As someone who’s spent decades helping brands tell their stories on the show floor, I’ve seen firsthand how powerful the right partnership can be, and how quickly the wrong process can derail great work. Lately, more and more organizations are turning to RFPs to source exhibit and experiential partners. On the surface, it makes sense: a structured, competitive process that promises to reveal the best ideas. But in reality, the RFP model often does exactly the opposite.
It limits collaboration. It strips away context. And it pushes exhibit houses to produce quick, speculative work instead of thoughtful solutions grounded in strategy. When everything has to be submitted blindly and on a tight deadline, the best work simply doesn’t happen. There’s a better way, and it starts by rethinking how you choose your exhibit partner.
Problems with the RFP model
After years of responding to countless RFPs, I can say with confidence: the structure is flawed, and it consistently leads to weaker outcomes. The main problems with RFPs are:
- RFPs reward speed, not strategy. Most RFPs come with compressed timelines that force firms to crank out quick concepts rather than develop meaningful solutions. When the expectation is “free work, fast,” everyone loses. Teams rush, strategy gets skipped, and design becomes a “pretty picture contest” instead of a business solution. True strategy and design require time, discovery, and collaboration, none of which exist in a speculative environment. The result is high effort for low-quality outcomes, and a process that unintentionally devalues the expertise needed to build exceptional brand experiences.
- Spec work limits what you actually get. Clients often believe an RFP guarantees they’re seeing each firm’s best ideas. The truth is far more complicated. Established design houses (especially the ones with the strongest creative talent) are careful about how much they give away for free. Win ratios for RFPs are notoriously low, and many never turn into real projects at all, so firms understandably hold their best thinking back. That means clients are usually choosing between partial ideas from teams who haven’t been given enough information, context, or time to do their best work.
- When procurement takes over, creativity gets lost. Another challenge: RFPs often get evaluated by procurement. Decision-making can skew toward a “lowest price wins” mentality. And with no discovery or dialogue, partners don’t get a chance to show their true voice, thinking, or vision. Great creative work requires connection. RFPs eliminate it entirely.
Why RFIs offer a better path forward
Thankfully, there’s a much better option: the Request for Information (RFI). An RFI doesn’t ask for spec creative. It focuses on what you’re actually trying to uncover: capability, alignment, experience, and fit.
Instead of rushing teams into fast drawings or incomplete concepts, an RFI gives you a clear view into how a firm thinks, how it works, and what it has actually delivered for other brands. You get to evaluate the things that genuinely predict success, like team expertise, strategic approach, previous work, communication style, and cultural alignment. These aren’t surface-level comparisons; they’re the indicators of whether a partner can consistently deliver the kind of work your brand deserves.
Just as importantly, the RFI process opens the door to early collaboration. It allows real conversations, the exchange of ideas, and the kind of discovery that simply doesn’t happen in a blind, deadline-driven RFP. Instead of choosing the firm that can produce the prettiest rendering the fastest, you’re choosing the partner whose thinking, process, and values align with your goals. When both sides understand each other before any creative work begins, the brief gets sharper, the ideas get better, and the final result on the show floor becomes far stronger. In short, RFIs help brands pick the right partner, not just the right pitch. That difference is what ultimately leads to better outcomes.
How to choose the right exhibit partner after the RFI
An RFI helps narrow the field, but you still need a structured, objective decision-making process that serves the needs of every stakeholder: finance, procurement, marketing, operations, and leadership. Here are some tips for how to make the final selection.
Create a clear and objective scoring matrix. To keep the process fair and transparent, outline criteria that reflect what matters most to your organization (such as expertise, creativity, operational strength, budget alignment, cultural fit, etc.). Then weight each category based on stakeholder importance. Using a matrix like this allows you to compare your partners apples-to-apples and ensures the final decision isn’t swayed by one department’s priorities. It becomes a balanced, defensible choice for the entire organization.
Evaluate what really predicts success. Make sure your matrix criteria go beyond the surface-level materials and focus on the indicators that matter:
- Past work: The clearest evidence of what they can create for you.
- People: Who will be on your team? Do you trust them?
- Strategy: Do they understand your goals and how to solve them?
- Fit: Does the communication style, expectations, and culture feel aligned?
Key takeaways for smarter show strategy
RFPs may feel like the safe, standard way to compare exhibit partners. But after years of watching how they play out, I can say this with confidence: they rarely result in the strongest ideas or the right long-term partnership.
When brands shift to an RFI-led approach, they create space to evaluate what actually matters: experience, strategic thinking, past work, and the ability to collaborate. That early alignment leads to better briefs, better ideas, and genuinely meaningful work.
If you spend a little more time up front choosing the right partner, you’ll get solutions that represent your brand authentically and drive the business results you’re looking for.
