Icon Exhibitions

Icon Exhibitions designs, manufactures, installs and stores exhibition stands from a 20,000 square foot manufacturing base on Watling Street Business Park in Cannock, Staffordshire. Its about page dates the work to 1995, and Companies House shows Icon Exhibitions Ltd was incorporated on 16 June 1995. It sits in our stand design and build section and suits exhibitors who show mainly in the Midlands, with the NEC and other Birmingham shows a short drive away.

You can watch your stand being built

Every stand is hand-built in the Cannock workshop by Icon’s own manufacturers and installers, and the company says clients are welcome to inspect their stand at any stage of the build. Its team page names 18 people, including a design manager, a 3D designer, a production manager, a workshop supervisor, a sprayer, CNC and graphics production staff and four project managers, so design, joinery, finishing and graphics sit under one roof. For the SHY Shading Solutions stand it tested every working exhibit in the workshop before it went to the show.

Custom, system and reused stands to fit your budget

You can choose a fully custom build, a system stand or a mix of the two. Icon quotes for projects from 10m² to 1,000m² and budgets from £1,000 to over £100,000, and its exhibition design service is free. For MCR Safety at London Build at Olympia it supplied a reusable aluminium system with a raised floor and an LED screen. For Schneider Electric’s NIC EIC Tech Talks tour it combined custom and modular parts into a stand that fits on one vehicle and that the client’s two-person team sets up in under an hour. For Hainbuch at MACH it reworked an earlier design using stand parts kept in storage at its headquarters.

Large builds handled, including height and hospitality

Its case studies show what a bigger budget buys. For BAE Systems at the Aircraft Interiors show in Hamburg it built a 180m² stand with a meeting space, a working bar and an 8 metre diameter hanging banner. For Westland at GLEE it built to 6 metres, which meant planning permission, structural calculations and building inspector visits, and added a hospitality area seating 50 and a working kitchen. Celebrity Motion Furniture has worked with the team for five years on its island stand at the NEC furniture show.

Sustainability figures you can quote

If your procurement team asks for evidence, Icon shows an ESSA Accredited Member badge on its site, holds ISO 14001:2015 certification and states it has cut its CO2 emissions by 61%, recycles 90% of its recyclable metals and has recycled 3,456m² of stand carpet. It says it was the first company awarded Platinum accreditation for sustainability by its trade association, holds a Tier 5 sustainability rating, won Silver in that association’s 2022 awards and won in 2023. Its manufacturing and warehouse building uses LED lighting throughout.

Venues near and far

Icon says it is well placed for the NEC, the Coventry Building Society Arena (which it still calls the Ricoh Arena), Telford International Centre and Manchester Central, and it also works at Olympia and ExCeL London. It runs projects for UK firms exhibiting abroad, from Frankfurt to San Diego and Kuala Lumpur, and for overseas firms showing in the UK. It also fits out receptions, meeting rooms and showrooms. Before you ask for a quote, our guide to briefing a stand builder covers what to send.

Source: iconexhibitions.co.uk, iconexhibitions.co.uk/about-us, iconexhibitions.co.uk/sustainability, iconexhibitions.co.uk/meet-the-team, iconexhibitions.co.uk/case-studies