Just think of what goes on at a typical trade show. There are literally thousands of people strolling around and hundreds of booths to visit. Is yours going to "get visit". Or will people walk right by not even taking a notice. How do you attract attention of potential visitors? How do you get them to come to your booth rather than your competitor's.

Most experts in trade show marketing agree: "You have to be aggressive and proactive. You can't just wait for people to come to you. Just being there isn't enough. You have to reach out and grab people's attention.

Considering all money you spend on these shows — for transportation, hotel, fees and trade show booth itself — it's important to get most for your buck. Here are some key tips:

Don't put a chair in your booth. Chairs take up valuable space and make you appear lazy. "[Attendees] did not come to that trade show to sit down," says Ed Leslie, a Certified Association Executive and trade-show veteran "They came to that trade show to get information and make best deal they can." So design your trade show booth space in a business-like manner.

When designing more extensive trade show booths — ones that occupy larger amounts of space —you must give considerably more attention to such things as position on floor, relationship to other exhibitors, orientation relative to other major exhibitors, traffic flow, etc. For larger booths, trade show booth design is almost a different ballgame. A larger booth must be planned in at least three dimensions, and viewed from all sides. It must provide general display values when viewed as a whole, at same time as creating as many functional display-areas-within-a-display, as space and budget allow. Ideally it will be strikingly creative, as well as beautifully functional. It will attract visitors by proclaiming your presence and your essential message, while giving you space and tools to interact with them one-on-one.

A PopUp's mission in life is much less grand, but many of functional characteristics mentioned above should also be kept in mind. Of course it is possible just to throw popup up against back wall, stick a table in front of it, spread our your brochures, and away you go. But you can do better than that.

First, since you want to maximize dramatic graphic impact of your PopUp, you probably won't want to clutter area directly in front of it. Yes, you have limited space to work with. But rather than putting a table directly in front of your most valuable asset (the PopUp), it is usually better to create two separate areas to either side. If you will be working booth alone, then have a "distribution area" on "incoming" side (the side most of traffic comes from), and a "sales area" on other side of your space. This will help both you and your visitors. They will be able to pick up brochures, samples, etc. from distribution area without intruding on your one-on-one conversations taking place in other area. And you will be able to have at least a semblance of "privacy" — as if this were possible at a trade show — when you pitch your more important prospects.

If there are two of you working booth, then you should have two self-contained sales stations — one on either side. In other words, make use of your space intelligently. Don't clutter up middle, if you can help it.

Which brings us to design of PopUp