Introduction
Electrical safety on an exhibition stand is the part of exhibiting most people order last and think about least.
You book the space, design the build, sort the graphics, and somewhere near the deadline you tick a box for a power socket and hope it covers everything you plan to plug in.
That habit is where most stand electrical problems start. A blown circuit that takes out your neighbours, a tangle of extension leads under the carpet, or a stand the venue contractor refuses to energise on the morning of the open. These are not dramatic failures, which is exactly why they get overlooked until they happen, and almost all of them are avoidable with a bit of forethought.
This guide is for exhibitors and stand builders.
We work the safety side of events for a living, so we see these issues from the floor up, not from the order form.
What follows is the practical version: how to work out what power you actually need, what the rules tend to be wherever you exhibit, and where stands get caught out.
Work Out What You Actually Need Before You Order
The most common question contractors get is some version of “which socket do I order?” The honest answer is that it depends entirely on what you are plugging in.
Every appliance carries a rating plate, usually on the back or underneath, listing its power draw in watts or amps. That figure, not a guess, is what you size your supply against.
A large screen, a coffee machine, a small fridge and a few phone chargers add up faster than people expect, and the total is what matters, not the number of items.
As a rough orientation, light loads such as laptops, phone chargers and a modest display screen sit at the low end. A larger screen, working display lighting or a drinks fridge pushes you into a middle tier.
Anything with a motor or a heating element, a microwave, a domestic coffee machine, a small vacuum for the daily clean, draws a good deal more and usually wants a dedicated supply of its own.
Heavy machinery and demonstration equipment are a separate conversation.
Anything running on three-phase or higher voltage needs a dedicated outlet and usually booth labour to connect it. If you are bringing something like that, flag it early and get a quote; do not assume a standard socket will do.
Why ordering early saves money and grief
Electrical pricing at most shows is tiered by deadline.
Order early and you pay the discounted rate, because the contractor can plan labour in advance. Leave it to the last week and the price climbs, sometimes steeply. The closer it gets to move-in, the more you pay for the same socket.
There is a safety dividend to ordering early too.
Plan the supply against your actual floor plan and it gets installed in the right place, rated correctly, and tested before you arrive. Order it in a panic and it gets squeezed in wherever there is room.
The Rules You Will Meet Wherever You Exhibit
Power conventions differ around the world.
Most of the planet runs on 230V, North America on 110/120V, and the way sockets and labour are ordered varies venue to venue. What stays remarkably consistent are the safety rules, because they all trace back to the same handful of failure modes.
Expect to meet most of the following, in some form, at almost any professional exhibition:
- Appliances tested before use. Equipment you bring is generally expected to be in good order and, in many markets, formally tested. In the UK and Ireland that means a current PAT test (portable appliance test). Venues can and do ask for proof.
- One supply, one stand. Each stand usually needs its own means of electrical isolation that staff can reach easily. You should be able to kill the power to your own stand without affecting anyone else.
- RCD protection. A residual current device, the safety cut-out that trips on a fault, is standard on stand supplies in most jurisdictions. It is the thing that turns a fatal shock into a tripped breaker.
- Cables out of walkways. No cables run across gangways, aisles or fire exits. Anything underfloor is the venue contractor’s job, not a length of flex taped down by hand.
- Limits on extension leads and adaptors. Many venues cap extension lead length, allow only one lead per socket, and ban block adaptors and cube plugs outright. We come back to this below, because it causes more trouble than anything else.
The contractor appointed by the show can refuse to connect a stand, or switch one off, if it is unsafe. That is not obstruction. It is often the last check between a bad connection and a crowded hall, so the smart move is to build your stand so that check never has to bite.
The Extension Lead Problem
If there is a single recurring fault on exhibition floors, it is the power strip. They are cheap, familiar, and they let one ordered socket quietly become eight.
The risk is straightforward.
A socket is rated for a certain load. Plug a four-way strip into it and fill all four ways, and the total draw can sail past what the socket and its circuit were designed to carry. The protection trips, and because exhibition stands are often grouped on shared circuits, the stand next door and the block beyond it can go dark at the same time.
That is the most common cause of power outages at shows, and it is almost always someone underestimating their own load.
If your venue does allow power strips, a few principles keep you safe:
- One strip per ordered socket, never a strip plugged into a strip.
- The combined wattage of everything on the strip must stay under the rating of the socket feeding it.
- Keep flexible leads short. Many venues set a hard limit, often around two metres, and a 6-foot ceiling is common elsewhere.
- No cube or block adaptors. They hide the load, encourage overloading, and are widely banned for exactly that reason.
The deeper fix is to order the right number of sockets in the first place, placed where your equipment actually sits, so you are not reaching for a strip to bridge the gap.
A good Risk Assessment of your own stand catches this on paper, weeks before it becomes a problem on the floor.
Round-the-Clock Power and Other Special Cases
Some stands need power that stays live after the hall shuts. Fridges and freezers holding product, an aquarium, a server, a charging bank that has to be ready for the morning. This is 24-hour power, and it is ordered separately from your daytime supply because it is wired and managed differently.
The thing to get right is to specify it against your floor plan in advance. A 24-hour supply has to be installed knowing what it feeds and where, so the daytime circuits can be switched off at night while the permanent load stays on. Decide after the build is up and you are into a rewire at last-minute rates.
Other cases that need early notice include lighting rigs above a certain load, anything generating heat, water features (which carry their own legionella and electrical-proximity considerations), and any moving or demonstrating machinery. None of these are reasons not to do the thing.
They are reasons to tell the organiser and the contractor early, so the supply and the sign-off are built around them.
Where Responsibility Actually Sits
Exhibitors sometimes assume the venue or the organiser carries the electrical risk on their behalf. It is more shared than that, and understanding the split is what keeps you out of trouble.
The venue provides and tests the fixed supply to your stand. The organiser sets the rules of the show and appoints the contractor who connects and inspects stands.
You, the exhibitor, are responsible for the equipment you bring, the way it is loaded, and for declaring anything out of the ordinary. If you employ your own stand builder or electrical contractor for bespoke work, their competence and their documentation become part of your responsibility too.
This is the same logic that runs through all good Event Safety work.
Safety is seldom one owner signing one form. It is a chain of people, each looking after their own link and able to show they did. On the electrical side, that proof is the paperwork, as in the test certificates, method statements for any installation work, evidence that the people doing it were competent.
It is what stands up if a fault on a neighbouring stand ever puts the question to you.
The Companion Reference Worth Reading
If you exhibit at UK venues, or supply stands into them, the document to know is the eGuide. It is published by the Association of Event Venues and is widely treated as the events industry’s best-practice document, effectively an approved code of practice developed by professionals who work to it themselves.
It carries a dedicated Electrical Installation and Testing sub-section covering exactly the ground above, in regulatory detail, and it is reviewed and updated regularly.
Treat this article as the orientation and the eGuide as the authority.
If you want the full technical and legal treatment, including the standardised forms many venues require for electrical testing and special-risk exhibits, that is where to go. Read it alongside your specific venue’s exhibitor manual, which will set out any house rules that sit on top.
Conclusion
Powering a stand well is mostly about doing the boring parts early.
Size your supply against real ratings, order it in time and in the right places, keep extension leads honest, and declare anything unusual before you arrive. Do that and the electrical side of your stand becomes the part you never think about again, which is exactly what you want.
If you are planning a complex build, a high-value demonstration, or a stand at a scale where getting the safety side wrong would cost you, that is the point at which it pays to bring in people who do this for a living.
We are happy to talk it through. You can reach us at hello@safeevents.ie.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I work out how much power my exhibition stand needs?
Add up the power draw of every item you plan to run, taken from the rating plate on each appliance rather than estimated. The total in watts or amps is what you size your supply against. Remember that motors and heating elements (coffee machines, fridges, microwaves) draw far more than screens or chargers, and often want a dedicated socket of their own.
Can I use a power strip or extension lead on my stand?
Sometimes, depending on the venue, but with strict limits. The usual rules are one strip per ordered socket, never a strip into another strip, a combined load under the socket’s rating, short leads (often capped around two metres), and no cube or block adaptors. Overloaded strips are the most common cause of power outages at shows, so the safer route is ordering enough sockets in the first place.
What is 24-hour power and do I need it?
It is power that stays live after show hours, for anything that cannot be switched off overnight such as fridges, freezers, aquariums or servers. It is ordered separately from your daytime supply and must be specified against your floor plan in advance so it is wired correctly. If nothing on your stand needs to run overnight, you do not need it.
Does my own equipment need to be tested before I bring it?
In most professional markets, yes, and venues can ask for proof. In the UK and Ireland that typically means a current portable appliance test (PAT) on anything you plug in. The principle holds internationally even where the testing regime differs: equipment must be in safe working order, and the burden of showing that sits with the exhibitor.
What happens if my stand fails electrical inspection on site?
The contractor appointed by the show can refuse to connect your stand, or switch it off, until it is made compliant. That can mean opening with no power while you fix it, under time pressure and at last-minute rates. Designing your stand to the rules and ordering correctly in advance is how you avoid ever being in that position.