Hanging Banners & Overhead Signs

Yes — and this is the single thing most first-time exhibitors get wrong. Suspending anything over a UK exhibition stand requires rigging approval from the organiser, who will ask for a drawing showing the position, dimensions and suspension points, and will send an approved rigging contractor to fit it. Rigging is normally booked weeks ahead of the show and slots close well before build-up, so raise it with the organiser as soon as you have your stand number. Halls such as NEC Birmingham and ExCeL London also set height limits and permit rigging only to their own structure, never to your stand.

A Sky Tube banner is a straight-sided shape — circle, square, rectangle, triangle or hexagon — where the printed sleeve is the same width top and bottom, giving equal graphic area all the way round. A Tapered Round or Tapered Square display narrows towards the top or bottom, which throws the eye upward and looks less like a plain box hanging in the roof. Tapered shapes carry less usable artwork area for the same footprint, so use them where the shape itself is doing the work and your logo is short.

Circles and hexagons read from every direction, which matters on an island stand approached from four aisles. A flat panel or rectangle gives the largest uninterrupted area for a wordmark but disappears when viewed edge-on, so it suits a stand people mainly approach from one side. Whatever shape you pick, the deciding factor is the height of the graphic band, not the width — a tall shape with a big logo beats a wide one with small type every time.

Height is normally dictated by the organiser's rigging rules rather than by preference, and the manual will state both a minimum clearance above the floor and a maximum overall height. Within that window, hang low enough that the graphic is still legible and high enough to clear sightlines from neighbouring stands. Remember that shell scheme walls, lighting rigs and other exhibitors' banners all compete in the same band of space, so check what is going up around you before you fix on a height.

A Backlit Cubic Hanging Banner has lighting built into the frame so the graphic glows rather than reflecting ambient hall light. It earns its place in dim halls, in evening events and anywhere your neighbours are using bright lit displays that would otherwise flatten your unlit banner. It does add a power requirement to your rigging order, which the organiser must approve alongside the suspension itself, so factor that into the booking rather than adding it late.

Some halls, smaller conference spaces and outdoor marquees have no rigging points at all, or restrict suspension to certain zones. In that case the answer is a ground-supported structure — a gantry, tower or arch that carries overhead branding from your own stand floor — rather than trying to fix anything to a ceiling. Confirm the venue's position early, because the two solutions need completely different hardware and you cannot swap one for the other at build-up.

Artwork wraps continuously around a Sky Tube or Curved Hanging Banner, so it must be designed as a loop with no obvious start and end, and with the seam falling somewhere unimportant. Repeat your logo at intervals around the circumference rather than placing it once, because a visitor only ever sees roughly a third of the shape at a time. Keep text well away from the top and bottom hems where the fabric curves out of view, and use our free artwork assistance and 2D mockups to check the wrap before printing.

The frame breaks into short tube sections and the printed fabric sleeve comes off completely, so the whole banner travels in a bag rather than as a rigid crate. Fold the fabric loosely along its existing creases and keep it separate from the frame components, which can scuff a print if they rub in transit. On site, fit the sleeve before the banner is lifted, since nobody wants to be dressing fabric at height. A quick steam or a few hours hanging will drop out any travel creases.