August 11th, 2010 by Jay Buckley
- Small banner stands
Here’s a great product for certain applications- a banner stand with a tabloid size banner. We did these for the admissions department at Plymouth State University, which will display them when they visit high schools. These particular banners list the degree programs that PSU offers.
These convenient banner stands roll up into something the size of a quart of milk for easy carrying, and pop up in seconds to generate a nice looking display. We can change the graphic out, too, if your information changes.
Of course, we do plenty of large
banner stands too, offering both an economy banner stand and a durable premium stand. We see them being used at trade shows, for conferences and events, and in airports.
March 15th, 2010 by Jay Buckley
- 48″ Banner Stands
Here is a pair of 48″ wide banner stands we did for a ski area. By themselves they create a trade show booth, which is what they used them for. Instead of paying for a booth to be delivered to the show, they carried the banner stands and a box of literature into the Boston Ski Show, and they were ready to go. Instant trade show booth!
Once the show was over, they were out just as fast. You can have a banner stand back in the box inside of a minute.
If they want to display them in a local restaurant, motel, or store it’s just as easy. No wonder we are selling a lot of banner stands!
March 10th, 2010 by Jay Buckley
- Retractable Banner Stand
We recently made several banner stands for the Balsams Resort, which is north of us in Dixville Notch, NH. It’s where everyone in the town gets together at midnight to cast the first votes in every presidential election. They also have a fabulous Donald Ross golf course, which is what this banner stand talks about. What a great way to remind their guests that the Balsams is a great place to go in the summer too! There was about two feet of snow on the ground when I was there, so we didn’t play much golf, but the cross country skiing on their 90 km of trails was unbelievable!
What’s great about a banner stand is the ability to place it just about anywhere in the resort. If you need to get it out of the way for a function, or move it to the dining room, it’s easily done.
These are our premium banner stands, and it’s very easy to change the graphics. We give you a new one with the aluminum rails already on it, and changing it out takes a minute. At the Balsams, they have a set for winter and another for summer.
February 22nd, 2010 by Jay Buckley
- Curling Vinyl Banner
Let me first say that we did not make the banner stand in the picure. As much as I love Southwest Airlines, whoever did make them made a mess.
What’s happened is that they made the banners out of vinyl, and then put them under tension in a banner stand. We learned a long time ago that when you do that, the banner curls at the edges, in our industry we call it “canoeing.” They probably looked great for a month or two, then they started to curl.
We solve the problem by using a polyester film instead of vinyl.
Since the film is more rigid, it doesn’t stretch in the center causing the edges to curl in. Surprisingly, it’s not much more expensive either. I wish I knew who to contact at Southwest. These banner stands don’t give a very good presentation, and they are such a great airline!
January 27th, 2010 by Jay Buckley
Economy Retractable Banner Stands
Here’s a great way to do a trade show backdrop dramatically and inexpensively. Three economy banner stands side-by-side create a booth that looks great, and costs less than $700. In this case we made the banner stands for Missouri Prime Hunts.
When placed at the back of a trade show booth the three banner stands are eight feet wide, which leaves enough space for a small table to put your literature on. You can carry the banner stands into the trade show hall, and be set up and ready to go inside of five minutes!
Our rules for doing a trade show effectively are to have something colorful, and six words or less that will interest your target customer. This booth does both quite effectively! As it should, since we also did the graphic design for the booth. If you don’t have a graphic designer who does your design work, we have six who are experienced in the design of effective trade show graphics.
January 7th, 2010 by Jay Buckley
Replacement Banner
Back in the room full of marketing junk are a couple of banner stands that your predecessor bought. You wonder how hard it might be to have the graphics replaced. We can do that!
Pictured at the right is a replacement banner in a stand they had laying around at the Mount Washington Hotel. In this case it was an Expand banner stand, but all of them operate similarly, and replacing the graphics is easily done. Generally you will need to send us the stand, although our premium banner stand is designed to replace the graphic without returning the stand to us.
A typical banner stand runs $500-600 new, but a replacement banner is about half that. So it makes good sense to replace the graphic if the mechanism is in good shape. If there are problems with the mechanism, we’ll let you know.
There are more and more economy stands out there, and often replacement of those graphics is nearly as expensive as buying a new one. The economy stands are not terribly durable, so our advice is to only think about replacing graphics in them once or twice.
By the way, if you get up this way, stop by and see us. We’re proud of our state-of-the-art facility, and would love to show it to you. Think about staying, or dining, at the Mount Washington too. It’s a real piece of history, and quite elegant!
January 6th, 2010 by Jay Buckley
Here’s a great way to use a set of three banner stands for trade shows when you are going to countries that use different languages. What we designed for our customer Shielding Dynamics was a 3 banner stand display, with all the language on the second two stands. This way, they bought five banners but only three premium banner stands, and are able to have trade shows graphics in both English and Spanish.
They did a show in Venezuala one week, grabbed the banner stands at the end of the show and flew to Chicago for another. Everything went off without a hitch. Changing out graphics on our premium banner stand takes just a minute. All they needed to do was exchange the Spanish graphics on panels 2 & 3 with the English ones, and let the show begin!
Also notice on this display that they used a 48″ banner stand in the center with 36″ banner stands on either end. This gave them a trade show backdrop a full 10 feet wide.
January 5th, 2010 by Jay Buckley
Here’s a job we did recently where the customer was really in a hurry. They needed the banner stands for a trade show the next day. It happens a lot, it seems, in this last minute society we live in.
Banner Stands
Fortunately, we had plenty of the hardware and banner film in stock. We had files early in the day, printed four banners and installed them on the retractable banner stands, and shipped them off to the trade show. Naturally, they were relieved! A trade show is a terrible thing to waste.
We usually keep a dozen economy banner stands, and half a dozen premium ones in stock. While we suggest you give us a few days to produce your graphics, we are almost always able to get a rush job out for you.
January 2nd, 2010 by Jay Buckley
- Wide Banner Stand
Banner stands are now available in wider sizes, and that gives you more flexibility in creating trade show graphics and retail signs. Sometimes, the 36″ width limitatiion just didn’t work. Now, you have choices.
Here’s a 48″ nominal width
banner stand (actual 47-1/4″ graphic width). They are actually available up to 60″ nominal width. If you are trying to create a trade show backdrop, they allow you to do it with two banner stands instead of three.
That can be a real help in doing the layout, since you really don’t want to have your text jumping the break between banner stands. Having two pieces to carry into the show is a bonus too.
We’ve also seen a case where our customer used a wide banner stand in the middle of two 36″ stands to make his display a full 10 feet wide.
We stock the 48″ stand, the 60″ stands are special order and take about a week to get here.
January 1st, 2010 by Jay Buckley
You see banner stands from time to time where the banner curls at the edges. This happens because the banner is printed on vinyl. When installed on a banner stand, the vinyl stretches causing the edges to curl towards the center. We call it “canoeing” because the shape of the banner looks like the sides of a canoe. It makes the graphics hard to read, and sure spoils the presentation of a banner stand.
We solve this problem by using a polyester film on our banner stands. Since it doesn’t stretch, the banner stays flat. We’ve had one up in our shop for over two years, and it’s still flat as can be.
We have two choices of polyester banner film. On our economy stand we use a 7 mil budget film. It does a nice job at a great price. On our premium stands, we use an 11 mil film with a light blocking layer. The heavier film is more durable, and you won’t see the shadow of the pole if the banner stand is in front of bright light (like against a window).
Either way, the problem of curling is solved with polyester film. It’s the right material for use on banner stands. Don’t let anybody tell you they are saving you money by using vinyl!
