An exhibition organiser sells stands, fills halls and runs a show for a few days. Here is how to run sales executives, operations teams and temporary floor staff across a long preparation cycle and a very short event.
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Share your requirementsAn exhibition organiser creates trade fairs, consumer expos and conferences, earning mainly from selling stand space, sponsorships and visitor registrations. A sales team phones and visits exhibitors for months. A marketing team draws visitors, an operations team manages hall layout, contractors, permits, power and logistics, and a registration team handles badges and entry. During build-up and show days, hundreds of contractor workers, hostesses, security staff and volunteers join. The cycle is long and lumpy: months of calling, a week of intense activity, then a settling of accounts. Sales staff work to targets tied to one show, and a poor season is felt directly. Operations people carry long days before and during the event. See also HR for professional services.
These are the places the people side of this kind of business tends to give way. The rest of this page works through them.
HR here has to work for each of these groups, not only the office. The set-up below is written with all of them in mind.
GullyHR runs talent acquisition for permanent roles in exhibition organisers. For each role we agree the job description with you, find and screen candidates against it, and support the offer through to joining. Tell us the role and the number of people, and we start there.
We recruit permanent employees. We do not supply contract or temporary staff.
Every business interviews, but few have a written process that works the same way for every role and every interviewer. GullyHR designs yours, from the role brief to the offer, trains your managers to run it, and can run it for you on the roles you hand us.
We agree what the role must deliver, the must-have and nice-to-have skills, and how each will be scored.
Screening call, assessment, interview rounds and decision points, sized to the role and the number of people you hire.
Structured questions for each role family and a rating guide, so two interviewers judge the same answer the same way.
A short briefing for your managers on what to ask, what to avoid and how to give a clear yes or no.
Who approves, how the offer is made, and how candidates are kept informed from first call to joining.
A weak edition leaves sales staff with no income buffer, and the best executives take their contacts to a competing show.
Sales staff agree on stand positions and extras that the operations team finds hard to deliver, and conflict follows.
Teams work long days in halls with dust, noise and heavy movement, and hours and rest are not planned.
Many agencies supply workers, and nobody is clear who supervises them, who pays them and who is accountable for conduct.
Hostesses and ushers are engaged days before the show and meet visitors with little product or route knowledge.
Queues, badge errors and last-minute walk-ins create stress, and desk staff absorb complaints without escalation guidance.
After the show, closing accounts, refunds, exhibitor feedback and thank-yous are pushed aside while the team recovers or leaves.
Operations carries peak load around events, while marketing is busy earlier, and recognition goes to whoever is visible on show days.
Start with the topics that matter most here: Compensation, Payroll and Benefits; HR Operations and Governance; Health, Safety and Wellbeing. Then work through the rest. Each topic is written for professional services, not in general.
Salary structure, payroll inputs and a month that closes on time.
An HR function that runs the same way every month.
Induction, records, incident reporting and follow-through.
How many people, in which roles, by when — and what they will cost.
Structure, reporting lines and who is allowed to decide what.
Requisition to joining, the same way every time.
A first day that is the same for the fifth joiner as the first.
Records, attendance, leave and the day-to-day HR that must simply work.
Goals, reviews and ratings that hold up in a conversation.
Training planned from need rather than from the calendar.
Named backups for the roles that cannot be vacant.
Communication, recognition and the conditions people actually work in.
Two routes — one for complaints, one for conduct — kept separate.
Policies a manager can apply, and obligations with owners and dates.
Who leaves, when, why — and which of them mattered.
Resignation to relieving letter, in a defined order.
Records that survive people, and approvals that do not queue.
A short monthly pack management actually reads.
The pieces a exhibition organisers business puts in place, in an order that makes each easier. Open any card for the detail.
A mix of fixed pay, show-linked incentive and recognition for relationship building, reviewed with the compensation benchmarking approach.
A mix of fixed pay, show-linked incentive and recognition for relationship building, reviewed with the compensation benchmarking approach.
A checklist for every stand commitment so sales confirms with operations before promising positions or extras.
A checklist for every stand commitment so sales confirms with operations before promising positions or extras.
Hours, rest, hydration, protective gear and supervision written in advance for each hall, with changes recorded.
Hours, rest, hydration, protective gear and supervision written in advance for each hall, with changes recorded.
A table showing which agency supplies which team, who supervises, who pays and who deals with conduct complaints.
A table showing which agency supplies which team, who supervises, who pays and who deals with conduct complaints.
A half-day session with floor plan, exhibitor list, common questions and escalation points, ending with a short written guide.
A half-day session with floor plan, exhibitor list, common questions and escalation points, ending with a short written guide.
A structured meeting within two weeks covering what worked, what failed and who deserves recognition, using the performance management process.
A structured meeting within two weeks covering what worked, what failed and who deserves recognition, using the performance management process.
Before changing anything, find out what is true today. These checks take an afternoon and tell you which of the topics above to start with.
Share your requirementsConfirm with a qualified professional. What applies to you depends on your business, your state and your arrangements, and it changes. This page describes practice. It does not state a legal position.
The services below fit this kind of business best. Each starts by recording where you stand, and every later report compares against that. We do not promise outcomes.
A view of fixed pay and incentive for sales roles that depend on a single show.
Build-up, hall safety and long-day routines for crews.
Post-show reviews that recognise operations as well as sales.
Clear engagement notes for temporary floor staff and contractor teams.
Start with a free conversation, or see the paid HR Diagnostic.
Understand the business, its workforce, current processes and HR challenges.
Find the missing, weak, inconsistent or person-dependent processes.
Create the structure, processes, policies, SOPs, dashboards and systems needed.
Help HR and department managers actually adopt the new system.
Digitise repetitive and approval-based workflows where it is worth doing.
Track hiring, attendance, employee cost, performance, training and attrition.
Strengthen the people-management system continuously, not once.
From the GullyHR blog: one on HR in professional services, and one on each of the topics this page points to.
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Combine fixed pay with an incentive that is not wholly tied to one edition, and recognise relationship building. People leave when one bad show wipes out their income.
Use a checklist that sales completes with operations before confirming positions or extras. Short checks prevent expensive disputes.
It must be agreed in writing for each agency. Confirm with a qualified professional how the arrangement should be structured.
Give them the floor plan, exhibitor list, common questions and escalation points in a short briefing. They represent you to every visitor.
Plan hours, rest and supervision in advance and share the hardest tasks. Predictable schedules reduce mistakes and injuries.
We would look at how sales is paid, how commitments reach operations and how contractors are engaged. A sensible first piece of work is a sales-to-operations checklist and a contractor accountability table. Scope follows in writing, so you can accept or trim it.
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