The life of an exhibitions installer…..
Some clients prefer to turn up to events with their stand all ready to go, and I completely understand why they may want to do this, it takes away the hassle and the stress and it saves on hotel bills. We are the people who fight through the traffic, use all our people charms to find a place to park at the exhibition hall or hotel complex without getting a parking ticket (a huge task I can assure you, especially in London!!)
Reynolds Press are often the first there so the hall is often not cleared from its previous use. Whilst this can be chaotic, it gives us a chance to bag the best place for our client and find a suitably level spot. Being the only ones on site means we have plenty of space to unpack the graphics (in our case we take our own sheeting to protect your graphics from dirty floors).
We have the time to make sure your stand is set up perfectly and arrange your props as per the clients wishes. All plugs, sockets and lighting is tested. Around the time we are leaving, other stand installers are turning up and you can see the envious looks from others wishing their graphics looked as good.
If possible we do a physical hand over to the client but often it is completed before they arrive early the next day. A long trip home follows with maybe a quick McDonalds on the way back and we’ll be in bed sometime in the early hours.
The exhibition break down strangely enough is often more stressful! We have just a tiny window of a couple of hours to clear the space and everyone is doing the same. Fighting for parking spaces, queues at the lifts and corridors is commonplace with people tripping over each other and tempers short from exhibitors having to do their own packing up after a long day manning the stand.
Our chilled out client just leaves it all for us to do and takes the train home (first class I hope after a successful event!)