Five Great Shell Scheme Stand Ideas on a Budget

Looking for Shell Scheme stand ideas in 2023 but on a tight budget for the show? To make a great stand you don’t have to spend a fortune, all it takes is a little time, creativity and effort to make your stand pop.

Try to avoid anything that is too bespoke as this can quickly use a large chunk of your budget. Instead, look for new ways to use pre-designed products or things you already have. Every stand needs one ‘hero’ piece, this should be reusable for other events and even stored in your offices or showroom. Counters, shelving, lightboxes, logo panels all can be used outside of the stand. Paint in general is the easiest and least expensive way to transform off the shelf displays to match your brand.

There’s so much you can do with a little imagination. Here are some of our shell scheme stand ideas we’ve been used before to great effect!

1. Create furniture from SRPs

These eye-catching counters are a great place for visitors to stand and meet. There’s a simple wooden frame inside the wall of Shelf-Ready-Packs (SRPs) to support the table tops and to make the counter stable. We used spruce plywood, available in most hardware stores, to create the natural wood countertops. As the countertops are supported with the wooden frame, the SRPs can be opened for sampling and this area of the stand used for storage throughout the show.

2. Use Ikea shelving

Ikea makes some of the best designed (and affordable) white shelving available. Rude Health has used their FJÄLKINGE metal white shelves at countless shows – as the shelves are steel they are strong enough to take the weight of hundreds of packs and can be built and dismantled many many times.

The ubiquitous Kallax can’t be beaten as one of the cheapest big shelving walls around. They are best transported fully assembled, as they aren’t designed to be taken apart. Check the size of your van as these 10x square units only just fit in a Sprinter van! For this Full Green stand, we printed square graphics to fill random squares to brand some of the shelves.

3. Build portable exhibition counters

One of our favourite shell scheme stand ideas, these versatile box counters are great for creating a focal point on your shell scheme. They have open backs, which means you can store coats, bags and stock out of sight. As they have strong wheels, they can be used to transport the stock through the show hall. They are transported in the van fully assembled so you can fill them with stock, or other stand kit whilst in storage.

We build the counter units from plywood for lightness and strength, then brand the front and sides with printed graphic panels. These panels are fixed to the counters with Velcro so can be removed and kept safe whilst the units are in transit. The countertops can also be painted any brand colour.

If you’re looking for a good paint to brand your exhibition kit, consider Valspar Eggshell, available from B&Q. This paint can be mixed to match most brand colours, just take them a sample colour from a pack, brochure or Pantone book and they’ll scan and mix the paint while you wait. (We have no affiliation to B&Q!)

We also stock a range of off-the-shelf counters that can branded to your designs available here.

4. Install your own backdrop

The back walls of a shell scheme stand tend to look pretty awful if left unbranded. A quick and easy way of branding the backdrop to your stand is to use freestanding graphic walls. These graphics sit in front of the shell scheme posts and don’t damage the shell scheme in any way (you don’t want to make any damage and risk a hefty fine). The backdrops are easy to install and just as quick to take down, they fit in the boot of a car and can link together to create larger formats.

5. Bring your own furniture

Hiring furniture from the show organisers can be quite expensive, so if you’re going to more than one show it could make sense to buy your own. To save space in transit, we love these stylish stacking Tolix style stools. These stools can be spray painted to match your brand colour too!

We’re here to help

Looking for more shell scheme stand ideas? We’d love to help you with your stand design for your next event – we offer completely free stand design and quoting. Whether you’re looking for the whole stand service or just a part of the display, we can help.

We offer completely free exhibition shell scheme stand design and quoting. Please email Dan Speich, head of projects and planning at [email protected] or call +44 (0)800 464 7974 to get started.