Exhibitor booths: agreement, invoice and stand plans

How the Events pack onboards an exhibitor: booth allocation, e-signed agreement, booth invoice and requests for stand plans, insurance and badges.

By Achekam · 11 October 2026 · 4 min read · For Events businesses in South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya

Launching soon. The Industry CRM add-on described in this article is launching soon. This article describes it as it will work at launch.

The week before a trade show, the organiser's inbox fills with the same questions, over and over. Which stand is ours? Did you get our insurance certificate? Can we change one of the badge names? Has our invoice been paid, because finance says it has? Every one of those questions points to information that should have been gathered weeks earlier, in a fixed order, from every exhibitor.

Onboarding exhibitors is less about any single step than about doing the same steps for every exhibitor, and knowing at a glance who is complete and who is not. The Events & trade shows pack in Achekam's Industry CRM keeps Exhibitor booths as their own records, alongside Events, Sponsorships and Vendor contracts, and gives each booth an onboarding workflow.

Four steps, every exhibitor

The exhibitor workflow runs in this order:

1. Allocate the booth.
2. Have the exhibitor agreement signed electronically.
3. Invoice the booth.
4. Request stand plans, proof of insurance and the names for badges.

The workflow creates each stage's tasks as it is reached, so the events team is not staring at a list of everything for every exhibitor at once.

Allocating the booth

Allocation comes first because everything else depends on it: the price, the stand plans, the power and the build-up times. Allocate from one floor plan, held by one person, so the same corner booth is never promised to two companies by two salespeople.

Record any special terms at allocation: a corner premium, shared walls, a booth next to a competitor the exhibitor asked to avoid. Those details matter later, when the floor manager is placing stands in the hall.

Keep a short waiting list as well. Exhibitors drop out, and a booth released a month before the show is easier to resell to a company already waiting than to a cold prospect. When a booth changes hands, start the new exhibitor's onboarding from the top, so the agreement, invoice and requests all carry the right company's name.

The exhibitor agreement, signed electronically

With a booth allocated, the workflow sends the exhibitor agreement for electronic signature. Signature and initials fields are placed on it, several signatories can sign in the order you set or all at once, and the request has an expiry and reminders. The signed PDF and its completion certificate land in Documents. Whether an electronic signature carries the same weight as ink is a matter for each country's law, and many national e-signature laws build on the UNCITRAL Model Law on Electronic Signatures, which sets reliability criteria for treating an electronic signature as equivalent to a handwritten one.

The agreement in the pack is starter wording, to be reviewed before use. Exhibitor terms deserve particular care: build-up and breakdown times, what may be hung from the ceiling, damage to the venue, cancellation charges, and what happens if the show is postponed. Have your adviser go through them.

If a venue or a particular exhibitor insists on a paper agreement signed in ink, mark that document accordingly. A document marked for ink is never offered for electronic signing; its step simply tracks that the signed paper copy came back.

Invoicing the booth

The workflow then invoices the booth. Set out the payment terms in the agreement and stick to them. For a trade show, a common approach is that a booth is not confirmed on the floor plan until it is paid, or at least until an agreed deposit is in. Part payments and deposits are handled on the invoice, not at a till; see why the till needs full payment for the mechanics.

Requesting stand plans, insurance and badge names

The last step is a request to the exhibitor for three things. The request goes to the exhibitor, and their answer moves the task on.

Make each request specific. For stand plans, say what the plan must show (dimensions, height, materials, electrical needs). For insurance, say what the venue requires the cover to include. For badges, give a clear cut-off for name changes and say what happens after it.

Chasing what is missing

Every outstanding request is a task, so chasing becomes a matter of working through a list rather than searching inboxes. Tasks can carry subtasks up to three levels deep: "insurance" might hold "certificate received", "checked against venue requirements" and "sent to venue".

The pack's home page shows counts worked out from records and tasks, never typed in by hand, including overdue tasks and tasks due today. In the final weeks before a show, those counts are a fast way to see whether exhibitor onboarding is on track or whether a round of phone calls is due.

A good weekly routine in the run-up:

• Check every booth that is allocated but unsigned, and call the contact.
• Check every invoice that is overdue against the payment terms.
• Check every booth still missing stand plans, insurance or badge names, nearest deadline first.
• Tell the floor manager which booths are complete and which are not.

Ready for build-up

On build-up day, every exhibitor should arrive with a signed agreement, a paid invoice, an approved stand plan, valid insurance and badges waiting. Most of the questions that used to fill the inbox simply do not arise. Sponsors follow their own route, covered in onboarding a sponsor and tracking every benefit, and the checks after the show are in after the event: invoices paid and sponsor reports.

General guidance only, not advice on your own circumstances. Tax and payroll rules change: check the current position with the authority or your adviser.