| Next edition | 5–7 Apr 2027 · ExCeL London |
|---|---|
| Starting price | £3,950+ |
| Venue | ExCeL London |
| Next edition | 5–7 Apr 2027 |
| Buyers | 25,000+ |
| Suppliers | 1,500+ |
| Quote turnaround | 48hr |
HRC Stand Builders: ExCeL Logistics, the Hospitality Buyer, and What Wins Orders
HRC (Hotel, Restaurant & Catering) is the UK's leading trade event for hospitality and foodservice, held at ExCeL London as the centrepiece of Food, Drink & Hospitality Week alongside IFE, The Pub Show, Speciality & Fine Food Fair and Hospitality Tech360. Across three days it draws 25,000-plus buyers — hotel groups, restaurants, caterers, pubs and buying groups — to 1,500-plus suppliers of food and drink, professional kitchen equipment, design and decor, tableware and hospitality tech.
What makes HRC different from a pure food show is breadth: a buyer might be sourcing a coffee range, a combi oven, a chair and a booking system in one visit. So the brief depends on what you sell — sampling for food and drink, working demonstration for equipment and tech, tactile display for furniture and interiors — but the constant is presence plus meeting capacity: look serious from the aisle and give your team room to talk specification and orders with operators.
It's a practical, sourcing-focused crowd, so showing the product working — tasting it, seeing the equipment run, feeling the finish — does the persuading.
For a hospitality or foodservice brand that means a stand built around how you sell — taste it, see it run, or feel the finish — with room for the operator conversation that follows. The exhibitors who win at HRC design the experience and the meeting together.
Building at ExCeL London: the rules that shape your stand
ExCeL is a pillar-free hall with around 10m of clear internal height, but your stand does not get all of it. For space-only stands the working height limit at most ExCeL shows is 6m, and anything ExCeL classes as a complex structure — double-deckers, heavy suspended elements, long unsupported spans — triggers a formal sign-off you need to budget time for, not just money.
Complex designs must be submitted with engineering calculations applying a minimum factor of safety of 1.5. An independent structural engineer reviews the drawings and, if satisfied, issues a Certificate of Structural Adequacy at design stage, which releases your Certificate to Build; the same engineer inspects the stand on site during build-up before you can open. Miss a calculation or submit late and you do not build.
Overhead rigging is controlled tightly: all primary rigging to the ceiling is installed exclusively by ExCeL's own team, ordered through ExCeL's webshop and confirmed around 28 days before tenancy for the advance rate. Lightweight static items hang from drop wires up to 50kg; heavier loads are separate, costlier orders.
The smaller rules catch people out too: platforms above 170mm need ramped, accessible access; solid walls along an open gangway edge are generally not allowed; only water-based paint may be used on site; and every structure must be fully self-supporting. We design to all of this from the first sketch and submit the venue paperwork, so the build you approve is the build that opens.
What a winning HRC stand needs
The right stand depends on your category, and we design to it: a serviced sampling or tasting point for food and drink, a working demo for kitchen equipment or hospitality tech, or a tactile, well-lit display for furniture, tableware and interiors. The constant is a clear product story from the aisle and a comfortable spot to talk specification and orders — plus discreet storage so stock, crates or packaging never clutter the shop front.
Whatever you sell, we plan the services it needs from the first sketch — power, water, extraction or refrigeration for live cooking and sampling, weight and access for heavy equipment — and order them through ExCeL's contractors in good time, because these are exactly what gets caught out at a busy build.
Across three days the stand has to keep performing: we plan restocking, cleaning and turnaround so a sampling counter or demo looks as sharp on the final afternoon as it did at opening.
Designing for hospitality operators
Operators come to source and to compare, so the stand has to qualify visitors fast: a clear line on what you supply and to whom — hotels, restaurants, caterers, pubs — so the right buyers stop and the rest move on. We design a path from a first hook (a taste, a demo, a touch) to a seated conversation about specification, volumes and terms, with a natural handover so your team spends three days on the right operators.
Proof and quality cues carry weight here — a product tasted, an oven seen running, a finish felt — so we design for the experience rather than for copy, because a hospitality buyer commits to what they've sampled or seen work, not what a banner claims.
What an HRC stand costs
A turnkey stand typically runs roughly £3,950–£12,500 for a compact custom build, £12,500–£28,000 for a mid-size build with a serviced sampling or demo area and meeting space, and £28,000 and up for a flagship build. The quote is turnkey — design, build, graphics, lighting, delivery to ExCeL, install, dismantle and the venue paperwork are all included — and the sampling or demo fit-out, services and bespoke display usually move the number.
Because the value is in the listings and specification deals that follow, the spend that pays back is in a stand that lets buyers experience the product and gives you room to write business — not in scale for its own sake.
Stand sizes and layouts
Stands run from compact spaces for first-time and artisan suppliers up to large builds for established hospitality brands. The layout balances experience and selling: the sampling, demo or display where the aisle sees it, and a calm spot to talk specification behind. We size and arrange the stand around what you sell, the services it needs and how many operators you want to handle at once.
On a vast, mixed floor, clarity earns its place: a buyer should know your category before they reach you, so we give the product bold, readable signage rather than burying it in detail.
Getting into ExCeL: build-up timing
HRC sits in a busy April slot during a large co-located week, so material-handling, rigging, the electrical contractor and catering services book up early and late orders attract surcharges. We confirm your space-only window, order rigging at the advance rate, coordinate power, water and extraction or refrigeration with the appointed contractor, and crate to a slot that lands the stand finished and tested before doors open.
We coordinate the catering and equipment services specifically — supply, drainage, extraction and heavy-equipment access — because these are easy to overlook at booking and expensive to add once a busy build-up has started.
Reusing your stand between editions
Hospitality and foodservice brands exhibit across a calendar of trade shows, so a modular, reusable stand is excellent value. We store the core and refresh the graphics, display and sampling or demo layout for each show, keeping your services plan on file — so you can exhibit across HRC and other events with a setup that already worked practically, rather than rebuilding each time.
Because hospitality brands often exhibit across several shows a year, a stand that packs down and travels cleanly between them is worth far more than a one-off, and we keep your services plan ready to repeat at each venue.
Next step for your HRC stand
Send us your space size, hall position and goals for HRC. You'll get a custom 3D concept and a fixed, all-inclusive quote within 48 hours — designed to ExCeL's rules, with structural sign-off built into the timeline if your design needs it. We build in-house and install at ExCeL London, so the stand you approve in the rendering is the stand that opens.
We also design and build exhibition stands for other major UK shows — see the full show calendar for food, drink & hospitality and beyond, all with the same in-house team, fixed all-in pricing and full venue paperwork.