Overnight Print & 6am Install for a 3m x 6m Exhibition Wall at ExCeL London

The Brief

Our client came to us with a problem most sign companies would have turned away: their exhibition back wall for a stand at ExCeL London wasn’t ready, and the show floor opened the next morning. There was no time for the usual lead time on artwork proofing, production, and a daylight install slot — the graphics had to be designed, printed, and fitted to a 3m x 6m stand wall overnight, with the team needing to be off-site and the hall ready before doors opened to visitors. Anything less than a flawless, fully finished wall by 6am wasn’t an option — there’d be no second attempt before the show started.

What We Did

Once artwork was signed off, we ran the job straight onto our Mimaki UJV55-320 wide-format UV printer. Because the UJV55-320 can print at the full 3m height of the stand wall in one continuous pass, we were able to produce the entire 6m run as complete, seamless sections rather than the usual approach of printing in narrower drops and joining panels on-site. That one decision did most of the heavy lifting for a job on this timescale — no panel-matching, no vertical seams to line up, and far less that could go wrong in an install running against the clock.

The UV cure on the UJV55-320 also meant the print came off the machine ready to handle and finish immediately, with no waiting on solvent inks to off-gas before laminating or trimming — critical when every hour overnight was accounted for. We finished, trimmed, and prepped the sections through the night, then loaded up and got our installers into ExCeL in the early hours, well ahead of the show’s opening.

With full-height sections rather than multiple drops, the install itself was also faster and lower-risk — fewer joins to align, less time spent up ladders squaring up panels, and a cleaner finish overall. The wall was up, checked, and signed off before 6am, in time for the stand to be fully dressed before the first visitors arrived on the show floor.

The Result

The client had a complete, professional-standard exhibition wall in place for opening time, with a finish that looked like it had been planned weeks in advance rather than turned around overnight. The seamless full-height printing meant the finished wall had none of the visible joins or colour-matching issues that come with panelled drops, and being able to run the job start-to-finish on one machine — print, cure, and finish — is exactly what made an overnight turnaround realistic in the first place. It’s now our go-to answer whenever a client is up against a hard exhibition deadline: if the wall can be printed in one piece, it can usually be printed overnight.

Got a tight exhibition deadline?
Get in touch to talk about fast-turnaround, seamless exhibition graphics for your next show.ming event and need a stand designed and built to your exact requirements, get in touch to discuss how we can help.