| Next edition | May 2027 · Olympia London |
|---|---|
| Starting price | £3,950+ |
| Venue | Olympia London |
| Next edition | 2027 |
| Producers | 200+ |
| Sector | Drinks |
| Quote turnaround | 48hr |
Imbibe Live Stand Builders: Olympia Logistics, the On-Trade Buyer, and What Wins Listings
Imbibe Live is the UK's leading drinks trade event, held each year at Olympia London for anyone who buys, sells or serves drinks across the on- and off-trade. Launched in 2010, it brings 200-plus producers — spirits, wine, beer, cider, mixers, soft drinks and no-and-low — together with bar, restaurant, hotel, pub and retail buyers, with tastings, masterclasses and mixology at its heart.
This is a tasting-led buying show, so the brief is sample plus story plus listing: pour your drinks beautifully, tell the brand and provenance story, and give buyers room to talk listings and terms. Drinks are bought after they're tasted and the maker's story lands, so a stand built around an inviting tasting moment is what turns a pour into a listing.
Because the audience is choosing what to stock and serve, presentation, an easy tasting flow and a confident brand do as much as the liquid itself — a stand that makes tasting and talking effortless wins the buyer.
For a drinks brand that means a stand built around the pour: an inviting tasting bar, a clear brand, and room to talk listings. The producers who leave with listings design the tasting and the conversation together.
Building at Olympia London: the rules that shape your stand
Olympia London has been through a major redevelopment, but its halls remain Grade II listed with a glazed barrel roof, so rigging points and floor loadings are more constrained than a modern box hall. We confirm the current technical manual each edition and check available rigging points before committing to a design that relies on them.
Complex and double-deck stands need structural drawings and method statements submitted to the organiser's appointed contractor for approval; we prepare these in-house so approval isn't the thing that delays your build. Raised floors need accessible ramped edges, finishes use water-based paint on site, and every structure must be self-supporting.
Access is through fixed loading points with tighter vehicle access than a purpose-built exhibition hall, so we size crates and time deliveries around the loading schedule rather than turning up and queuing for the dock. As at most central-London venues, messy fabrication isn't practical in-hall, so stands are finished and inspected at our workshop and assembled clean on the floor.
What a winning Imbibe Live stand needs
The strongest stands make tasting effortless and the brand unmissable: a well-designed serving or tasting bar, your range shown clearly, branding that reads across the aisle, and a spot to talk listings — with the glassware, chilling, water and waste a busy tasting needs built in. We design the flow so your team can pour and talk at once without the stand jamming at the peak.
We design the stand to carry your brand's world — craft, origin, attitude — because on a floor of hundreds of producers, a confident, on-brand tasting bar draws the right buyers and makes your drinks memorable long after the show.
We also plan glass-washing, restocking and waste across the day, because a tasting bar that runs out of clean glasses or chilled product at the busy hour loses exactly the buyers you came to meet.
Designing for the on-trade buyer
Buyers walk the floor tasting widely and shortlisting what to stock and serve, so the stand has to invite a tasting, tell the story fast, and make the listing conversation easy. We give your hero drinks and any new launches prominence, design an inviting bar and a clear range display, and keep a spot to talk terms and distribution — because the listing follows quickly once a buyer has tasted and connected with the brand.
We keep the maker or brand ambassador visible and approachable, because at Imbibe the story behind the pour often closes the listing, and a stand that puts your people front and centre converts better than one hiding them behind a counter.
We also make any new launch or hero product impossible to miss, because buyers come hunting the next thing to list, and a stand that flags what's new wins more tastings than one that just lines up the range.
What an Imbibe Live stand costs
A turnkey stand typically runs roughly £3,950–£12,500 for a compact custom build with a tasting point, £12,500–£28,000 for a mid-size build with a serviced bar and meeting space, and £28,000 and up for a flagship. The quote is turnkey — design, build, graphics, lighting, delivery to Olympia, install, dismantle and the venue paperwork are all included — and the bar fit-out, chilling and bespoke, on-brand display move the number most.
Because the value is in the listings and relationships a stand wins, the spend that pays back is in an inviting tasting bar and an on-brand display with room to talk — a beautifully poured drink on a confident stand does more than scale alone.
What you don't pay extra for is in the turnkey figure — flooring, install and the venue paperwork — so your budget goes on the bar, chilling and on-brand display that actually win listings.
Stand sizes and layouts
Stands run from compact spaces for single producers and new launches up to larger builds for established drinks brands and distributors. The layout balances an inviting tasting bar with range display and a spot to talk listings, so we keep the pour and the brand where the aisle sees them and a calm area for the buying conversation. Open and corner positions help you catch a busy, tasting-led floor.
Whatever the size, we make the tasting moment the focus, because at Imbibe a buyer lists what they've tasted and remembered, and a stand that makes the pour easy and the brand memorable punches above its footprint.
Serving drinks at Olympia
Olympia's grand, daylit Victorian halls are a beautiful setting for a drinks show, and we design to them. We also plan the practical side of serving on a stand — chilling, glassware, water and waste, and the venue's catering and concession arrangements for food and drink brought onto a stand — so your tasting runs cleanly and compliantly across the show.
We finish and inspect off-site and crate to Olympia's access schedule, so build-up is clean assembly of a polished, serviced bar rather than fabrication — ready to pour from the first session.
We design the bar so service flows even at the busy hour, with clear space for pouring, talking and restocking, because a tasting that bottlenecks loses the buyers waiting behind the ones already being served.
Reusing your stand between editions
Drinks brands exhibit at Imbibe Live and other trade and consumer events through the year, so a modular, reusable stand is excellent value. We store the core, refresh the graphics and range display for each show, and keep your bar layout and services plan on file — so you arrive with a current, on-brand tasting stand rather than a rebuild, and can scale it as the range grows.
And because drinks brands exhibit across trade and consumer events through the year, a tasting bar that travels and refreshes cleanly between them is worth far more than a one-off.
Next step for your Imbibe Live stand
Send us your space size, hall position and goals for Imbibe Live. You'll get a custom 3D concept and a fixed, all-inclusive quote within 48 hours — designed to Olympia's rules, with structural sign-off built into the timeline if your design needs it. We build in-house and install at Olympia 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.