The banner is in a truck on Ahmadu Bello Way. The doors open in forty minutes. Your generator is fine but the man with the fuel is not answering.
Almost every bad fair day traces back to something that could have been settled weeks earlier, usually for very little money. The stand itself is rarely the problem.
This is the checklist we would run for a ten-day fair at Tafawa Balewa Square, split into four blocks. Take what applies and delete the rest.
Six weeks out
This is the block where decisions are still cheap. Everything here gets harder and more expensive the longer you leave it.
- Get the floor plan and confirm your stand number in writing. Ask which side faces oncoming foot traffic, then design the stand around that side.
- Set your lead target for the fair and per day, using your own deal maths. Our lead playbook has a worked example.
- Decide your one reason to stop. Not a tagline. A thing a stranger can do in under a minute.
- Order prize stock. Anything branded needs a printer, and printers in Lagos need lead time and a deposit.
- Build your wheel and prize rules while you are calm. In Trade Shop you can leave it as a draft campaign and come back to it.
- Book your staff, including any hired promo team, and confirm daily rates in writing.
- Ask the organiser exactly what power they supply, at what hours, and what happens when it drops.
- Confirm what the stand fee actually includes. Sockets, chairs, fascia board and carpet are often extra.
On that last point, the Lagos International Trade Fair is listed on 10times with more than 500 exhibitors and an expected 50,000 to 100,000 visitors, with the 2026 edition listed for 6 to 15 November at Tafawa Balewa Square. Dates as listed at the time of writing, so confirm with the LCCI. A fair that size sells out its good positions early, and the good positions are never the cheap ones.
One week out
Now you are testing rather than deciding. Anything that fails this week is recoverable. Anything that fails on the floor is not.
- Print the QR standee at A1 and test scanning it from three metres, in daylight and under booth lighting. Glossy laminate under a spotlight is unscannable.
- Print three small table tents with the same QR as backups. If the big standee gets knocked over on day two, you are still trading.
- Load data bundles onto every staff phone, and one spare phone. Do not rely on venue wifi at a Nigerian fair.
- Set prize limits for the whole campaign and review remaining stock each day.
- Write the staff brief: opening lines, qualifying questions, how to disengage. See how to staff a booth.
- Draft your follow-up messages now. The 72-hour plan has templates you can paste in.
- Fix your consent wording. Under the Nigeria Data Protection Act 2023, consent for marketing must be specific, informed and affirmative, so the tick box cannot be pre-ticked. Details in the NDPA guide.
- Agree a cash float and who holds it. ₦30,000 to ₦50,000 in small notes covers okada runs, extra fuel, printing, water and the tips that make setup day work.
The organiser sells you the space. Everything that turns space into leads is your problem, and most of it costs under ₦50,000.
The Nigeria column
These are the six that catch first-time exhibitors, in the order they usually bite.
| Reality | What it does to your booth | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Power drops mid-afternoon | Wheel screen, lights and card machine die together | Confirm generator hours; carry two power banks per device |
| Generator noise | Your rep is shouting, visitors leave | Site the screen away from the generator side; keep the pitch to a rule-of-thumb eight seconds |
| Venue wifi | Nonexistent or shared with 500 exhibitors | Data bundles on every phone; visitors use their own data to scan |
| Lagos traffic on setup day | Banner arrives after the doors open | Leave the mainland by 06:00; stage the stand build the day before |
| Device theft | A tablet walks off the table at 4pm on day six | Tether devices; nothing valuable left facing the aisle |
| No cash | Small blockers stay blocked all day | ₦30,000 to ₦50,000 float in small notes |
Two of those disappear entirely if visitors scan and spin on their own phones instead of on your tablet. There is no device to steal, no charging queue, and no single screen to crash.
The night before
Short block, done at home, not at the venue.
- Charge every phone, power bank, speaker and light to full.
- Pack against a written list: standee, table tents, prize stock counted and boxed by day, tape, scissors, cable ties, extension board, tissue, hand sanitiser, water.
- Load the vehicle tonight, not in the morning.
- Send the team one message with the call time, the gate to use, the stand number and your number.
- Log into your dashboard once and confirm the campaign is live, not still in draft.
The morning the doors open
- Arrive two to three hours before opening. For a 10:00 opening at Tafawa Balewa Square, leaving the mainland at 06:00 is not paranoid.
- Stand across the aisle and look at your booth from the direction people will arrive. Whatever is unreadable from there gets moved.
- Scan your own QR with a phone you have never used for it before. Confirm the form loads and the wheel appears.
- Count prize stock and write the day's allocation on a card.
- Brief the team for five minutes: today's lead target, today's prizes, who is on the first shift.
- Take one photo of the finished stand. You will need it for the recap deck and for next year's setup.
Frequently asked questions
What should I bring to a trade fair booth in Nigeria?
Power banks, data bundles on every phone, a printed QR standee plus small backups, a cash float in small notes, and a basic tool and tape kit. Assume nothing at the venue works when you need it.
How early should I arrive on setup day?
Two to three hours before opening for a simple stand, and the previous day if you are building anything that needs assembly. Lagos traffic is the variable you cannot recover from.
Do I need wifi for a QR lead capture wheel?
No. Visitors scan with their own phones on their own data, so your stand does not depend on venue wifi. Your staff still need bundles to check the dashboard.
What if the power goes off during the fair?
Nothing breaks if capture runs on visitor phones. Keep the printed QR standee visible, keep the prizes in reach, and carry on until the lights come back.
Sort the capture before you sort the carpet
Trade Shop gives you the piece most checklists forget: a branded QR wheel that captures the lead before the prize goes out, with prize limits, controlled probabilities and an export you can work from the same night. Pricing starts at ₦10,000 for up to 3 days, with no hardware to guard.
Launch a campaign — from ₦10,000 for up to 3 days, plus ₦1,000 per extra day.
Sources: 10times — Lagos International Trade Fair · Nigeria Data Protection Commission