My company's primary trade show exhibit is starting to show its age, but we don't have the budget to refurbish the entire thing. What should we do?

To give your booth a fresh new look, you probably don't need to refurbish every inch of your exhibitry. Instead, here are three cost-effective tactics to help an aging exhibit look young again.
➤ Focus the fix. Analyze your exhibit components and determine which are most important to your aesthetic and/or to attendees' experience with your exhibit; then, refurbish only those components. For example, perhaps attendees spend a great deal of time interacting with your kiosks, or maybe your central tower gets the most "eyeball time" from attendees. In this case, use your budget to freshen only these components that have the most impact.
➤ Replace heavyweights. Another cost-conscious option is to scour your exhibitry for the heaviest items and to replace these old monsters with new, lighter-weight versions. The money you spend to replace those items will often be offset by the savings you'll incur due to reduced transportation and drayage costs.
➤ Scale back. Finally, you may want to consider scaling back your company's presence by eliminating the most tired components from your display and replacing a few of the remaining elements with newer versions. Generally speaking, a small fresh footprint is better than a large outdated one.