A few square metres and a few seconds — the booth has to say what you do from eight feet away.
A trade show gives you a few square metres and a few seconds. The booth next to you has the same floor space, the same lighting and roughly the same budget, so the thing that decides whether someone stops is how quickly a passer-by can tell what you do from eight feet away.
Caspian Signs & Graphics designs, prints and builds trade show and event graphics for exhibitors in Vancouver, Burnaby, North Vancouver and across British Columbia. Printing and finishing are done in our own shop, which matters on this kind of work because show dates do not move.
Trade show work is quoted as a package, because almost nobody orders a single piece. What drives the number is how much of the booth is printed, whether there is a built backwall or a fabric system, and how much design work sits with us.
Send us the booth size, the show, and whether it is an inline booth or a corner or island, and we will come back with a line-by-line quote. We will also price the reusable parts separately, so you can see what carries over to the next show instead of being thrown away with this one.
| Booth size & type | A 10x10 inline booth, a corner, and an island that is seen from four sides are three different jobs. |
|---|---|
| Backwall system | A printed fabric pop-up, a tension-fabric frame and a built modular wall sit at different price points. |
| Printed area | Graphics are priced by the square foot, like any large-format print. |
| Reusable or single-use | Hardware you keep costs more up front and less per show afterwards. |
| Design work | Supplying print-ready artwork costs less than having us lay the booth out. |
| Hanging elements | Overhead signs usually need show-provided rigging, which is ordered through the show, not through us. |
| Turnaround | A rush before a fixed show date costs more than a normal schedule. |
| Vancouver Convention Centre | The region’s main show venue, east and west buildings. Large halls with high ceilings, so anything overhead gets noticed. Rigging is arranged through the show, not through your sign company. |
|---|---|
| PNE & Hastings Park | Consumer shows and fairs, some of it outdoors. Outdoor elements need mesh and weighted bases, not indoor hardware. |
| BC Place & hotel ballrooms | Conferences and corporate events downtown. Tight load-in windows and hotel-specific rules on what may be attached to anything. |
| Tradex, Abbotsford | Larger industrial and trade events out in the Valley. Worth building for transport, because it is a drive each way. |
| Richmond & airport hotels | Smaller trade and industry events. Bilingual booth graphics are common. |
| Markets & street festivals | Granville Island, Commercial Drive, Main Street. Table covers, feather flags and tent branding that packs into a car. |
The most common mistake is designing the backwall like a brochure. It gets read on a screen, at full size, by someone who already knows the company — and then it goes up in a hall where nobody is standing still.
A few things that consistently work. Put the single clearest statement of what you do at the top of the wall, large, because the bottom third will be hidden behind your table and your staff. Keep the top of the backwall clear of detail if there is a hanging sign above it. Use far fewer words than feels comfortable. And remember your own people are part of the visual — a booth designed with no space for two staff to stand ends up with them blocking the message.
If you give us the booth dimensions and the show rules, we will lay it out around those constraints rather than handing you a design that breaks them at load-in.
Most exhibitors do more than one show. The money is wasted when every piece is single-use, and saved when the structure is permanent and only the graphic changes.
Tension fabric systems are the clearest example: the aluminum frame lasts for years, and a new printed face for the next show costs a fraction of a new display. Retractable stands work the same way — the cassette and base are reusable and only the printed panel is replaced. Even the dates and show-specific messaging can be put on a separate small panel rather than printed into the main wall, so one piece becomes obsolete instead of the whole booth.
Tell us at the start if you expect to do several shows and we will build for it. It changes what we recommend.
Show dates are the one deadline that genuinely does not move, so we work backwards from load-in rather than from the order date. Two things catch exhibitors out. The first is the show manual: most shows set rules on maximum height, on what an inline booth may do versus a corner or island, and on whether anything may be hung or attached to venue surfaces. Read it before the design is finalised, not after. The second is shipping and material handling — if the booth is going to a show outside the region, the way it packs affects what it costs to get there, and that is worth considering while it is still being designed.
We can deliver locally, and for out-of-town shows we will pack it so it travels. If you are an out-of-province exhibitor coming to a Vancouver show and would rather not ship your display across the country, we can print the graphics here instead — and we also receive and install displays shipped in from elsewhere.
Two to three weeks is comfortable for a full booth package, including proofing and any changes. Faster is often possible because we print in our own shop — tell us the show date and we will tell you honestly what is achievable.
A printed fabric face with a silicone edge that zips into a groove in an aluminum frame. No visible fixings, no glare under show lighting, it packs down small, and you can order a new printed face for the next show while keeping the frame.
Usually yes. Send us a photo of the hardware and the dimensions of the existing graphic, and we will print a replacement face to fit it.
We can make the sign. The rigging itself is almost always arranged through the show or venue, and many shows only allow it for island booths. Check your show manual, and tell us the height restriction before we build.
Yes, we deliver locally. For shows outside the region we pack the display so it travels safely.
Yes, in two ways: we can print your booth graphics here so you are not shipping them across the country, and we can receive and install a display that is being shipped in.
A tension fabric backwall and a good table cover. Those two cover the whole visible area of a 10x10 booth and both are reusable.
We make tension fabric backwalls, pop-up displays, retractable banners, table covers, counter wraps, step-and-repeat backdrops, hanging signs and event graphics for exhibitors across Vancouver, Burnaby, North Vancouver and the rest of British Columbia.
Caspian Signs & Graphics carries liability insurance and WorkSafeBC coverage, so your project is protected from start to finish.
Or call +1 236-591-3235 — we answer during shop hours.
Also see: Banners | Large Format Printing | Floor Graphics | Retail Display Installation | Sign Shop in Vancouver, BC | Sign Shop in Burnaby, BC