Take a stand - how brands can make the most of live events and dazzle their audiences

Are you gearing up for some real-life B2B events this year? We are!

That's why we invited Gemma Shaw from Insideout Events to chat about something we've all been missing this year. For brands, events are fantastic places to connect with customers and reel in new ones. That's why your stand design should be on point.

In this episode, we discuss what makes a great stand to engage visitors with, how to work with your stand designer and what you need to look out for as we emerge from the pandemic.


Interviewer: Amy Burchill  https://www.linkedin.com/in/amy-burchill-64b53361/

Guest speaker: Gemma Shaw  https://www.linkedin.com/in/gemma-shaw-6875b682/

Podcast produced by Let’s Talk Video Production: https://letstalkvideoproduction.com

Transcript

Hello and welcome to The Big Bright podcast. I'm Amy, the Marketing Executive at Bright and today we'll be chatting about something we've not talked about in a long time -  events! Real-life, in-person events. I'm joined by Gemma Shaw, Managing Director of Inside Out events who specialise in designing and building stands, an essential component for any business wishing to, quite literally, stand out in-person events. In this episode, we'll be discussing what makes a great stand to engage visitors with, how to work with your sound designer and what you need to look out for as we emerge from the pandemic.

Thanks so much for joining me today, we're absolutely thrilled to have you! It's so great to finally be talking about real events. Virtual has been a great substitute, but it's not quite the same thing. So, to give our listeners a bit of context, we are working with you for our stand at the B2B Marketing Expo that's happening in November. Just to give them a little insight into you, please tell us a little bit about Inside Events.

Firstly, thanks for having me on. I'm really happy to be here. Inside Out specialises in the design and build of exhibition stands on a global scale. We mainly work at venues in the UK and in Europe including the Netherlands, France and Germany. But we also do stands outside of European countries such as Dubai and the US where we will design the stand and plan everything for the customer. But another company will build it in that country.

We are predominantly a family-based business. Originally, it used to be my dad, my step mum, my brother, my uncle, and my cousin who worked here too, and a lot of old school friends as well, but since the pandemic, we had to downscale, and now there's just myself and my cousin left out of the family and some of the older staff have stayed as well. We're based in Redditch, which is in the West Midlands. So there are good transport links to the whole of the UK.

The advantage of having a family-run business, I guess is that you get to work a lot closer with your clients?

It might make me a really rubbish salesperson because I find myself being a bit too honest with my customers. I sort of treat them as I would my family members. I work with customers more on a personal level. So if something's really not going to work for what they want on their stand, I will let them know that in advance rather than sort of selling the dream. I think sometimes that works in our favour.

I know that you're now the Managing Director. Is this something you've always wanted to do with your career?

My dad's had events businesses for the last 14 years. I never even considered that I would go down that path. I went to University and I studied Fashion Buying and Merchandising and worked as an assistant buyer for a year and then went into recruitment. I suppose I always had a bit of an entrepreneurial spirit though because after a few months in the recruitment agency I decided to set up on my own. So myself and my friends started a recruitment agency which specialised in fashion buying and merchandising roles. Whilst I was doing that I was still living with my dad at the time and learning more and more about his business. I did used to do the odd bits of work for him during school holidays and stuff, but I'd find it a bit boring. But as I lived with him and I'd sort of grown tired of recruitment, I went with to him one day and asked if I could join the business.

Something that I did miss out on as well is he had one events business for a few years. And then he bought another events business, which used to build the stands. He wanted to try and keep customers but after buying the business he didn't really do anything with it, he didn't really have much time because he has so much going on with his other business. So, I went to him and proposed that I come on and join and see what I could do with that business that was a bit dormant at the time. So I joined in 2016 and grew the business by about 200% in the first year. I just really got my teeth sunk in there and loved everything about it and here we are five years later.

I understand that you got a 30 under 30 Award as well, last year?

Yeah, so I was elected for the 30 under 30 awards. There's a company called Exhibition News who just produce all information about the exhibition industry and they sort of run the award and I was elected for all the work that I've done for Inside Out.
 
That's fantastic. Congratulations. So getting back into the events industry, what do you love most about it?

I love the diversity of the business the most. No day is the same. No exhibition stand's the same. No customers are the same either and I love how it challenges you to adapt to new environments and new people all the time. Whilst I'm not a technical designer, I also enjoy the creative side of all. I work a lot with the designer coming up with ideas for the stands and stuff.
And where do you get your inspiration for designs? I suppose in the same question, are there any tips you can give to businesses who are designing stands?

I spend a lot of time in exhibition halls. So we'll get to see a lot of what other businesses are doing. So I guess for people who are exhibiting for the first time, it will be worth them looking at the event that they're planning to exhibit at and having a look at customers who have exhibited there before and see if they can find what the other stands look like. So there's a lot of just picking up things that you've seen out and about on the exhibition floor. Lately, home trends are being incorporated into exhibition stands more. We do get a lot of inspiration from what we see in the shops and what we like for our homes as well.

So tell us about why it's important that businesses need to get their stands right at events?

So I think I've read somewhere previously that companies generate approximately a third of their revenue from exhibits and events. Therefore if you're going to generate a third of your revenue, you want to make sure you're investing the right sort of money into it. I mean, exhibiting is really expensive, you tend to pay anywhere between £200 to £400 per square metre, just for the space alone. And then again, if not more to fill the space, so nobody can afford to waste money, you need to make sure you make an impact and either have somebody within the business or outsource somebody who knows what they're doing.
So just like you so we came to you, I think it was last year for the event that was then canceled, obviously. And I know that Vic who was working with you at the time, she'd never done anything like this before. So you were amazing at helping her understand the things that she needs to bear in mind. Which brings me nicely on to my next question, What tips do you have for businesses who are ordering stands for the first time? What should they be looking out for? And what should they avoid?

The first thing to outline is your budget. What can you afford to spend on the event? For example, if you've got a 15 grand budget, there's no point in booking a huge space and spending £10,000 on your space, leaving with just five grand to fill the space. Because you're just not gonna make the stand look good and fill in the space with a fraction of your budget. Nobody really cares about how big your stand is, people are attracted to how it looks. So if you are a bit limited on budget, I would recommend you go in with a smaller stand space and then spend more money on filling the stands and just putting some really nice fancy features in it that are really gonna grab people's attention. At the end of the day, image is everything.

Another thing to consider is to factor in all your other costs, including your staff expenses, your hotels and your travel. Think about what staff you're actually going to send to the show. You want someone upbeat and personable, not someone who's going to be stood on their phone all the time.

Another thing to consider is what your aim is for the event. Are you going to try and find new customers? Are you going to meet up with current customers? Half of my customers will be looking to pick up new customers. So in that case, they're just wanting to try and meet as many people as possible while they're there, and want people on and off the stand as quickly as they can. So they don't really opt for having a meeting area, because the longer you sat down with one customer, the less time you're going to spend with another because most of the time at a business event, you're not doing any deals on the exhibition stand, you're just going to meet people and show them who you are and what you can do. The hard work is then after the show when you back to those customers, and give them more information about the business. If your aim is to just meet with current customers, you might want a meeting room because you know, if you've got a customer who spends 10 grand a year with you, you don't just want to be fobbing them off at the show. So you might want to sit down and spend more time with them.

Are there any little bits that people forget? I know that we were thinking about electricity points and storage and stuff like that. What are some little bits that people might forget and need to bear in mind?

Everyone's going to need electricity for their stand. If you're working with a stand builder, a lot of the time they will sort that out for you. But I suppose that comes back to costs as well. Things you don't really think about is the fact that you're going to need power to the stand and the electricity at shows is very expensive. For a 500 watt socket, you're looking at paying nearly £200. This means you might also want to consider what electrical appliances you put in on your stand. If you're going to put a coffee machine on there, it's going to need three kilowatts of power. You're going to be looking at spending £600 pounds or something to power that coffee machine. So just weigh up, is it worth having the machine and paying all that for electricity? Or would it work for you to go, for those customers that you spend more time with, go into the Starbucks on-site and buy them a coffee there instead?

Another thing that you might want to consider when planning an exhibition stand, is to think about what exactly you need in your stand. Most people will have a reception or greeting counter, and people will have a screen a lot of the time. Storage rooms also tend to be quite important for a lot of people just so you can put your personal belongings in there. It's also a bit of a sanctuary for people who are working on the stand if they want to go and have five minutes on the phone. I mean, for like nine hours a day, a lot of the time, you do need that time to breathe. So they are a good space to sort of lock yourself away for 10 minutes and then come back out. Obviously, like I said before, it doesn't look great having a mobile phone out on the exhibition stand when you're trying to meet customers. It's very important to have some space to getaway.

Do you have any advice on stand positioning? When you are talking to the event organisers and bargaining where your stand is going to sit. When we spoke two ours, they were saying that we don't want to be near the back wall, you also don't want to be near the centre stage, because people probably won't come to your stand, there'll be to focus on what's happening in the middle. Where's the best area inside an event to put your stand?

The organisers are right in saying that a lot of the time, you're obviously going to be better off if you're closer to the entrance. Or if you've got a stand that spaced in like the main walkway, or if you're near a coffee place where people get coffee, or if you're near a lot of events tend to have like a meeting zone where you can get coffee and cake and stuff in the centre of the hall. Always good to be around there because obviously going to get a lot of people congregating around there. Saying that most people who are attending an event are going for a purpose, and they're looking for something for their business or something for them personally so most of the time people will walk up and down every single aisle. Whilst you are probably going to get more of a footfall in those busier areas like the entrance area and around any sort of coffee or meetup areas, for anyone who's actually looking for something at a show. You're not really going to miss out on the business.

You mentioned earlier about certain trends with stands. Does the sound industry currently have any trends at the moment that we should be aware of?

About five or 10 years ago, it was a big thing where everyone wanted to incorporate their logos into their exhibition stands. So on top of the stand, they'd have curves and stuff which mirror their logos, or they'd have cut-outs in their carpet with their logo on.

This still does happen to an extent but it's a lot more subtle these days. I'd say the current trends at the moment are concentration on lighting that people are using. So it used to be that people just have stem lights to the wall tops, but now people are opting for having beams on the roof of their stand and then hanging ceiling lights or putting some sort of LED tape into things. There is quite a trend for making exhibition stands feel a bit more homely. So you'll see a lot more plants on stands, more natural colours and wood you know a bit of earthy feel to. Lots of interior design vibes. We are also seeing a lot of artificial greenery on walls at the minute. Another trend is always AV you know, it's something that's always evolving. So year on year, you do need to keep up to date on what the latest is in AV trends and ensure you're not using a 15-year-old screen on the stand.

Lots of inspiration for people there who are thinking of designing stands. So I think we have to talk about the issues that have happened in the past year. Obviously, it's affected events massively. What has affected you the most? And what kind of challenges are you still facing at the moment?

So during the pandemic, we diversified and we were making outdoor buildings and storage crates for removals companies. We were finding that all the treated wood that we were trying to buy-in for the sheds and gazebos, etc, that we were making was becoming really hard to get hold of and the prices started going up for it. But we just didn't really consider that that also could be an issue for exhibition stands. So we're back to building exhibition stands now and finding that there is also issues with the wood that we use on exhibition stands. The prices have rocketed massively, the price of MDF alone has gone up by about 140% since we were last at events. So that's a bit of a challenge. And it's also trying to get customers to understand that we're not trying to rip them off or trying to get money back from losing during the pandemic. Another issue that we're probably going to run into as well is transporting exhibition stands to Europe. Obviously, we haven't worked since Brexit has happened, so what we're finding now is we're booking shows for the Netherlands and being told that there's a lot of extra paperwork to be completed and there's a cost with that as well. So there are a few hurdles being thrown our way since then starting back up but I'm hoping that it's all just temporary and we will all come to grips with is soon.

When is your first exhibition?

So our first one is actually next week.

Has that come around quite quickly? I suppose it's been quite stressful.

It's exciting more than anything. Just happy to finally see events start taking place. Yeah,
Yeah, it's fantastic and we can't wait to get back into it again. My final question would be, do you have a feeling from exhibitors about how they're feeling about events opening up again?
Yeah, for the most part, all exhibitors are positive about it. Everyone seems to have tried the digital side of things during the pandemic. And most of the feedback I've had from it hasn't been great. People are really excited to get back to live events. So that's really good news for us. And we're also excited to get back.

Yeah, brilliant. So if anyone wants to find you or get your advice, or you know, hire you for their next stand, how can they get in touch?

We're currently in the process of having a new website built actually, but that should be launching within the next couple of weeks. It'll be Insideout.events, or you can find me on LinkedIn or you can email me Gemma@insideout.eu.com.

To join us at the B2B Marketing Expo in November, head over to b2bmarketingexpo.co.uk. Registration is completely free for visitors and you can sign up to two days of speakers, networking events, masterclasses and more. All in the name of marketing. B2B Marketing Expo takes place at the London Excel, 16th - 17th of November. We hope to see you there!