Event: TABEXPO 2023 · Venue: BolognaFiere, Italy
Client: Riedel Filtertechnik GmbH · Sector: Filtration technology and industrial machinery
Size: 18 m² · Dates: 10–11 May 2023
The project
An 18 m² stand at TABEXPO 2023, BolognaFiere, for Riedel Filtertechnik GmbH, a German manufacturer of filtration technology.
Delivered for Riedel 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 real story here is the paperwork
This is the most heavily documented stand in our record, and it is worth explaining why — because the compliance dossier is the part of a European build that most contractors quietly outsource, and it is the part that stops a stand opening.
BolognaFiere required, for an 18 m² stand:
- Import notice for goods arriving from outside the EU — a mandatory customs declaration, filed before the freight moves
- Statement of correct execution of the electrical system — signed certification that the stand’s electrics were installed to standard
- Workplace accident prevention disclosure — the build’s safety declaration
- Waste management declaration — how build-up and dismantling waste is handled
- Structural declaration for the stand as erected
Five separate mandatory forms. Each has a deadline, each has a named signatory, and any one of them missing is a stand that does not get its final sign-off.
A 300 m² stand and an 18 m² stand require the same dossier. That is the hidden economics of small stands — the administrative floor does not scale down, which is exactly why brokers price small builds badly or subcontract them to whoever will absorb the paperwork.
Filtration at a manufacturing show
TABEXPO is the exhibition for manufacturing and processing technology in the tobacco and nicotine industry — machinery, materials and process engineering. Riedel’s product is filtration technology: a component sold to manufacturers on performance data.
- The audience is process engineers. Specification and throughput data matter more than brand presence
- The stand is a meeting room with a front. At 18 m² every square metre is either display or conversation, and conversation wins
- Two days only. A short show concentrates everything — there is no slow first day to recover from a build-up problem
Why it matters
It proves the compliance capability we claim, with a venue’s own form list behind it. It is also a second BolognaFiere venue proof alongside three consecutive Cosmoprof editions.
Services delivered
- Stand design and 3D visualisation
- Custom fabrication in our own workshops
- Electrical installation and certification
- Full BolognaFiere compliance dossier — import, electrical, safety, waste and structural
- Large-format graphics and branding
- Furniture, lighting and meeting space
- Freight, customs and on-site logistics
- Installation, supervision and dismantling by our own crew
Frequently asked questions
Do you handle venue compliance paperwork yourselves?
Yes, in house. At BolognaFiere this stand required five separate mandatory declarations — import notice, electrical certification, accident prevention, waste management and structural. We produce them rather than subcontract them, which is what makes a compressed programme survivable.
Do you build small stands?
Yes. An 18 m² stand carries the same documentation burden as a large one, so the value of an in-house team is proportionally greater, not smaller.
Do you work at BolognaFiere?
Regularly — TABEXPO and multiple Cosmoprof editions. See every exhibition and venue we build at.
Exhibiting in Italy?
Tell us the venue and the dates and we will quote it, paperwork included — info@echoexpo.site.