Exhibition Booth Printing Checklist: What to Print, and When to Order

Work back from setup day, not forward from today. For a trade show in Jordan, place your print order at least seven business days before you set up: most orders are ready for collection within 1 to 3 business days, standard delivery adds up to 48 hours on top of that, and the days left over are your only chance to reprint anything that comes back wrong. An exhibition date does not move, which is why this exhibition booth printing checklist is organized around the calendar first and the shopping list second.

One local detail changes the arithmetic. Printman is open Saturday to Wednesday 10:00 to 17:00 and Thursday 10:00 to 15:00, and closed on Friday. Every business-day count on this page excludes Friday, and Thursday is a short day, so an order confirmed late on a Thursday effectively starts on Saturday.

How far in advance should you order exhibition printing?

Production and delivery are two separate clocks and they run one after the other, not at the same time. Most orders are ready for collection within 1 to 3 business days. Delivery is added on top: standard delivery is JOD 3 anywhere in Jordan within 48 hours, same-day delivery is JOD 4 inside Amman and JOD 6 to other governorates, and delivery fees may vary for large-size items and bulk orders, which a full booth usually is.

Same-day delivery is a recovery lever for the last leg only. It does not compress production, so it cannot rescue an order placed the day before the show.

A workable countdown, with setup day as day zero:

• 3 to 4 weeks out. Get the booth specification from the show organizer: floor size, whether a back wall is provided, height limits, and what the venue allows you to attach to its walls. Nothing should be designed before this is in writing.
• 2 weeks out. Fix the list of what you are printing and request a quote. Quote requests are answered within one business day, so this step costs you a day, not a week.
• 9 to 10 days out. Artwork finished and proofread by someone who did not design it. Phone numbers, the website address and the spelling of your own product names are what get missed.
• 7 business days out. Order placed and files sent. This is the real deadline. Everything after it is buffer you will be glad of.
• 3 to 4 business days out. Items ready for collection, or dispatched for delivery.
• 2 days out. Everything physically in your hands. Open every package and check every item now, not at the venue.
• 1 day out. Pack per item, with a written list. Count the giveaways and the business cards rather than estimating the boxes.

Worked example: if you set up on Sunday the 12th, the seventh business day before it, with Friday not counted, is Saturday the 4th. That is the day the order goes in, not the day you start thinking about the design.

The exhibition booth printing checklist, item by item

A booth is read at three distances: from across the hall, from the aisle, and from arm's length across the table. Most stands fail because everything on them was designed for the third distance. Group your order by the distance each piece has to work at.

Read from across the hall: the stand itself

• A backdrop if the booth has a wall to fill. This is the curved pop up stand, and it carries a logo and one short line, nothing more.
• Vertical banners if the space is narrow, has a corner, or already comes with a back wall. A roll up banner stores its own graphic in its base, which keeps the print protected between shows; an X-stand banner is the simpler frame, suited to a display that goes up once and is not carried from event to event. Our guide on roll up vs pop up banners compares the two properly.
• A spare of whatever faces the aisle. One damaged panel on the way to the venue is the failure that has no fix on the day.

Read from the aisle: the counter and the entrance

• A promotion table, whose front panel is seen at waist height by everyone walking past, whether or not they stop.
• A welcome board for a registration point, a session sign-in or the entrance to an activation area.
• Outdoors or at an entrance, a beach flag is visible from further away than anything at table height, and a sidewalk A-frame sign works on people passing at street level.

Read at arm's length: the table top

• Acrylic display stands to keep printed cards upright and facing the visitor, instead of lying face down under someone's bag by midday.
• Business cards, printed offset. 35 JD covers 1,000 cards on a single design, so if every member of staff needs their own name and number on the card, that is a separate design per person rather than a split of one order. Settle which it is before you order, not on the stand: tell us how many distinct name variants you need and we will confirm how it is priced.
• Thank you cards for the follow-up that happens the week after the show, which is where most exhibition leads are actually won or lost.

What visitors carry away

• A tote bag is the giveaway that other exhibitors' leaflets end up inside, which puts your name in every photograph of the hall.
• Metal pens and button pins are the small items people take without being asked.
• Die-cut individual stickers cut to the shape of your logo travel further than a flyer, because they get used rather than binned.
• Browse the full promotional products range before deciding, and order for realistic conversations rather than for the organizer's visitor forecast. Staff on the stand, multiplied by show days, multiplied by the conversations one person genuinely has in an hour, is a closer number.

What your team wears

The people on the stand are part of the stand. Matching polo shirts and a cap make it obvious who works there, which is one of the least expensive changes you can make to a booth. Printman does both logo embroidery and printing on apparel, so the same logo can be embroidered on shirts and printed on giveaway items. See the full uniform range for the available garments.

What to check before you send the artwork

Printman does not currently offer in-house graphic design services. You send finished, print-ready files and they are reviewed for print suitability before production, so the design has to be complete before the seven-business-day deadline, not on it.

• Accepted formats are PDF, AI, EPS, PSD, JPEG and PNG.
• Set the file in CMYK color mode.
• Keep images at 300 DPI or higher at final printed size, not at screen size.
• Include bleed and trim marks for any design that runs to the edge.
• Embed or outline all fonts so nothing is substituted.

Two checks matter more for exhibition items than for anything else. Start from the largest original image you have rather than a version pulled off your own website, because a photograph that looks sharp on a screen falls apart when it is enlarged to backdrop size. And view the artwork at roughly the size of a phone screen held at arm's length; if the headline is not readable then, it will not be readable from across the hall. Our guide to preparing artwork for printing covers the file setup in detail.

Five mistakes that cost exhibitors a reprint

• Putting contact details at the bottom of a banner. The lower third of any vertical display is blocked by visitors and furniture all day. Logo and one line go in the upper half.
• Printing a price, a date or an offer that will change. Print a QR code pointing at a page you control instead, and the same stand works at the next show.
• Designing before the booth specification arrives. A backdrop ordered for a wall the venue does not provide is a full reprint, not an adjustment.
• One proofreader, who is also the designer. A wrong digit in a phone number survives every internal review and is only ever caught by someone reading it cold.
• Counting calendar days instead of business days. Friday is not a business day here, and a Thursday afternoon order starts on Saturday.

Frequently asked questions

How long does exhibition printing take in Jordan?

Most orders are ready for collection within 1 to 3 business days, with delivery time added on top rather than included. Friday is excluded from the count. For a fixed exhibition date, allow at least seven business days between placing the order and setup day, so there is room to reprint an item that comes back wrong.

Can I get exhibition banners delivered the same day?

Same-day delivery is available at JOD 4 inside Amman and JOD 6 to other governorates, and standard delivery is JOD 3 anywhere in Jordan within 48 hours. Delivery fees may vary for large-size items and bulk orders. Same-day applies to the delivery leg only; production still takes its 1 to 3 business days first. Full details are on the delivery page.

What file format should I send for a booth backdrop?

PDF, AI, EPS, PSD, JPEG or PNG. Set it in CMYK at 300 DPI or higher, include bleed and trim marks if the artwork runs to the edge, and embed or outline all fonts. For large-format items, work from the highest-resolution original you have rather than a web export.

Do you design the booth graphics for me?

No. Printman does not currently offer in-house graphic design services. You send print-ready artwork, and it is reviewed for print suitability before it goes to print.

What should I print if I can only afford a few items?

One display that identifies the booth from the aisle, business cards for every member of staff working the stand, and matching shirts. Those three cover the three reading distances. Everything else on this list is an improvement on a stand that already works.

Ordering from this checklist

If you are building a booth from scratch, exhibition stands and displays covers the backdrop, promotion table and table-top pieces together, and roll up banner printing in Amman covers the vertical formats. To compare every display format with current pricing, browse advertising materials or banners and posters.

When you have worked through this exhibition booth printing checklist, send the whole list at once with your artwork, your venue and your setup date through the quote request form, or on WhatsApp at +962 78 8655568. Quote requests are answered within one business day. Include your setup date in the request, so the production and delivery time can be checked against it before you commit to the order.