Space Only Information

The term Space Only means that an Exhibitor has booked only floor space and is therefore responsible for arranging all physical requirements of their own stand, such as design, construction and provision of the floor surface etc. Please note that ExCeL is not a carpeted venue, therefore all space only stands will need to provide their own flooring. Space Only exhibitors may appoint a stand contractor of their own choice. Exhibitors are responsible for ensuring that their contractors receive a copy of this Exhibitor Manual. All designs, construction etc must comply with the organisers, venue and Local Authority deadlines and rules and regulations. It is your or your contractors responsibility to ensure that all dividing walls are built to at least 2.5m.

You or your contractor must submit the following proposed dimensional stand drawings along with:

Risk assessment
Method statement
Construction phase plan
Public liability insurance

All space only exhibitors must supply drawings by the deadline detailed on the Space Only form. Failure to do so will result either in a delay while permission to build is being given at the Show, or proposed plans being condemned and refused building permission. All space only designs must be of a standard deemed acceptable by the Organisers. For the purposes of defining this acceptable standard – Please contact the Operations team.

COMPLEX STAND BUILD

Complex structures

This defines stands with stairs, platforms, stages or elevations, or that are multi-storey or that have ramps or raised walkways or suspended items (e.g. lighting) or that have sound/lighting towers or have any sort of temporary tiered seating. Also, any stand that has been deemed via a Risk Assessment to provide a significant risk. Exhibitors planning a ‘complex structure’ on their site need to have this approved for safety and stability before it can be installed.

If any part of the stand is above 4m in height this stand will be deemed as a complex build and require structural calculations and additional charges to sign off the stand.

Complex space only sites must include

detailed, scaled structural drawings – including plan views, elevations, staircase and platform details, AV, walling and exhibits
relevant structural calculations and specifications
Method statement for build-up and break-down
Risk Assessment and Health & Safety compliance
Construction Phase Plan
Contractors Public Liability Insurance
Stand Number/Company Name

For all complex structures, the Organiser must employ the services of a Structural Engineer to check and certify the plans, and to be onsite during build-up to authorise the stand before the Show can open. The Exhibitor is wholly responsible for the cost of the Structural Engineer’s services or any other costs imposed in connection with the approval of its stand design or construction.

All Space Only Exhibitors MUST SUBMIT detailed stand plans and details of constructional and other works to be carried out, materials, method of construction and the name of the proposed Contractor. These must be drawn up and returned to Operations 6 weeks before the event. Failure to do so could result either in delay whilst permission to build is being given, or proposed plans being refused building permission. LATE SUBMISSION OF PLANS WILL RESULT IN A FEE BEING CHARGED TO THE EXHIBITOR AND COULD RESULT IN THE PLANS NOT BEING ACCEPTED AND THEREFORE NOT ALLOWED WITHIN THE SHOW HALL.

CONTRACTORS

If you are employing a stand contractor to build or work on your stand, please ensure you forward onto them a copy of this manual.

Space Only Guidelines

Designs / Stands incorporating long runs of gangway perimeter walling (more than 30% of any wall) should not be used and will not be approved if deemed by the Organisers to have a detrimental effect on the Show or surrounding stands.

Island Sites / 4 Sides Open

Must be accessible from all four sides and that any walls shall not take up more than one third of the total length of any one side.

All electrical installations are handled by the official Electrical Contractor.

Please note your stand will be inspected and assessed after construction to ensure it has been built according to the plans and structural calculations provided. All designs, construction etc must comply with the venue and Local Authority deadlines and rules and regulations.

Existing building structural columns, where sited on stands, must be not be used to fix any structure or graphic, and in most cases clad on all faces, though not fixed to the actual building structure.

On stands with three open sides or less (“part-island stands”) the Exhibitor is obliged to erect a dividing wall no less than 2.5m high between their stand and any other stand, and is responsible for ensuring that their Contractor leaves any such wall in a clean and finished state in one colour with no graphics visible or logos from any adjoining stand or gangway.

All work must be carried out within the schedule as laid down in the Show Timetable.

All work on stands and displays must be carried out in accordance with the Health & Safety at Work Act 1974 and the Show’s Rules and Regulations contained in this manual. All members of staff attending the Show must read these rules and regulations. In order to confirm the acceptance of your responsibility under the Health & Safety at Work Act 1974, please complete and return the Health & safety Declaration Form. All stands, signage and other physical elements of the Exhibitor’s presence at the Show must be compliant with the requirements of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 and other conditions contained in this handbook.

*pop up banners will not be accepted as a space only stand and must be inside of a shell scheme*

PLATFORMS

Where platforms form part of a stand all exposed corners need to be rounded or protected in some way and wheelchair access must be taken into consideration.

Exhibitors wanting Water/Waste & Electrics should check positions of Ducts with the Organisers before finalising the layout of Stand and consider using a platform to hide unseemly pipes & wires.

MUSLIN CEILINGS

Where an Exhibitor is constructing a Space Only stand with a muslin ceiling, such material (and any others used in construction) must comply with Fire Regulations and be of non-flammable material (Class One spread of flame BS476).

ADDITIONAL CONSIDERATIONS FOR SPACE ONLY STANDS

Add all relevant instructions to the site rules that you prepare for your stand construction phase.

Consider the size/location of any break areas or staff rooms within your stand space where relevant and ensure that your staff are aware of the rules and procedures that apply in these areas.

When implementing restricted access to your stand, consider the visual appeal and customer experience, for example, building in a product display or branding opportunity rather than a functional but blank wall.

Within the Build-Up and Breakdown period, you may or may not require a one-way system on your stand – this will depend on your stand size and complexity of build. Consult your stand builder and have a plan in place to ensure your staff can interact safely with the build team.

Do not arrange for all of your construction materials, stock and supplies to be delivered at the same time, unless this can be stored throughout the Build-Up within the confines of your stand.

Please confine all tasks within the stand construction phase to within your stand boundaries once your floor/floor covering has been laid. It will be more important than ever to keep the gangways clear of goods and construction work to allow social distancing measures to be observed.

If you do need to deliver everything/anything prior to being able to accept it all on to your stand area, please contact the official event freight supplier to discuss opportunities for storage within an onsite staging area.

Consider the time that you need to arrive. Only the largest stands, with the most work to complete, need to be waiting to come into the halls when the doors open at 8am on the first day of the build-up. Similarly, for smaller stand spaces, could you arrive to build two days before the event opens, rather than on the day before when the halls are usually busiest?

If possible, allow your stand contractors enough time to complete their build before your teams arrive onsite.

Stand construction progress updates/production meetings could be held digitally in certain circumstances as an alternative to physically monitoring progress on the stand.

CDM REGULATIONS

The Construction (Design & Management) Regulations 2017 (CDM) are the main set of regulations for managing the health, safety and welfare of construction projects. As of April 2017, the CDM regulations now applies to the Entertainment Industry and includes exhibitions, live events, and conferences.

The Construction, Design & Management (CDM) Regulations do not replace any existing law but are intended to provide a framework to help you ensure that your stand is constructed safely and help you understand your obligations. As an exhibitor there are a number of responsibilities you may need to document in order to comply with these regulations.

UNDERSTANDING YOUR RESPONSIBILITIES AS A SPACE ONLY EXHIBITOR:

Under CDM you are defined as the CLIENT and your duties are:

a. Make arrangements for managing a project. You do not need a specialised CDM co-ordinator. You do need to ensure that someone is named as responsible for ensuring all of the required roles are fulfilled. The majority of your responsibilities can be delegated to your space only stand builder/designer if you use one.

Ensure construction work is carried out safely and that welfare requirements are complied with. This can usually be delegated to your Designer/Contractor.
Ensure a Construction Phase Plan is drawn up. The responsibility here is to ensure that there is one. Your Designer/Contractor will do this for you and will run alongside existing risk assessments and method statements that they should be doing as part of their obligations under other legislation.
Notify the project if above threshold. You will be required to notify the HSE if the construction phase exceeds 500 person days or in the more unlikely event that the construction phase exceeds 30 working days and has more than 20 workers working simultaneously at any point in the project – click here for more information.

Appoint a Principal Designer, Principal Contractor & Contractors:
a. The Principal Designer would be the person or company who is in control of the ‘designs’ of your stand.

The Principal Contractor would be the person or company who is in control of the ‘build’ of your stand.
The role of Contractor is often provided by the same company who fulfil the Principle Contractor role. However, should the Principal Contractor employ a third party to actually deliver on-site, the third party would take this responsibility on.
The above roles may be carried out within your own business, by one external party or by 2 separate parties. They can also be carried out by the same person – the important thing to remember here is that you appoint parties to fulfil the below elements and the parties you appoint are competent, understand their responsibilities and liaise with each other.

The Principal Designer must:

Ensure that all planning and design, pre-construction, is carried out in compliance with the law.
Ensure that risks are identified, eliminated and controlled at the design stage.
Ensure that a Construction Phase plan is drawn up and a Health & Safety file is prepared and revised where necessary.
Ensure that pre-construction information is provided to contractors.

The Principal Contractor must:

Plan, manage and co-ordinate the construction phase (build-up & breakdown).
Ensure work is carried out without risks to Health & Safety.
Draw up site rules for the stand area (these will often mirror the Event’s rules, but should not be limited to this), ensure suitable inductions and welfare facilities.
Restrict access to your site as and when required by the work being carried out at the time.

The Contractor must:

Plan, manage and monitor the way construction work is carried out. This includes ensuring it is safe to construct and remove within an event environment.
Plan construction in such a way that it has little or no impact on the neighbouring constructions or contractors.
Provide information, instruction and training.
Liaise onsite with Event Operations team.

Induction and Site Rules
A suitable site induction must be provided to any personnel requiring access to the construction site. The induction must be site specific, highlight any particular risks and include information on the emergency procedures. Where there is more than one Contractor involved in a project the responsibility for ensuring an induction is provided rests with the Principal Contractor. (See also Construction Phase Plan)

Exhibitors are responsible for sharing any relevant information that they receive to any personnel that they invite onsite during the construction phase. In addition, if exhibitors of the space only stand intend to be present on the plot during the construction then they must receive the site specific induction for the event as a whole and, if relevant, a site specific induction for their space only plot. It may be the case that the stand builder simply adopts the organiser’s standard site rules and adds any of their own stand specific rules. The site rules for both the event as a whole and any specifically for the space only plot must be communicated to all personnel requiring access to the space only plot during the construction phase. If exhibitors of the space only stand intend to be present on the plot during the construction, then the site rules must be adhered to.

Construction Phase Plan

This document sets out the arrangements for securing health and safety during the construction period. The arrangements include site rules taking into account the activities that will be taking place during the construction period. For projects involving more than one Contractor a Principal Contractor is responsible for the Construction Phase Plan and site rules whereas for single Contractor projects this responsibility sits with a Contractor. It is likely that the Operations Manager (whether in-house or outsourced) will take the role of Principal Designer and Principal Contractor for the event and therefore will be responsible for producing the Construction Phase Plan for the work procured by the organiser. A Construction Phase Plan is similar to a Risk Assessment but with the following additions:

Who are the duty holders? (particularly Principal Contractor)

What training/experience do they have?
What do they need?
How will they be monitoring progress & safety?

How will site rules, changes of information, Construction Phase Plan, Method Statement, Risk Assessment, Accidents & Incidents be communicated?
What consultation process is in place with your contractors?
Who is responsible for what?
What are the site rules?
What are your Welfare Arrangements?
What are the main dangers in your construction process and what controls are in place?

If you need an example template of a Construction Phase Plan please contact the organisers.

Welfare Arrangements: The majority of requirements required through CDM are already in place at most major UK Venues:

Access to toilets.
Access to seating.
Access to drinking water.
Access to a retail food outlet or alternative source of sourcing food.

Over and above that, you should ensure that the Welfare of the team carrying out the construction is planned for. Think about:

Working hours.
Equipment required.
What Protective equipment (PPE) is required?

SPACE ONLY EXHIBITORS – CDM INFORMATION TO PASS ONTO YOUR STAND BUILDER

Understand your responsibilities as the exhibitor’s stand builder:
a. Space only exhibition stands will be classed as CDM “mini-sites”, with a separate management hierarchy for the shell scheme, feature areas, flooring, logistics and other “main contractor” services procured and managed centrally by the exhibition organiser.

Under CDM, your role is defined as that of the Principle Designer and Principle Contractor.
Both of these roles require the Stand Builder to ensure that the CDM “Client” – ie the exhibitor – is aware of their own duties within CDM, which are effectively to provide resources to the project, appoint the other CDM roles, manage their coordination and ensure that these other organisations fulfil their duties such as producing a Construction Phase Plan, Risk Assessment and Method Statement and providing welfare.
In exceptional circumstances, where a stand build exceeds 500 person days, the Client will need to notify HSE.
As well as educating the exhibitor, as a Principal Designer a Stand Builder will be responsible for controlling the pre-construction design and planning phase of the project, using exhibitor and venue provided information, coordinating in-house and external technical designers including a structural engineer where relevant, designing out fabrication and assembly risk before production starts, assembling a Health and Safety file (this part described as generally unnecessary in draft HSE guidance) and Principal Contractor liaison (if not taking this role on themselves).
As Principal Contractor, the Stand Builder will then manage and monitor the construction and de-rig safely, documenting their approach in a Construction Phase Plan, will coordinate and manage freelancers and subcontractors, undertake an induction talk and provide relevant health and safety information, instruction, training and supervision to all personnel, including emergency and first aid arrangements. Draft HSE guidance suggests that Stand Builders should undertake due diligence on their own suppliers and also on those suppliers appointed by a venue or an organiser.

Stand Builders need to ensure that their participation at an event is carried out safely. The Construction, Design & Management (CDM) Regulations do not replace any existing law but are intended to provide a framework to help you meet the requirement and helping you understand your obligations. These documents should be viewed as a summary for meeting minimum requirements and should at all times be used in conjunction with Health and Safety at Work Act, HSE’s exhibition specific guidance on CDM2017 and also the HSE’s official L153 guidance on CDM.

RISK ASSESSMENTS

– are an essential tool for planning how health and safety will be controlled in the workplace. It is simply a careful examination of what, in your work, could cause harm to people so that you can weigh up whether you have taken enough precautions or should do more to prevent harm.

All Space Only Stand holders must supply separate Risk assessments for Build-Up and Breakdown from their contractors as well as for the Open period.

For Space Only Stand please email these directly to [email protected] along with your method statement and stand plans.

Every Space only stand must undertake a Risk assessment for the build and breakdown prior to the exhibition, identifying the hazards present on-site and ways in which you will minimise and control those hazards. The Risk Assessment must be returned by all Space only exhibitors or their contractors.

Below are the HSE recommended 5 steps

Look for the hazards
. Decide who could be harmed and how
Evaluate the risk
Record the findings
Review your findings

Hazard means anything that has the potential to cause harm. For example, working at height, electricity, lifting, slipping, tripping, fire, chemicals, dust (e.g. from grinding), manual handling, noise, poor lighting, vehicles.

Risk is the chance, high or low, that someone will be harmed by the hazard

For guidelines and templates to writing a risk assessment please see the Health and Safety Executive’s website http://www.hse.gov.uk/risk/casestudies/.

When completing your risk assessment please take into consideration that you have enough space to accommodate all of your staff, stock, counters, demo benches, fridges, shelving etc. on your stand to avoid unnecessary risks caused by overcrowding on your stand and as a consequence using aisle space or causing an accident, during the build and open period.

It is also important to consider and ensure that you and your team have had adequate rest before working on your stand especially during the build and breakdown periods. Please also consider the following:

Do you plan any significant construction on your stand?
Will you be using any tools, power tools, ladders, paint or chemicals on your stand?
Will there be any hazardous or moving exhibits/machinery on your stand?
Will there by use of any form of gas on the stand at any time?
Will you be responsible for dismantling the stand?
Will there be any working at height?
Will you be laying flooring or a platform?
Will you be installing a ramp or stairs?

PLEASE NOTE: The following example is precisely that, an example only; it does not cover all of the safety requirements which are needed for the hazard and only looks at the one specific hazard of fork lifting operations. Exhibitors/Contractors must fully consider controls for all hazards which they have identified on their Hazard Review Form.

All exhibitors/contractors where relevant are reminded of their duty in law to undertake written Risk Assessments on behalf of their employees and to develop safe working practices arising from this process.

Hazard	Who Might Be Harmed	How the Risk is Controlled	Is It Adequately Controlled	What Further Action is required/possible
Fork Lift Operation	Contractors, Exhibition Organisers, Other Site Users	Competent, qualified operator – Area under, and around the fork lift operation to be free from personnel – etc…	No danger of individuals walking under the load	– Cordon off the area of use of the forklift – etc – etc…

METHOD STATEMENT

A work method statement is a document that details the way a work task or process is to be completed. The method statement should outline the hazards involved and include a step by step guide on how to do the job safely. The method statement must also detail which control measures have been introduced to ensure the safety of anyone who is affected by the task or process.

A method statement should answer the following:

a. Person Responsible for Overseeing Construction/Breakdown
b. Stand Dimensions, Stand Height, Stand Location and Unusual Stand Features
c. Materials to be used
d. Access – details of entry into hall and route to final location
e. Erection sequence and schedule in which the stand elements will be built
f. Stability – methods of ensuring adequate structural support of any stand element requiring cross-bracing, with calculations and inspection certificate from a structural engineer
g. Lifting
h. Ladders & Scaffolding – include use of ladders, details of temporary or mobile scaffolds, access towers and other work at height
i. COSHH – any proposed use of hazardous and /or toxic substances must be advised to the Organisers and Venue. Outline the protection provided for employees and workers on adjacent stands.
j. Environment – consider noise, dust, fumes, ventilation, weather
k. Services – note where electrical work, welding, gases, compressed air, water or waste services will be
l. Safety Features – identify safety equipment and precautions that you will be providing on-site
m. Exhibits – details of exhibits which may present a hazard to the public and/or the operator and what precautions will be taken.

Please note your stand will also be inspected and assessed after construction to ensure it has been built according to the plans and structural calculations.

All designs, construction etc must comply with the Organisers’, Venue and Local Authority deadlines and rules and regulations.