Event: Gastech · Venue: Fiera Milano, Italy · Sector: Oil, gas, LNG and energy
Client: Kent · Size: 63 m² (9 × 7 m) · Dates: 5–8 September 2022
The project
A 63 m² stand at Gastech, Fiera Milano, delivered for Kent at the 50th anniversary edition of the world’s largest gathering for natural gas, LNG, hydrogen and low-carbon energy. That edition drew more than 38,000 energy professionals and over 750 exhibitors across four days.
Delivered for Kent by the team that now designs and fabricates under the Echo Expo name. Echo Expo SARL was founded in 2025 by a team carrying over 20 years of hands-on exhibition experience.
The hard part: a suspended banner on a 27-day programme
The brief arrived late and the preparation window was short. On most stands that is a production problem. On this one it was a rigging problem, because the design carried a suspended banner.
Anything hung from the roof at Fiera Milano is not a last-minute decision. Rigging points have to be requested on the venue’s own form, load calculations submitted and approval issued, and those deadlines close weeks before anyone is allowed on the floor. A late brief does not move them.
What 27 days actually looked like
| Date | Milestone |
|---|---|
| 9 August 2022 | Plans and elevations issued |
| 12 August | Production drawings released to the workshop |
| 22 August | Rigging drawing completed |
| 23 August | Hanging-points request form submitted to Fiera Milano, with graphics plans the same day |
| 26 August | Print files released to the graphics supplier |
| 4 September | Installation on site |
| 5–8 September | Show open |
Twenty-seven days from first drawing to doors open — with a rigging approval, a method statement, a risk assessment and the venue’s compulsory technical dossier all completed inside it.
Notice the sequence. The rigging drawing and the venue form came before the graphics were even sent to print. That order is deliberate: graphics can be expedited, and a rejected rigging application cannot. The stand was designed around the one deadline that could not be moved.
This is why documentation capability matters as much as workshop capacity. A contractor who outsources structural paperwork cannot compress this schedule — they are waiting in someone else’s queue at exactly the point where there is no slack left.
What was built
A 63 m² custom stand on a 9 × 7 metre footprint, structured in painted wooden MDF and built to the approved design.
- A hanging sign board. This is the element that drove the whole programme. Suspended signage is what makes a stand findable from the far end of a hall the size of Fiera Milano — and it is the one component that cannot be added late, because it depends on the venue approving rigging points
- Two ramps, one on each side. The floor is raised, so services run underneath rather than across it — and access is provided from both approaches rather than one. Two ramps means nobody arrives at the stand and finds a step
- Wooden MDF structure throughout, produced in the workshop and finished before it travelled
Three elements, and two of them are about access and visibility rather than decoration. That is usually what separates a stand that works in a 750-exhibitor hall from one that is simply well made.
What the energy sector demands from a stand
Gastech is not a consumer show. The people walking the aisles are engineers, procurement leads and ministry delegations, and they read a stand the way they read a datasheet.
- Meeting capacity over footfall. Business at Gastech happens in scheduled meetings, not passing conversations. Floor area is spent on enclosed and semi-enclosed meeting space rather than open display.
- Technical content has to be legible. Process diagrams, capability matrices and project maps need to read at two metres, not two hundred millimetres.
- Heavy and awkward exhibits. Valves, pumps, cutaway assemblies and instrumentation carry real point loads. Floor loading and plinth engineering are decided before the design is signed off, not after.
- Venue compliance is unforgiving. Fiera Milano requires structural calculations and a stamped technical dossier for anything above a shell scheme, and rigging approvals close weeks before build-up.
Why it matters
Oil, gas and energy is one of the few sectors where the stand itself is read as evidence of engineering seriousness. A well-resolved 63 m² space at a show of that scale is a harder credential than a larger stand at a softer one.
It is also a Fiera Milano proof point. Milan is our European base, and we build inside that venue regularly — see preparing to exhibit at Fiera Milano for the venue rules that shape every project there.
Services delivered
- Stand design and 3D visualisation
- Custom fabrication in our own workshops
- Large-format graphics and branding
- Furniture, lighting and AV
- Freight, customs and on-site logistics
- Venue compliance documentation
- Installation, supervision and dismantling
Frequently asked questions
Can you deliver on a compressed timeline?
It depends on what the design needs. Fabrication can compress. Venue rigging and structural approvals cannot, because those deadlines belong to the venue. The Gastech stand worked because the documentation was prepared in parallel with the design rather than after it — and because we produce that documentation ourselves.
Has Echo Expo built stands for the oil and gas sector?
Yes. This 63 m² stand at Gastech, Fiera Milano, 5–8 September 2022, is one of them. The team also builds across pharmaceutical, food ingredients, cosmetics, rail, aerospace and industrial sectors.
Can you handle heavy equipment on an exhibition stand?
Yes. Point loads, floor protection, plinth engineering and lifting access are designed in from the first layout, and the structural documentation the venue requires is produced by us rather than subcontracted.
Do you build at Fiera Milano regularly?
Yes. Milan is one of our two production bases — our workshop is in Corsico, minutes from the Rho fairground — and we deliver at Fiera Milano across several shows a year. See the full list of exhibitions and venues we build at.
Exhibiting at an energy show in Europe?
Tell us the venue and the dates and we will quote it. One contact from first sketch to final dismantle — info@echoexpo.site.