Count Back From Opening Day: The Stand Timeline Nobody Gives First-Time Exhibitors

WTM London 2025 opened at ExCeL on 4 November. Its cheapest electrics price closed on 2 October, 33 days before, and the standard rate ended on 20 October, 15 days before. Lab Innovations at the NEC opens on 4 November 2026, and its exhibitor forms were due on 21 September, 44 days out, with a 25% surcharge for anyone late. Those are the deadlines that get noticed. The ones that decide whether a stand is ready come a lot earlier.

The deadlines that arrive after the decisions

GES, one of the largest official contractors at UK shows, sets out a planning checklist that starts six months before opening. That is the point to settle a budget, set goals and choose a stand partner. At five months the design is finalised and the power supply is ordered, and at three to four months the final graphics are approved, with a note that missing the print deadline is a common pitfall. The exhibitor manual, which holds the show’s own deadlines, tends to open around four to six months out, as covered in why the best time to book next year’s stand is at this year’s show. Put the two side by side and a brief written when the manual arrives is already a month or two behind the checklist.

Count back and see where the weeks go

Start from opening day and subtract. Six weeks back is where forms like the Lab Innovations ones tend to fall due, and anything that misses it pays a surcharge. Five weeks back is roughly where WTM’s early bird price on electrics ended. Both of those assume the floor plan is already fixed, because electrical orders ask for a diagram of where everything sits, which is why the electrics deadline is really a design deadline in disguise. Go further back and the design has to be signed off before that, and a contractor has to be chosen before the design starts. Each step needs the step before it finished, so a delay at the front pushes every later deadline closer without moving any of them.

The result is that the real timeline is set by the earliest dependency, not by the last visible deadline. An exhibitor who thinks of the stand as something that starts when the manual lands is working with perhaps ten weeks. One who counts back from opening day, and treats the checklist’s six months as the real start, has room to compare contractors, change their mind once, and still land the early price on everything that has one. It also matters for the sort of tender that works, since builders asked to quote with five weeks to go are being asked to price a job they cannot fit in properly, a theme that links to why shortlists should stay short.

What this means for a brief

The practical fix is to write the brief with the show date at the top and the dates for each stage listed underneath it, counted back from opening day. That gives a contractor a schedule to say yes or no to, and makes it obvious which parts are already behind. These dates come from 2025 and 2026 show forms and a supplier checklist, so the exact weeks will vary by show and venue, but the order of the steps does not.

Stand Between introduces exhibitors to contractors who start counting from opening day, not from the day the exhibitor manual arrives. If a show is on the calendar and the design has not started, get in touch with Stand Between while there is still room to choose.