It has to fit the stand you booked
A Crack the Code safe takes 2ft by 2ft. A Racing Car Simulator wants 10ft by 10ft once you allow room to sit down and get out again. Getting this wrong costs you the stand, not the game.
Games for Trade Shows and Exhibition Stands
We hire out the sort of thing that gives a visitor a reason to stop at your stand, and gives your team a reason to start talking to them.
What the job actually is
An exhibition stand has one problem, which is that people walk past it. They are walking past forty other stands as well, and most of those look much the same from the aisle: a pull-up banner, a bowl of sweets and a couple of people waiting to be approached. A game changes the odds because it gives somebody a reason to break step, and once they have broken step your team has an opening that doesn't begin with "can I tell you about what we do".
We have been sending games to trade shows for over twenty years, and the pattern is fairly consistent. The game does the stopping and your people do the selling, and what we can do is make sure the thing on your stand is the right size, arrives when the hall says it can arrive, and looks like it was made for your campaign rather than hired in.
What a show floor demands of the kit
These six decide whether a game works on a stand or gets in the way.
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Rounds have to be short
Thirty seconds to a minute is about right. Long enough that somebody commits, short enough that the person behind them doesn't wander off before they get a go.
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Noise has to suit your neighbours
Organisers do enforce sound limits, and the stand next door will complain before the organiser does. Reaction walls and safe games are quiet. Arcade cabinets are not.
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Build-up windows are tight
Most halls give you a fixed slot with a fixed loading bay and a marshal enforcing both. We work to the times on your organiser manual rather than turning up when it suits the van.
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Somebody has to run it
A game with nobody stood next to it gets played wrong and breaks the queue. We brief your stand staff on handover, or supply our own people if you would rather not tie yours up.
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Paperwork lands before you do
Risk assessments and method statements emailed to you or your venue before the event.
The games that go to shows most often
These are the ones that get booked for stands week in, week out. Prices start at £145 for the Axe Throwing Safe and run to £1,995 for a Sega Rally 2 twin sit-down.
Batak Pro Reaction Game
From £495
Batak Lite Reaction Game
From £395
Whack a Mole
From £445
Prize Crane Arcade Grabber
From £495
Crack the Code
From £395
Gold Bar Challenge
From £395
Grab a Grand
From £595
The Vault
From £425
Giant Buzz Wire
From £395
Strike a Light
From £395
Racing Car Simulator Hire
From £495
Magnetic Topgear Score Leader Board Hire
From £69
Branding from £49
Making it look like yours
Nearly everything we send to a show can carry your artwork. Back boards, front panels, side wraps, header boards and the leaderboard that sits next to it. The branding is done by our own team before the game leaves Rotherham, so it turns up finished rather than as a hire unit with a vinyl square stuck on the front.
The stands in our photographs are real ones. Specsavers ran a branded Batak Pro at their early careers events, Zip Water put their artwork on a Crack the Code safe, Staysure wrapped a Giant Buzz Wire, and Collect Plus have had both a Whack a Mole and a Grab a Grand done in their colours. Send the artwork and we will come back with a visual before anything gets printed.
Halls we know our way around
Knowing a venue saves you an argument on build-up day. We have supplied stands at ExCeL and Manchester Central for over twenty years, at the NEC since 2018 across more than two dozen bookings, at the ICC Birmingham and Farnborough International since 2019, at Telford since 2018, and at ACC Liverpool since 2016. Harrogate Convention Centre and the Royal Highland Centre are on the list too, along with the rest of the venues we cover.
Exhibitors we have worked for directly include Newsquest Media Group and Farmers Guardian at the NEC, Roke Manor Research and Staysure at Manchester Central, United Biscuits at Telford, and Specsavers, SimplyBiz and United Biscuits at the ICC. A fair bit of our show work also comes through stand builders and activation agencies on a whitelabel basis, where the exhibitor never sees our name on anything.
What we would steer you away from
Not everything in the catalogue belongs on a stand. Anything inflatable needs a blower running all day, which is noise your neighbours will notice and a trip hazard the organiser will query. Funfair rides and helter-skelters are outdoor kit and want more headroom than a hall gives you. Fun food carts pull an enormous crowd but most organisers restrict food service to the caterer who paid for the concession, so check the manual before you fall in love with a candy floss machine.
If your event is a conference rather than an exhibition, the constraints are different enough that we have written a separate page about it. If it's a launch or an activation rather than a show, try product launch games.
What people say
Charlotte H said the team "are professional, the equipment is great quality, and everything arrived on time and exactly as we needed", and that we "helped make our event run smoothly". That is more or less the whole job on a show floor, where a late van means an empty stand on day one.
Questions we get asked about show stands
- How much floor space do I actually need to give up?
It varies a fair bit. Crack the Code and the Gold Bar Challenge both sit in 2ft by 2ft. A Prize Crane, Virtual Bowling or Virtual Pinball wants 5ft by 3ft. A Batak Pro needs 8ft by 5ft once you allow swinging room, and a Racing Car Simulator or Sega Rally wants 10ft by 10ft. Every product page carries a required-space figure, and there is a fuller breakdown on our power and space guide.
- Will it run off the socket the organiser sold me?
Most of them will. The Batak Lite, Prize Crane, Racing Car Simulator and Sega Rally all run from a standard 13A socket, and Whack a Mole draws 500W. If you have only ordered lighting power, tell us and we will tell you whether it stretches.
- Can you deliver into the hall during build-up?
Yes, and it is normally how we prefer to do it. Send us the organiser manual with your build-up slot, loading bay and stand number on it, and we will work to that. We deliver in our own vehicles with our own team rather than putting it on a courier.
- Do you supply staff to run the game?
We can. Plenty of exhibitors run it themselves after a handover briefing, which is fine for something like a safe game or a leaderboard. If you want your own people free to talk to visitors the whole time, our staff can run the game instead. Say which you want at quote stage because it changes the price.
- What happens if it breaks on day two of a four-day show?
We own and maintain around 95% of what we hire out, so a fault is ours to fix rather than a subcontractor's to schedule. Being five minutes from the A1, M1 and M18 means a swap-out is a drive rather than a conversation about lead times.
Get a package costed
Send the stand details and we will work out what fits. If it's easier to talk it through, the office number is 0845 468 0590.