Video Formats for Trade Shows: Which Format for Which Channel?

Exhibitors at NürnbergMesse come from all over the world. They bring different booth setups, different team sizes and different plans for post-show communication. But one question comes up in almost every production briefing, regardless of where the team is from: which video formats do we actually need, and for which channels?

Most exhibitors think about video content before they think about video format. What should we show? Who should we film? What message do we want to communicate?

Those are the right questions. But there is one that should come earlier: in which format does the material actually need to be delivered?

That sounds like a technical detail. In practice, it determines whether footage from the booth is usable on LinkedIn, the website, in sales presentations, or on the booth screen itself, or whether it needs to be recut later and loses quality in the process.

One shoot, multiple formats

A single production day can produce content for several channels. That requires planning the formats before the shoot, not during the edit.

The main formats and where they apply:

16:9 (Landscape) The standard format for embedded video on websites, presentations, booth displays, and YouTube. Exhibitors who want to use booth footage as a background film on the stand, as an embed on a product page, or in internal presentations should plan for 16:9 from the start.

3:2 (Photo) The standard photo format for LinkedIn feed posts, blog articles, press use, and website imagery. In video it appears less often, but it is relevant for any still frames or thumbnails derived from video.

1:1 (Square) Works well in the LinkedIn feed, on Instagram and Facebook, and for campaign visuals and profile images. The square format takes up slightly more vertical space in a feed than 16:9, which can affect how much attention it attracts.

4:5 (Portrait) The preferred format for social media feeds when more vertical space is needed. For booth staff portraits or spokesperson recordings, it is often the more natural frame. Increasingly used on LinkedIn and Instagram feeds.

9:16 (Vertical) The format for Stories, Reels, and vertical video platforms. Less common in B2B trade show contexts, but relevant when a social media team specifically needs vertical clips for LinkedIn or Instagram. Worth confirming before the shoot whether this is actually needed, rather than assuming it.

What this means for planning

Not every channel needs every format. That is not the point.

The useful question before a shoot is: which channels will actually be used after the fair? Marketing, sales, PR, and social media teams within the same company often have different requirements. A sales team needs embeddable 16:9 clips for presentations. A social media team may need square or portrait crops for the feed. If nobody asks before the shoot, the default tends to be a single format that then gets stretched to fit channels it was never designed for.

Clarifying this before production means the shoot can be set up for the formats that are actually needed. It saves editing time, avoids quality loss from post-hoc cropping, and makes the material usable from the start.

How Boothside handles this

Format planning is part of the preparation for every production day at Boothside. Before each shoot, we clarify with the exhibitor team which channels they plan to use after the fair and set up the production accordingly.

The goal is not a single master video that can be squeezed into any shape. It is material that is ready to use where it is actually needed.