How to create an online exhibitor manual (that exhibitors will actually read!)

14 May 2026

Two people looking at an online exhibitor manual

What Is an Online Exhibitor Manual — and Why Does It Matter?

Your exhibitor manual is the single most important document you produce before show day. It’s the oracle of essential information for every exhibiting company — covering everything from build-up schedules and contractor rules to health and safety requirements and ordering deadlines.

But there’s a persistent challenge: getting exhibitors to actually read it.

Whether you’re managing exhibitors across a single-day conference or a multi-hall international tradeshow, the problem is the same. Exhibitors are busy, inboxes are full and a static PDF is rarely the first thing anyone opens with enthusiasm.

The good news? With the right event tech and a few smart strategies, you can transform your online exhibitor manual from an afterthought into one of your most powerful tools for a smooth, successful show. Here are seven ways to do it.

1. Make Your Exhibitor Manual Available Online

This sounds obvious but it’s still the most important step, and many organisers haven’t fully made the leap.

PDF exhibitor manuals create unnecessary barriers. Long-form text on screen is hard to digest. Printed versions are unsustainable and increasingly impractical as hybrid and home-working become the norm. A static file can’t be updated mid-cycle without redistributing it, and there’s no way to know who has (or hasn’t) read it.

The shift to online exhibitor manuals began in the early 2000's and event technology has advanced significantly since then. If you want to improve engagement with your exhibitors, making your manual fully digital and accessible online is the non-negotiable foundation everything else is built on.

What does a good online exhibitor manual look like?
A well-built online exhibitor manual should be:
Accessible via a direct link, without requiring a login barrier for every page
Mobile-friendly, so exhibitors can check it on the go
Searchable, so exhibitors can find what they need in seconds
Always up to date — changes reflect instantly, without resending files

2. Guarantee Delivery — Don’t Just Send and Hope

It may sound basic, but the first step in managing exhibitors effectively is making sure they’ve actually received the manual.

Implement a system that confirms receipt — not just a sent email that may have ended up in spam, but tracked delivery that gives you genuine peace of mind. When you know exactly which exhibitors haven’t opened the manual, you can follow up with purpose rather than sending blanket reminders to everyone.

This is where a dedicated exhibitor management platform makes a real difference. Rather than relying on your email client’s read receipts, platforms like FFAIR provide built-in delivery tracking as a standard part of the process.

3. Give Access to the Whole Exhibiting Team

Exhibiting companies vary enormously in size. At one end, you’ll have a sole trader running their own stand. At the other, a large enterprise with a marketing manager, logistics coordinator, stand builder and finance contact all involved in the process — each needing access to different parts of the manual.

If your online exhibitor manual only reaches one contact per company, you’re creating a bottleneck. Information gets forwarded, misread or lost in internal email chains.

Ensure your exhibitor management platform allows multiple team members from the same exhibiting company to access the manual simultaneously. When everyone who needs to act on information can access it directly, tasks get completed faster and show day runs more smoothly.

4. Harness the Power of Indexing and Smart Navigation

A manual covering health and safety, logistics, marketing opportunities, contractor deadlines and stand specifications is, by necessity, long. Navigating that volume of content without clear structure is overwhelming — and when something’s hard to find, exhibitors give up and call your ops team instead.

Implement a user-friendly indexing system built around the questions exhibitors actually ask. Whether it’s PAT testing, car park passes, rigging requirements or electrical ordering, exhibitors should be able to jump directly to what they need in seconds.

How does indexing improve the exhibitor experience?

Good indexing means exhibitors spend less time searching and more time acting. It reduces inbound queries to your operations team, speeds up task completion and creates a more professional, polished experience that reflects well on the event as a whole.

5. Send Personalised, Automated Weekly Reminders

Managing a multitude of tasks is a constant challenge for exhibit marketers. They’re not just preparing for your event — they may be juggling three or four shows simultaneously.

Personalised weekly reminder emails are one of the highest-impact tools available to organisers for managing exhibitors effectively. The key word is personalised: a reminder that shows each exhibitor exactly which tasks they haven’t completed, specific to their stand type and package, is far more likely to prompt action than a generic ‘don’t forget your manual!’ message.

Automation is essential here. Manually tracking and sending individual reminders at scale is not realistic. The right event technology should handle this for you, reducing workload for your operations team while increasing on-time task completion from exhibitors.

What should a good exhibitor reminder email include?
The exhibitor’s name and company
A clear list of outstanding tasks specific to their stand or package
Direct links back to the relevant sections of the online exhibitor manual
A deadline, so exhibitors know what urgency looks like

6. Use Video Content to Bring Key Information to Life

When critical information isn’t getting the engagement it deserves, consider whether text is the right format.

A short, well-produced video explaining the build-up process, contractor access rules or health and safety requirements will almost always outperform three paragraphs of text. Video is scannable, replayable and far more engaging for time-poor exhibitors who are trying to absorb a lot of information quickly.

Building a library of short video content within your online exhibitor manual — either produced in-house or by a specialist supplier — is an investment that pays dividends across multiple events. The same video explaining your loading bay process can be reused year after year, updated only when the process itself changes.

7. Replace Forms with Tasks — and Stop Asking the Same Questions Twice

This one might be the most important shift in modern exhibitor management thinking.

Traditional exhibitor forms are frustrating by design. An exhibitor fills in their company name, stand number and contact details on the badge form. Then again on the catalogue entry form. Then again on the health and safety declaration. By the third time they’re asked for the same information, goodwill is gone.

The best exhibitor management platforms have moved beyond forms entirely. Rather than presenting exhibitors with a blank form to fill in, a Task-based system pre-populates known information, guides exhibitors through exactly what’s needed step by step, and confirms completion in a way that’s tracked and visible to the organiser.

What’s the difference between a form and a Task?
A form puts the burden on the exhibitor to understand what’s needed and provide it from scratch. A Task tells the exhibitor exactly what to do, pre-fills what you already know, and confirms when it’s done. For organisers managing exhibitors at scale, the difference in completion rates is significant.

The Result: An Exhibitor Manual That Actually Gets Read

Implementing these seven strategies won’t just improve the exhibitor experience — it will reduce inbound queries to your operations team, improve on-time task completion and give you a clearer picture of show readiness well in advance of event day.

The exhibitor manual has always been important. With the right online exhibitor manual platform and these best practices in place, it becomes something exhibitors actually value — and that’s good for everyone.

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Frequently Asked Questions: Online Exhibitor Manuals

What should an exhibitor manual include?

An exhibitor manual should include build-up and breakdown schedules, health and safety requirements, contractor rules and deadlines, stand specifications, ordering information for furniture, AV and electrics, badge and catalogue entry processes, and any event-specific rules. An online exhibitor manual should also include direct links to forms — or ideally Task-based completions — for each required action.

What is an online exhibitor manual?

An online exhibitor manual is a digital version of the traditional printed or PDF exhibitor guide. Hosted on a web-based exhibitor management platform, it gives exhibiting companies 24/7 access to all the information and tasks they need to prepare for the show — with the added benefits of searchability, tracked task completion, and real-time updates from the organiser.

How do I improve exhibitor engagement with my manual?

The most effective ways to improve exhibitor engagement with your manual are: making it available online rather than as a PDF, using personalised automated reminders tied to outstanding tasks, enabling access for the whole exhibiting team, and replacing static forms with guided Tasks. Platforms like FFAIR are purpose-built to deliver all of these capabilities through a single exhibitor management platform.

What is the best platform for managing exhibitors?

FFAIR is an award-winning exhibitor and sponsorship management platform used by event organisers around the world. It combines an intuitive online exhibitor manual with task management, a supplier Shop, automated communications and deep analytics — all in one place.

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