Having good signage around the venue can do a lot to improve the experience for attendees (and exhibitors). We recommend putting up the following types of signs:
- Signs directing people to the main exhibitor hall, both inside the venue and from nearby parking areas (if you are allowed to do this).
- Signs directing people to each room, for example for speakers, cooking demos, etc. The farther apart each room is, the more signs you’ll need.
- Signs with the day’s schedule. You’ll want to put these outside any rooms where scheduled events (speakers, entertainment, etc.) happen as well as put a few of them in the main hall.
You’ll need to work with your venue to figure how to best to display signs. The venue may not allow you tape signs to the walls, but they may be able to provide you with some easels. If not, you can rent or buy easels to display your signs. Amazon sells collapsible aluminum easels for around $15 each.
It’s nice to print large signs on foam board, but this can be incredibly expensive. A single sign can cost $20 or more. If you’re printing 20 signs then this may not be practical. What we did for Twin Cities Veg Fest 2013 was to buy 22×28 blank foam board and tape two 11×17 prints to each one. This doesn’t look as nice as printing directly on the foam board, but it is much, much cheaper. You can buy 20 sheets of blank foam board for around $50, and printing 40 sheets of 11×17 will cost around $10.
You can see the signs we made for Twin Cities Veg Fest 2013. Some of the documents may not display correctly in the Google Drive viewer. Right click on them and choose “download” to see the complete document.