3 Trade Show Lighting Tips to Make Your Booth Shine

Imagine the scene: You’re at a large industry trade show, walking the exhibit floor to see what’s new. You come across two booths side-by-side that are nearly identical, with one exception. One booth relies on bright ambient light from the conference hall. The other uses beautiful LED lighting to light up the booth and accent feature areas.

Even to the most casual passerby, there’s a dramatic difference between the two. Because of effective exhibit lighting, one booth is a bright beacon attracting attendees’ attention while the other fades into the background.

Mike Kolz, project manager at Alexis Exhibits, weighs in with three trade show lighting tips to make your booth shine on the show floor.

Tip #1: Try Backlighting

Backlighting is defined as illuminating a material or image from behind or within — for example, a backlit keyboard that makes it easier to type in a darkened room.

Backlighting is an important trade show technique to attract attention. As Kolz says, “we’ve been using HitLights products to add backlighting to showcases and signage for the past several years.” Signage or materials lit from behind or within tend to be more visible from longer distances — perfect for catching attendees’ eyes on a large show floor.

Using backlighting is a simple and inexpensive way to make your exhibit pop. It makes colors appear brighter and text easier to read, giving more focused attention to your branding and message. For example, light up the smallest of spaces by inserting flexible LED lighting between two graphic panels to highlight important product information.

Tip #2: Experiment to Capture Attention

It’s hard to draw attention on the show floor, with hundreds of companies selling similar or identical products. Standing out is critical.

“Exhibit properties with lighting tend to draw more attention than non-lit exhibits, and attendees are more likely to stop at booths that capture their attention,” Kolz says.

Make your booth memorable by adding lighting touches from the top of your exhibit to eye-level. Kolz suggests experimenting with simple touches to capture attention and draw people in. “It can be as simple as using a backlit logo, a backlit hanging sign or placing custom edge lighting around the booth perimeter.”

Tip #3: Quality Counts

The only thing that could be worse than no lighting is inconsistent lighting quality. Often exhibitors realize too late that a theoretically identical replacement light actually has a different color temperature or brightness than lighting products already used in the rest of the exhibit. The resulting off-color appearance detracts from a positive overall brand impression and experience.

Purchasing reliable and quality lighting products keeps your trade show exhibit shining bright. “HitLights provides us with great quality lighting products that have consistent lighting properties, which allows us to engineer the backlit portions of exhibits without having to do a bunch of light color testing on each project,” Kolz says.

The right high-quality lights also go a long way to establishing the overall mood. Warm-temperature lights set an inviting scene, while cool-temperature lights evoke a clean, contemporary atmosphere. Kolz says that’s an important tip for making a big impact. “By using quality products, we’ve been able to bring both our designers’ and clients’ concepts to reality.”

Image: Alexis Exhibits

Looking for other trade show lighting tips? Download our new e-book with the three most common event lighting dilemmas — and the upgrades to make to improve your brand presence.

About HitLights
HitLights delivers LED lighting solutions for event exhibits, displays, signs, theater and film productions, and manufacturing. CEO Bin Yu formed the company through the Louisiana State University Business Incubator Program in 2010. Since then HitLights has grown to become a major player the LED industry. Customers come to HitLights for quality products, helpful customer service and creative solutions.