place, trade shows are still an incredible resource for businesses to make an impression and present their products and services.
So how do you maximize impact at trade shows?
Brochures with eye-popping graphics and great information? No. Videos that explain how much better your company is than your competition? No. Free pizza for everyone? Maybe. All these things are helpful, but none of them will be noticed if you overlook the same thing many businesses regularly fail to consider.
Get Yourself a Personalized Trade Show Table Cover
Many event coordinators provide black or white table covers and far too many presenters accept these bland, blank, boring blankets as standard operating procedure. Alliteration aside, even if businesses do realize personalized table covers are beneficial, they usually still underestimate their importance. They throw a simple logo on the same white or black background and call it a day. Talk about a waste of money!
What these presenters miss is that trade show table covers make the first impression. The boring clothes that suffocate other booths should not be completely ignored, however.
Let me explain by sharing a personal story.
A few years ago I was working as a part-time analyst for a company that prepared scouting reports for basketball coaches to prepare for their upcoming opponents. At the same time, I was covering local sports and even secured media credentials to a few games and events.
One of these events was the National Association of Basketball Coaches annual conference and while preparing to write about it, I noticed that the scouting company had purchased a new booth. Since my job was done entirely online, I was looking forward to putting a name to a face and meeting my bosses. Obviously, I was disappointed when I walked around the show for four hours and didn’t see their booth.
The second day I got a map and saw that my employer actually did have a booth. I walked straight to it and immediately understood how I had missed them.
Most of the booths, including my employer’s, had black table covers. Their table had a personalized cover but it was also black with a small logo which could not be seen clearly because the cloth had folded. To make matters worse, their display background and both of the computers on the table were black so they truly did blend into their surroundings.
Think about that for a second. I knew exactly which trade show booth I was looking for and still didn’t see them because their trade show table covers camouflaged the booth.
The point is, you have to take your surroundings into account when designing your trade show table covers or your investment in the booth is nothing more than a wasted weekend and a sore back. Use something as simple as a logo tablecloth to separate yourself from the proverbial herd or the $500 box of brochures will be riding back to the office with you.