Behind the Booth: Our Show Display Setup

I’ve had a lot of people ask about our show wall setup, so I wanted to share a closer look—plus the planning that went into it. We designed it to be sturdy, modular, and easy to transport and adjust on the fly.

Each wall panel started with a 4×8 sheet of ¾” plywood. To help with planning, I sketched a layout on grid paper where each square represented 1 inch. That helped us visualize where we wanted shelves and signage in advance.

We drilled 1″ holes to hold removable wooden pegs, cut from dowels at 7.5″ long. The shelves are made from 1×6 boards that simply rest on the pegs. Since the pegs can be moved, we’re able to rearrange the shelves for each setup depending on our display needs. Even the signs and magnetic pegboard are mounted using pegs, so they’re just as easy to move around. (The magnetic pegboard is from Target—we nailed it to the pegs for support.) Lighting was a simple but super effective touch. We used stick-on lights mounted with 3M adhesive strips. They held well and came off cleanly when we were done, without damaging the wall at all.

The base feet are made from more ¾” plywood, cut to 12″ x 24″ with notches that fit into the walls for stability. We used our CNC machine to cut them, but you could absolutely do this with basic tools. Across the bottom, we placed a 12″ x 48″ glued pine board to create an additional shelf for display.

Set up took us just 2 hours—including tables and side walls—and tear down and loading was under an hour (56 minutes to be exact!). We hauled everything in a pickup truck and stored the walls, pegs, mallet, and other pieces in a large carry bag.

To keep the shelves secure, I added small wall bumpers in front of any boards that didn’t have perfectly flat bottoms. Honestly, we didn’t have any issues, but it was a good precaution.

Lastly, we joined the back of each wall with a small screwed-in brace to align them flush and give extra stability.