Common questions
Frequently asked questions
The questions that come up before a quote. If yours isn't here, just ask.
Cost
- What determines the cost of a stand?
- Five things set the cost of a stand: floor area, number of storeys, the complexity of the structure, material quality and the calendar. A price per square metre on its own is misleading — two 50 m² stands, one flat-walled and the other a double-decker with a suspended ceiling, do not take the same work. Veneer, glass, backlit surfaces and bespoke furniture are the items that move the figure fastest. Time left before the fair is part of the price too: a short calendar means overtime and expedited production.
- Rental modular stand or custom build?
- A rental modular stand costs less to get into; a custom build is shaped around the brand and its parts can be used again at later fairs. Modular systems come out of stock, so they go up quickly, but the geometry is only what the system allows: a second storey, a custom ceiling or an unusual form is usually off the table. A custom build needs time for design and fabrication; in return, counters, display cases and storage units built as modules stand up again at the next fair. Modular makes sense for a small space and a one-off appearance, custom for repeat appearances where brand presence is the point.
- Are there costs payable to the organiser on top of the stand?
- Yes. What you pay the stand builder and what you pay the organiser are two separate lines. Floor space, the power connection and its meter, water and waste, hall cleaning, rigging rights, forklift and storage, internet, exhibitor badges and, at most fairs, compulsory insurance are charged at the organiser’s own tariff. These are invoiced to the exhibitor and are usually not inside a stand builder’s price. When you compare quotes, asking which side each item sits on tells you more than comparing a price per square metre.
- Is design charged separately?
- An answer to this is being prepared.
Timing
- How far ahead should we start?
- An answer to this is being prepared.
- What does starting early actually change?
- Starting early lowers the cost and widens what the design can do. Every fair authority has a deadline for the approval file, and the closer you get to it the more expensive changes become — on a double-decker, the time needed for structural calculations and engineer sign-off is the first thing to run out. Decisions taken early spread material procurement across a normal schedule; decisions taken late buy the same work with overtime. Hall position and neighbouring stands are known earlier too, and designing around that information is only possible while there is still time.
Scope
- How many rounds of revision are included?
- An answer to this is being prepared.
- Can we use the stand again at the next fair?
- Reuse is possible, but it has to be decided at the design stage. A stand built as a kit — a frame that bolts apart, wall panels at standard sizes, graphics that can be swapped — goes up again somewhere else; a stand cut and glued together on site is largely lost when it comes down. In practice the next fair gives you a different size and a different number of open sides, so what travels is not the whole stand but the parts: counters, display cases, storage units, light fittings and furniture. Budget for storage, transport and refurbishment as well — usually cheaper than building again from nothing, but never free.
- Do you book the floor space as well?
- The space contract is between the exhibitor and the organiser; the stand builder builds on top of it. You choose the location with the organiser’s sales team, and that choice comes before the design: the number of open sides, where the columns are, which face looks onto the main aisle and where you sit in the hall are the starting data for the design. Once you have signed, all the builder needs from you is the floor plan and the technical manual — along with the letter that authorises the builder to work on your space.
- What format should we send our artwork in?
- Anything going to print has to be either vector or high resolution at final print size. Logos as .ai, .eps or vector .pdf; photography as CMYK at 100–150 dpi at print size; fonts either embedded or converted to outlines. A logo pulled off a website cannot be used on a three-metre wall, and scaling it up does not fix it. If you have brand guidelines, send them with the colour references at the start — any colour without a Pantone reference is a guess at the printer.
- We cannot travel to Turkey before the fair. Can the whole process run remotely?
- Yes, and most of the process runs on drawings and images anyway. The site visit is replaced by the organiser’s floor plan and technical manual: stand dimensions, open sides, columns and ducts, height limits all come from those documents. Approval is given on dimensioned plans and a photorealistic 3D render; asking for workshop photos during production and daily photos from the hall during build-up is a normal request, and you should make it. The one real risk in working remotely is decision lag: a time difference and a long approval chain eat the calendar one revision round at a time.
- Do you work at fairs outside Turkey?
- An answer to this is being prepared.
Logistics
- Do you handle the fair authority approval process?
- The company building the stand prepares and follows the approval file; it is a standard part of a stand builder’s job and it is inside our scope. Every venue has a technical manual: maximum heights, rules for ceilings and rigging, which materials need a flame-retardancy certificate, and structural calculations with engineer sign-off for anything double-decked. The builder submits plans, sections and elevations by the date the authority sets, and the authority asks for revisions if something is missing. What is usually needed from the exhibitor is just the space contract and the letter authorising the builder.
- What happens if the design does not get approved?
- A rejection almost never means the stand cannot be built; the authority states which clause it failed and asks for a revision. The usual reasons are exceeding the height limit, leaving the face towards a neighbouring stand open, rigging requests that do not match the hall structure, and missing flame-retardancy certificates. Submitting the file ahead of the deadline exists for exactly this reason: to leave room in the calendar for a revision. Items awaiting approval are scheduled last in production, because anything built before sign-off is built at risk.
- Do we need to be there during build-up?
- You do not need to be there for the build itself, but it helps if one person takes handover before the doors open. Structure, flooring, cladding, graphics and lighting are the builder’s work and get finished without the exhibitor. Product placement, how samples and brochures are laid out, handover of storage and keys, and checking screens and internet are decisions that need you before opening. If you are not travelling, that handover can run on photos and video — what matters is working through one checklist and logging any snags against the opening, not against the end of the fair.
- How do we get our exhibits and materials into Turkey?
- Goods that will be shown at the fair and then leave the country normally enter under temporary admission, most often on an ATA Carnet — Turkey is a party to the ATA Convention. Goods on a carnet come in without duty being paid and leave the same way; if they do not leave, duty is charged against the carnet. Items that will not go home — brochures, giveaways, tasting samples — are not exhibits: they are treated as a normal import and can be taxed. Most fairs appoint an official freight agent, and in-hall unloading and forklift work is usually that agent’s monopoly, so your shipping schedule has to be built around their window. Customs handling varies with the cargo and the country of origin, so run it through a freight forwarder or a customs broker rather than improvising at the border.
- Nobody on our team speaks Turkish. Is that a problem on site?
- Speaking Turkish on the fairground is the builder’s job, not the exhibitor’s. Power connections, forklifts, cleaning, water and rigging are arranged between the builder and the organiser; the exhibitor is not in that correspondence. The only thing that matters on your side is having one named person on site, with a phone number, who speaks a language you share — ask for that by name at contract stage. At the large Istanbul venues, exhibitor services for international fairs run in English, but site crews and subcontractors mostly work in Turkish: the fix is a single point of contact, not an interpreter.
Commercial
- What are the payment terms?
- An answer to this is being prepared.
- What should we watch for when contracting a stand builder in another country?
- Five things have to be written down: scope, schedule, currency, who pays what, and what counts as handover. Scope should be a list — which furniture is included, whether graphic printing is in, whether the power and cleaning charges payable to the organiser sit inside the price. The schedule should separate design approval, submission of the authority file and the hour the build has to be finished; since the opening time is fixed, that last one is the only truly binding date. Currency, who carries exchange-rate movement, which legal entity is invoiced and which law applies in a dispute all belong in the contract from the start.
- Who carries the risk if the design is rejected or the authority intervenes on site?
- An answer to this is being prepared.
- Can you invoice our company abroad, and does Turkish VAT apply?
- An answer to this is being prepared.
Start here
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