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Trade fair logistics for your exhibition appearance
If goods, promotional materials and stand equipment are to be at the trade fair venue on time, trade fair logistics determine how relaxed the first hours of the fair will be. Futura Marketing takes over the logistical part of trade fair participation for you: storage, preparation, picking and delivery on schedule. Since 1993, we have been working for this purpose in Kisslegg in the Allgäu, with over 3,000 square metres of heated storage space and a team that has been working together smoothly for years.
Your trade fair goods are stored with us dry and with accurate stock levels between two events. Before the next trade fair, we put together what will actually be travelling, so that the shipment can be ready at the right place at the right time. This applies to an individual in-house exhibition just as much as to an entire season with recurring assignments.
If you are present at several trade fairs and events over the year, the actual effort quickly shifts: it is not in the transport itself, but in the planning and coordination surrounding it. This is exactly the part you hand over to us.
What our trade fair handling covers
Our trade fair handling begins in the warehouse and ends at the ramp of the exhibition hall. We store your goods, assemble them according to your packing list, label them and ship them: within Germany, to neighbouring Austria, to Switzerland and to international trade fairs. Assembly at the exhibition stand remains with your stand builder or agency; we reliably bring the material to where it is needed.
What typically ends up with us? Promotional items, printed materials, catalogues, information material, give-aways and merchandising, plus displays and rollups. The logistical processing runs through the same house that also handles your campaign logistics or your promotional materials logistics. Since both are in the same hands, two systems, two contacts and two inventory lists are eliminated.
As comprehensive or as narrow as you wish: Some customers give us the complete trade fair logistics, others only the storage and shipping of printed materials. Both are trade fair logistics, just with different depth.
Where printed materials are still being produced, we draw on our in-house printing shop. As soon as the print run is finished, brochures, price lists and package inserts go directly into the trade fair warehouse, without a detour through your office.
Storage of stand components and exhibition stands between two dates
After the trade fair the material comes back – and then usually gets in the way. Dismantled exhibition stands, displays and rollups occupy exactly the space that nobody has spare in the office anyway. Trade fair logistics therefore pays off fastest with interim storage between two dates. For this we maintain a dry, heated hall of a good 3,000 square metres, in which even sensitive printed materials come to no harm.
The storage of stand components, of exhibits and trade fair furniture as well as of promotional material runs through the same warehouse logistics as the rest of your range: with daily inventory management and a notification as soon as a minimum quantity is fallen below. Before the next date comes up, you can therefore see what is still there and what needs to be reordered. For exhibitors with several exhibition stands per year, we keep the inventories separate so that the material for the wrong event does not end up on the packing list.
For us, trade fair logistics also includes the way back. Best plan the return transport in right away – we then sort out damaged or outdated items at goods receipt, instead of carrying them along for another year.
Trade fair transports with lead time instead of buffer
Plan with lead time, because it decides the price. The earlier your delivery is fixed, the cheaper and calmer the processing becomes – short-notice special trips regularly cost a multiple. We therefore schedule trade fair transports backwards from the organiser’s delivery date. At this point, trade fair logistics is above all schedule work.
This includes time slots, hall access and the question of whether anyone can even receive the goods at the exhibition stand. We can deliver shipments in advance to a hotel, to the trade fair warehouse or directly to the exhibition grounds, depending on what the organiser permits. For shipping abroad, we prepare the customs documents as well.
The transport route itself is the least critical part. What matters is that the goods get into the vehicle completely and on time – a successful trade fair begins at the packing table, not on the motorway.
Our location in the tri-border region plays to its strength here: from Kisslegg, Stuttgart, Munich, Zurich, Basel and Friedrichshafen can be reached in a few hours. For trade fairs in Switzerland, this saves you the detour via a northern German central warehouse.
Where trade fair logistics tips over in practice
It rarely fails because of the goods. Missing coordination between marketing, stand builder and shipping is the most common cause of a delay, closely followed by the classic of unclear responsibilities shortly before the set-up day. As soon as nobody knows any more who ordered the rollups, they end up in two boxes in two places.
Exact timing can only be kept if one point takes over the coordination of all shipments. We fill precisely this role: one packing list, one shipment number, one contact. We catch short-notice changes as long as the goods have not yet left our house – an additional box of flyers is no drama if it is registered in time.
Packing is done by hand at our premises. A missing stack of brochures or a swapped promotional gift is therefore noticed while still in the warehouse, not only at the stand. This zero-error tolerance is the reason why smooth processes at the trade fair become a habit for our customers – trade fair logistics without rework saves more time than any optimisation of the freight route.
Calculating trade fair logistics costs realistically
What makes up the trade fair logistics costs? Storage costs, handling and transport. This only becomes plannable with reliable figures on the actual consumption per item – our inventory management supplies exactly those for your next budget planning.
Cost control also includes sorting out ballast early. A pallet space for brochures from the previous year costs 12 months of rent without ever being needed. So check the inventory before the trade fair instead of after – trade fair logistics does not get cheaper anywhere else.
Additional requirements such as gift wrapping, personalisation or the shrink-wrapping of sets we calculate in advance and transparently – done by hand and yet cost-effective. We also accept small quantities from 10 pieces, which makes the difference especially with samples and high-quality give-aways.
A comprehensively planned trade fair logistics therefore rarely pays off via the individual freight price, but via the trips that do not become necessary in the first place.
Outsourcing trade fair logistics: trade fair and event logistics from a single source
You would like to outsource your trade fair logistics and still keep the trade fair logistics under control? Then you do not need a corporation, but someone who answers the phone. A fixed contact person looks after your trade fair appearance with us from the first packing list onwards – even when the set-up day falls on a Saturday.
As a trade fair logistics service provider, we adapt to your existing IT instead of prescribing a system to you. Goods without a barcode? Not an exclusion criterion – we reliably pick by article number or description as well. For transport to European countries abroad, we work with fixed shipping partners. If you compare several trade fair logistics providers, this very question is worth asking: who adapts to whom?
From many years of experience with trade fair and event logistics, we know how far the requirements diverge between a multi-day trade fair and a one-day customer event. For events beyond the classic trade fair, you will find our event logistics as a separate area; we handle the finishing and packaging of your trade fair packages via our finishing.
Well-planned trade fair logistics is recognisable by the fact that it remains invisible. Send us your trade fair date and your packing list, then we will calculate the full service for trade fair and event logistics for you – without obligation and with a clear view of what you really need. For national and international trade fair participations, we plan the event logistics so that your participation in a trade fair begins with the set-up and not with the search for a box. A successful trade fair has many participants – at the beginning, however, there is still a reliably packed pallet.
