What Your On-Stand Refreshments Say About Your Brand

Providing refreshments on your exhibition stand is a great incentive to get people involved. After all, the way to anyone’s heart is through their stomach, right?

The good news is that there are a lot of options for the sorts of snacks, drinks, and refreshments you can provide during your event. Sweet treats, coffee and tea, aperitifs. But did you know that your refreshments can also be used to do some of your brand storytelling?

Whichever refreshments you choose to offer, they all have a different vibe and relay a slightly different message to your audience.

So, here’s a fun little game to get you thinking about your next event.

What does your refreshment of choice say about your business?

1. Coffee

Your brand means business. Your audience works hard, plays hard and you’re all about connection.

Coffee is, of course, the go-to for many businesses. It’s a popular drink, universally adored, and a flexible option.

There’s the added incentive that it’s a very business-y drink; you don’t have an office without coffee to wake people up and get people moving.

It’s also had a boom lately, hasn’t it? It’s no longer, “one coffee, please.” There are so many more options. From your iced oat mocha to your gorgeous latte art, and your tasty flat whites, coffee now gives visitors to your stand a little bit of choice, and familiarity in their busy day.

Another cool thing about offering coffee on-stand is that you can ask your baristas to use branded cups. That means that your brand starts venturing out beyond the realms of your lovely exhibition stand. People spot it, fancy a coffee and BOOM. Visitors.

MSIG's BIBA 2026 Stand, complete with a coffee corner, and stirrer station (PHOTO: Machis Baboulene )

2. Ice Cream

No matter what your brand does, you aren't afraid to show your more personable, human side. You’re all about offering choice. You bring nuance to the table.

Ice cream is the sort of novelty treat that you’re less likely to see at an event, so having it on-stand is already a boon in terms of grabbing attention.

The logistics of a fast-melting food mean that you need to have a cool way of serving your ice creams, and that means a little bit more creativity, and a little bit more of a statement.

Take Aviva’s ice cream bike at Airmic 2026, for example. The bike fit in well with the rest of their exhibition stand scenery and offered a quaint bit of visual storytelling: ‘come and see us, we have ice cream!’

Ice cream is also great because of all the flavours. When it comes to marketing, everything is about personalisation. Personalisation, in events, often comes from that element of choice. So, having an array of ice creams on your stand offers visitors that choice.

Even a little moment where they get to select something that’s going to bring them a bit of joy, shows you care, and shows you think about all the different types of people who are going to visit your stand in any one day.

And, again, you can bring branded ice cream cups to the event and achieve a further outreach as your ice creams travel around the event hall.

Aviva had an ice cream bike at Airmic 2026 - (PHOTO: Image Experiential)

3. Mocktails

Your brand thinks creatively to solve problems before they arise. You’re relaxed; you have all the time in the world. Plus, there’s something sparkly and even flashy about the work you do, so you want to make your visitors feel special.

Mocktails are an event marketing classic. Why? Because mocktails offer all the benefits of soft drinks, but they’re a bit snazzier and provide a few more options than regular fizzy pop. Also, uou can personalise and explore different options to find the ones that best suit your brand.

Within that, there’s scope for brand storytelling. So, for example, you might name your mocktails according to the services and products you offer. Offering risk management solutions, for example, you might make a lemon-flavoured drink called ‘Before Life Gives You Lemons’, demonstrating your proactive ability to solve problems, before they occur.

Your refreshments therefore work to advance your brand’s message, getting people involved through their choice of drink, making them consider the work you do.

HDI Global Offering a selection of storytelling mocktails at Airmic 2026 (PHOTO: Image Experiential)

4. Booze

You might be a serious business but today, you’re open to relaxed, open conversation. You’ve got class and you’re willing to splash out on your visitors to make sure they have a good experience.

Obviously, supplying booze on stand needs to be done carefully, and with coordination via the venue. However, there are many ways you can offer a bit of choice, a bit of fun, and a bit of excitement to draw guests in.

Champagne and prosecco say that you’re splashing out on your visitors, carving out a dignified space for adults to discuss the services you offer. Meanwhile, lager and wine promote a feeling of comfort, showing that your guests are in good hands, and priming them to listen and share openly.

When you think that conversation and connection are the baseline of a good event, it’s little wonder that a splash of alcohol can create that really nice, conducive atmosphere.

And, sometimes that offering can be shaped into the distinctiveness of your exhibition stand design, too! See, for example, Qettle at the 2024 Installer Show. Their product is boiling water taps, but for this show they offered BEER ON TAP! Exciting!

Qettle's attention-grabbing refreshments: beer on tap (PHOTO: Image Experiential)

5. Bar Snacks

Little moments of connection go a long way for your brand. You don’t need a long moment or a lot of persuasion: your work can speak for itself. But also, a nice chat wouldn’t go amiss...

It’s not all about big, sweeping gestures with on stand snacks. Sometimes little, intentional moments can do just as much work, and bar snacks do just the trick.

We’re talking coca cola, crisps, peanuts—all the usual fun things which give people a moment to pause and freshen up while they reflect on your work.

These sorts of snacks and refreshments are great because they don’t take up your customers’ time, but they do draw them in to create those moments of connection and relaxation which are so important in crafting a good experience.

Aviva's Airmic 2026 stand, featuring a central tower-turned-drinks counter (PHOTO: Image Experiential)

So, What Will It Be?

It might sound trivial, but exhibitions and events are a chance for you to connect, in-person with an audience that is largely digital, these days. In a world that uses food as a point of connection, your refreshment stand does a lot more for an event than just offering drinks and snacks.

It's a moment of connection with your visitors, a second of the day where their focus is all on you.

Beyond that, and little quizzes aside, it’s also a great way to think about the sort of business you are, and what you represent.

At Image, we’re all about finding creative ways of delivering your brand’s message. With events, visual storytelling does a lot of heavy lifting, and your choice to offer refreshments at all makes a difference.

Taking it one step further, you can hone your selection to make your brand stand out, get people talking, and craft those connections.

In that way, you can use your exhibition stand to...ahem...meet your matcha...

Ready To Meet Your People?

If you’ve got a great idea for an exhibition stand, and you have ideas about those moments you’ll craft, let us know.

We take your exhibition stand from design to build, and our transparent consultative process ensures that every little part of the big day just screams you.