Where to put posters for an event, and when to put them up
Put event posters where your audience already stops: independent shop windows and cafes in the town centre, then community boards, then venue foyers and arts sites. iDO (Info Display OOH Ltd) holds 150,000 print points across the UK and photographs every one. Plan 150 to 300 sites per market town, starting six weeks out.
Sugandan Balaji
Where should you put posters for an event?
Put event posters where your audience already stands still. A poster site is a display position negotiated with the person who owns the window or the board, not a panel bought from a media owner. Book outwards from the event: independent shop windows and cafes on the high street first, then community boards in libraries and leisure centres, then venue foyers and arts sites, then premier frontages.
Rank the site types by how close each sits to the decision to come. Shop windows and cafes reach people mid errand in the host town. Community boards reach clubs, schools and regulars. Venue foyers reach people already out and already spending. iDO (Info Display OOH Ltd) ran an ultra local blanket of every retail, food and drink, supermarket, community and heritage site in St Albans for Trestle Theatre, and the performance was oversubscribed.
| Site type | What it reaches | Order to book |
|---|---|---|
| Shop windows and cafes | People walking the high street in the host town | First |
| Community boards | Libraries, leisure centres, village halls, clubs | Second |
| Venue foyers and point of sale | Audiences already out and already spending | Third |
| Arts and heritage sites | Theatre, gallery and museum regulars | Fourth |
| Premier frontages | Wider town and city awareness | If budget allows |
How far ahead should event posters go up?
Start putting event posters up six weeks before the date for a local event, and ten to twelve weeks before for anything people book travel, tickets or childcare around. Posters work by repeat sighting, and a display cycle is normally two or four weeks, so six weeks buys two full cycles in the same windows.
Speed matters when a date moves or an announcement lands late. iDO runs 60+ distribution centres with teams local to their own areas, so a town can be covered in days rather than weeks. For Royal Albert Hall Christmas bookers, iDO was on the ground within 2 days of the tier two announcement, with 6,600 addresses of solus door to door across SW7 1 to SW7 5 and 300 first class direct mail.
How many poster sites does one town need?
Plan 150 to 300 poster sites for a market town and 400 to 800 for a city district, then judge the plan by coverage of the routes people walk rather than by the total. A blanket of one high street beats a thin scatter across three towns, because an event poster has to be seen more than once to register a date.
Print to a spec the sites will accept. A3 at 297 by 420mm on 170gsm silk is the workhorse for shop windows and community boards, A2 at 420 by 594mm suits venue foyers, and A1 at 594 by 841mm suits premier frontages and arts venues.
| Catchment | Poster sites to plan | Lead time before the event |
|---|---|---|
| Village or single high street | 40 to 80 | 4 weeks |
| Market town | 150 to 300 | 6 weeks |
| City district or borough | 400 to 800 | 8 weeks |
| Region of three cities | 1,000 plus | 10 to 12 weeks |
How do you phase an event poster campaign across the run up?
Phase an event poster campaign in three waves, each with a different message on the same design system. Wave one puts the name and date into the town. Wave two adds the reason to come. Wave three is the last call, and it goes into the highest footfall sites only, where late decisions get made.
Keep the artwork consistent across all three waves so the fourth sighting is recognised in half a second. Combining formats lifts response: for Design Museum membership, iDO ran solus door to door in W8 6 alongside an ultra local blanket of Kensington High Street, Earls Court Road and Notting Hill Gate, and membership applications spiked.
| Wave | When | What goes up |
|---|---|---|
| Wave one | 6 weeks out | Name, date and town across every booked site |
| Wave two | 3 weeks out | Programme detail, refreshed shop windows and boards |
| Wave three | 10 days out | Last call in premier sites and venue foyers |
How do you check that event posters stayed up?
Check that event posters stayed up by requiring photographed proof of display for every site, with a date and a map pin, and by having the local team revisit and replace anything that came down. A poster you cannot evidence is a poster you cannot count, and windows get cleared and redressed during a six week run up.
iDO has invested over £250,000 in a reporting system that GPS tracks the distribution run, photographs proof of display at each site and publishes both to a live dashboard with geo located maps. With 150,000 print points and more than 5 million brochures distributed every month, iDO operates the biggest print distribution network in the UK, and that reporting is what an event organiser audits mid campaign.
- Ask for the site list before the run, not after
- Require a dated photograph per site, not a sample
- Book a mid campaign replenishment visit
Frequently asked
- What size poster works best in shop windows?
- A3 at 297 by 420mm on 170gsm silk is the format most UK shop windows and community boards will accept. Larger A2 and A1 posters suit venue foyers and premier frontages. iDO negotiates each site individually, so the format is agreed against the sites booked.
- Should event posters carry a QR code?
- Yes. A QR code turns a shop window into a booking route and gives an event poster a measurable response. Keep it large, place it low on the artwork at standing height, and point it at the ticket page rather than the homepage.
- Can posters and leaflets run for the same event?
- Yes, and most iDO event campaigns do. Posters hold one position and are seen repeatedly. Leaflets are taken home and carry the programme detail. iDO distributes more than 5 million brochures a month across 150,000 print points, so both run against the same catchment.