A trade fair organiser has a small year-round team and a huge crowd of temporary hands before every show. The HR task is to plan the peak, brief the extra people, and keep the core team from burning out after each fair.
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Share your requirementsA trade fair organiser sells stand space, markets the show to visitors, manages the venue and runs the event for three or four days. The permanent team is small: sales executives, a marketing lead, an operations head, accounts and a visitor-registration team. Through the year they chase exhibitors, and in the last month the work changes to floor plans, passes, stand contractors, security and signage. In show week, hired helpers staff registration, help desks and hall marshalling. Hours stretch to twenty hours a day. Sales targets sit on a few large accounts and renewals. Once the fair ends, the team is tired, and some leave before the next edition starts. 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 trade fair 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.
The last month before the fair brings late nights and no leave, and the same people then return to cold calling the week after.
A senior executive holds the large exhibitors, and when she resigns, those exhibitors wait to see where she goes.
Registration and hall staff join a day or two before the show, learn the layout on the spot and give visitors wrong directions.
Sales credit, renewals and early-bird bookings are argued over when targets are not written down before the season.
Exhibitors pay late and the accounts team chases cheques while sales promises one more extension.
Power, space and timing disputes during build-up land on operations staff who have no authority to settle them.
Crowds, forklifts, cables and fire exits are looked after by several parties, and nobody owns the whole hall.
After a long show, people leave in the following weeks, taking floor knowledge with them.
Start with the topics that matter most here: HR Strategy and Workforce Planning; Retention and Attrition Management; Performance Management. Then work through the rest. Each topic is written for professional services, not in general.
How many people, in which roles, by when — and what they will cost.
Who leaves, when, why — and which of them mattered.
Goals, reviews and ratings that hold up in a conversation.
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.
Salary structure, payroll inputs and a month that closes on time.
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.
Induction, records, incident reporting and follow-through.
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.
An HR function that runs the same way every month.
The pieces a trade fair organisers business puts in place, in an order that makes each easier. Open any card for the detail.
Map selling, build-up, show week and recovery with the staff needed in each.
Map selling, build-up, show week and recovery with the staff needed in each. Spread leave into the quiet months and grant time off after the show. See attendance, shift and leave.
State the targets, the treatment of renewals, shared accounts and exits.
State the targets, the treatment of renewals, shared accounts and exits. See performance management.
Hall map, shift chart, escalation contacts, dress, meal breaks and a half-day briefing for every temporary helper.
Hall map, shift chart, escalation contacts, dress, meal breaks and a half-day briefing for every temporary helper. See employee onboarding.
A lead executive and a deputy, with meeting notes in one shared record.
A lead executive and a deputy, with meeting notes in one shared record. See employee information management.
One named person for each hall, a check of exits and cables before opening, and a clear way to stop work.
One named person for each hall, a check of exits and cables before opening, and a clear way to stop work. See workplace health, safety and wellbeing.
What went well, who carried too much, and what the next team should do differently, with recognition for those who stayed late.
What went well, who carried too much, and what the next team should do differently, with recognition for those who stayed late.
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 yearly cycle of leave, peak duty and recovery that people can plan around.
Written sales targets, renewal credit and review points before each season.
A crew pack and short briefing so show-week helpers are useful from the first hour.
A hall safety plan with clear owners for cables, exits, forklifts and crowd flow.
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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Plan leave around the show cycle, give time off straight after the event, and cap the longest days. A short review of who carried the load helps you fix next year.
Name a second contact for each large exhibitor, share meeting notes and introduce the deputy before renewals begin.
Give them a hall map, a shift chart, a list of contacts and a half-day walk-through. Pair each newcomer with an experienced marshal.
State the target per executive, how renewals and early bookings count, who owns shared accounts and what happens if someone leaves mid-season.
Name one person per hall who checks exits, cables and machinery before opening, and set out contractors' duties in writing. Confirm legal responsibilities with a qualified professional.
We would speak with the operations head and a sales lead, then look at the last show's staffing plan and leave record. A fitting first task is a show-cycle calendar with target rules and a crew pack. Scope and fees are put in writing after we talk.
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