Expo ready
Your stand is booked. The deadline that matters is the printer's.
Land Forces 2026 runs 6 to 8 October 2026 at the Perth Convention and Exhibition Centre. The artwork deadline lands weeks before that, and it belongs to the organiser and your stand builder, not to you. We build everything that goes on the wall and everything a visitor takes away, against that date.
The stand
Bare floor, to the template.
The problem
The floor space is the easy part.
Booking the stand is a decision. Everything after it is a deadline, and not one of them is yours. The exhibitor manual arrives, the stand contractor sends an artwork template with a cut off, the printer quotes a lead time, the freight forwarder closes earlier than you expect, and a job that felt like next quarter belongs to a fortnight from now.
The money is already committed and it is not recoverable. If the artwork misses the printer, nobody issues a refund and nobody moves the show. You stand in front of your entire market for three days beside a wall that says less about your business than your competitors say about theirs.
That is the whole reason this is a service with a date on it rather than a project with a scope on it.
What you get
Everything on the wall, everything they take away.
Built to your stand contractor's template and the organiser's published specification, supplied as print ready files to your nominated printer.
| Deliverable | Built to | Supplied as |
|---|---|---|
| Stand graphicsBack wall, side panels and any fascia or header. | Your contractor's own template, at their scale and bleed | Print ready to your printer |
| Capability statementThe one page document a prime asks for after they have spoken to you, written and designed rather than assembled the night before. | One page | Print and screen ready PDF |
| Quad chartThe single page, four quadrant summary, in the format program offices expect. | One page, four quadrant | Print and screen ready PDF |
| Capability one pagersThe sheets that go in the hand of someone who stops at your stand. | One page each | Print and screen ready PDF |
| Event guide and app listingWritten properly, because it is often read before anyone walks the floor. | The organiser's published field limits | Plain text to their character count |
Built to the specification
The file is either right or it is sent back.
Every stand contractor issues a template and every organiser publishes a specification. Both are unforgiving in the same way. The work is built inside the contractor's own file, at their scale, with the visible area, the bleed and the safe area treated as three different things, because on a printed wall they are.
That means the fascia and the stand number where the template puts them, the panel divisions accounted for so a headline does not land across a join, the height limit respected, and files supplied at the resolution and colour space the printer asks for, with text outlined and images embedded.
Print lead time starts on a file that conforms, not on a file that arrives. A rejected file does not cost you a day, it restarts the clock, and that is the single most expensive thing most exhibitors learn the hard way.
The gates
There is no such thing as the artwork deadline.
There are seven or eight of them, they have different owners, and nobody reconciles them for you. We start from your stand contractor's cut off and your printer's lead time, work every stage backwards, and give you the dates in writing before you commit to anything.
-
00
Your release decision
Technical content on a public wall needs someone in your business to say it can be shown. In practice this is the gate most likely to slip, which is why we schedule it instead of assuming it.
YouIndicative
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01
Event guide and app listing
Often the earliest gate of the lot, weeks before anything physical is due, and read before anyone walks the floor.
OrganiserIndicative
-
02
Stand plans and elevations
Raw space only. Scaled drawings approved before anything is fabricated.
Organiser and venueIndicative
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03
Artwork to the stand contractor
Their template, their scale, their cut off. Not ours, and not yours to move.
Stand contractorIndicative
-
04
Print production
Lead time starts on a file that conforms, not on a file that arrives. A rejected file does not cost you a day, it restarts the clock.
Your printerIndicative
-
05
Freight cut off
Set by where your material ships from, not by where the show is. For an eastern states exhibitor at a Perth show, this closes well before it does for a local one.
Freight forwarderIndicative
-
06
Bump in
A fixed window with a fixed end, and no capacity in it for a reprint.
Venue and organiserIndicative
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07
Doors
Three days in front of your entire market. The one gate on this ladder that cannot move.
NobodyFixed
Fixed means the date cannot move. Indicative means the gate is real but its date comes from your exhibitor manual and your stand contractor, not from us. Actual dates differ by show, by stand type and by where your freight ships from. We publish none of them here, because they are not ours to publish. We date every one of them with you, in writing, before you commit.
Before and after
The part most exhibitors skip.
Most of the value of a trade show is decided before the doors open and lost in the week after they close.
Before. A short, written approach to the primes and program people you actually want at your stand, sent while their diaries are still open. Not a mailout. A small number of specific messages to named people, on the same standard as everything else we produce.
After. A follow up written in advance, so it goes out inside forty eight hours instead of the fortnight it usually takes once everyone is back at their desks and the cards are still in a jacket pocket. Written before the show, when there is time to write it well.
Careful by default
Nothing on a public wall you cannot stand behind.
Everything we produce is written to be defensible. Claims are ones your business can stand behind, certifications are described as what you actually hold, and nothing goes on a wall in a public hall that could cost you credibility with a buyer standing in front of it.
We work to your nominated printer and your stand builder, to their specification, and we do not quote on the build itself. That stays between you and them.
We are an independent marketing and design consultancy. We are not affiliated with the organisers of any exhibition, and we do not provide legal, export control, classification or security advice. Where technical content needs a release decision, that decision stays with you.
Where we say no
Two stands at a time.
That is a real limit, not a sales device. A show deadline cannot be renegotiated, so the only honest way to promise a date is to cap how many we accept.
There is also a point where we say no. If a show is too close to produce the work properly and get it to a printer, we will say so and offer the next show instead. A stand that misses its deadline is not a private disappointment. It is public, it lasts three days, and it cannot be fixed afterwards.
That point is not the same date for every exhibitor. Your stand contractor, your printer and your freight forwarder each set their own cut offs, and those move with the stand type and with where your material ships from. A deadline that has already gone for one exhibitor can still be open for another, so it is worth asking rather than assuming. Tell us where yours actually stands and you will get a straight answer, including when that answer is no.
Three days in front of your entire market. Turn up ready.
Exhibiting at Land Forces 2026?
Tell us your stand number and who your builder is, and we will send back a one page scope with the dates worked backwards from your artwork deadline, and what it costs, within one business day. If the timing no longer works, we will tell you that instead.