Categories and packages
Define who may exhibit or sponsor, what each class of participant can buy, and how custom categories let one floor carry several kinds of participant at different prices.
Categories are the first thing to get right and the hardest to change later. They decide who may take part and on what terms, and they gate the sign-up flow — an applicant who does not meet a category's conditions is told at selection rather than after paying.
Set these before you open applications
Changing categories after exhibitors have onboarded means re-pricing people who already paid. It is the one part of the setup worth over-thinking.
Exhibitor categories
A category is a class of exhibitor. The obvious split is by size or by what they sell, but the useful split is usually by what they get and what they pay.
Common shapes:
Main hall
The standard exhibitor. Full-size booths, standard pricing, open to any verified business.
Startup pavilion
Smaller booths at a lower price, often with conditions — company age, turnover, or an invitation.
Premium / partner
Best positions, larger allocations, sometimes reserved for sponsors or returning exhibitors.
International
Separate pricing and often separate paperwork, grouped so visitors can find them.
Each category carries its own packages — what the money actually buys. That is how one floor can run a ₹-per-square-metre main hall and a fixed-price startup zone at the same time without two shows.
What a package contains
- The booth, or the size band of booth, it entitles you to
- The pass allocation that comes with it
- Whatever is included as standard — shell scheme, listing, furniture
- The price
An exhibitor picks a category, then a package inside it, then a booth on the floor that the package allows.
Custom categories
You are not limited to the familiar names. A category is just a set of conditions and a set of packages, so it can express whatever your show actually sells — a demonstration zone with power requirements, a food court with different licensing, a pavilion sponsored by a trade body whose members enter on different terms.
A category is a gate, not a label
If a category has conditions, the platform enforces them. It is not a description applied after the fact — a business that does not qualify cannot select it.
Sponsor categories
The same idea, applied to tiers. Each sponsor category states its price and what it includes: branding placement, speaking slots, bundled booth space, pass allocation, and any exclusivity.
The tier that matters most is usually the exclusive one. If you sell a category as "banking partner", the tier definition is where that exclusivity has to live — not in an email exchange with the sponsor's marketing team.
Add-ons
Extras on top of a package, defined once and offered to whoever you choose: additional passes, furniture, power, storage, branding placements, catering.
Some add-ons issue passes the moment they are paid for, so an exhibitor buying more staff passes has them immediately rather than raising a request you fulfil by hand.
Getting the structure right
List what you are actually selling
Not the categories you have seen elsewhere — the distinct things on your floor with different prices or different rules.
Turn each into a category
With its conditions, if it has any.
Give each category its packages
The price points inside it, and what each includes.
Add the extras separately
Anything optional belongs in add-ons, not baked into a package nobody can opt out of.
Floor plan & booths
Draw the hall, divide it into areas, lay out and price booths by position, import an existing plan, and let exhibitors pick their own space from the live floor.
Exhibitors
Invite the businesses you want, take applications from the rest, verify them, and track everyone from first contact to a confirmed, paid booth.