By organizing a booth, the expenses to participate an event can increase by a few thousands of euros depending on the size of the booth. Although costly, they have high potential to increase visibility with the scientists and other communities. Shared (joint) booths with strategically important collaborators can decrease the expenses and increase the booth visitors and the visibility of each RI. The booth should be in-line with the RI’s branding and all handed  (leaflets, flyers) and shown (from screen, tablet, roll up, posters) materials should support the RI’s visual identity. 

Advantages: Possibility to meet potentially crucial people from the RI scene in the location. Joint booths can bring more visibility for individual RI. Jointly the RIs attract more audience, they can demonstrate their collaboration and been seen as a part of a larger community, and the booth can serve as a meeting place for the entire RI community. The RIs do not necessarily need to send their manpower to the event, even though it is preferable that each RI has a professional capable to explain more complex scientific questions present. Booth can act as a “centre of operations” for other communication and dissemination activities in a conference. 

Challenges: To have an inviting booth in a good location and get event participants to visit the booth. Choosing the right events and right way of approach in inviting people to visit. Time consuming to organize, at least when doing it for the first time. Joint booths need a talented coordinator to plan and organize the booth so that each participating organisation is satisfied with the end results. Additional booth programme (e.g. speeches) require further planning.

Resources: The cost of booth depends on the event and venue. For example in EGU conferences the price has been around 3000 to 4000 €, in AGU even higher but for example, in ICRI 2016, the booth was free of charge. Participation to joint booth can cut the expenses from thousands euros as low as 750 €. In addition to the cost of the booth, there are the expenses from planning the booth, planning and producing the handed materials, and traveling. It can be several months work to plan and coordinate a booth. 

Recommendation:Joint booths together with other RIs to lower the cost and need of man bower and to increase the visibility.  Train the booth personals on the subject so that they deliver consistent message and they know how to take the best out of the booth materials (promotional materials, tablets and screens). Use creativeness in planning the booth, what could be done differently, how to take advance of technology, what would be the trick ior hot topic to get participants attention. Develop a strategy for approaching user communities (see examples boxed).

ENVRI Booths. ENVRI community has organized several joint community booths at different conferences, with EGU being on the top when it comes to organizational efforts and resources. In 2018, 20 RIs have participated in the joint booth at EGU. Even though the total costs were high (16 000 €), the cost per RI were actually quite minor considering the visibility they gained. The EGU booth was well-located combination of two booths with a total size of 18 square metres, which gives a space that would not be affordable by a single RI. One speciality in ENVRI booths are so called lunch-talks organized around different grand challenges (e.g air quality - Atmospheric RIs, food security - Ecosystem/Biodiversity RIs, etc.). These lunch-talks offered RIs a great opportunity to present their mission, data and services, in addition to gain more visibility. Tablets were also tested in COOP+ participating booths as a visual and information aid. They can be used to show the booth visitors presentations (e.g. via Prezi) containing so information about all the participating RIs, reducing the need of paper material. ENVRI community has found that showing the information on iPads is more cost effective and often better received than renting the screens from the local organizers. The iPads used in the booth at EGU 2018 were later reused again in the booth at GEO week 2018.

ENVRI and COOP+ booths have also shown the importance of proper booth-strategy. Combining together different communication and dissemination methods together in a booth increase the impact significantly. For example, the EGU booths were typically connected (and advertised in the booth) with additional Townhall meetings and side events, organised conference sessions with invited talks, and specialised booth material (videos, brochures, leaflets about Townhall meetings, etc.).  A part of a successful booth strategy includes also the way to approach conference participants. Thinking about how to use booth material can be useful, as passively sitting in the booth is not typically most effective method. In the ENVRI Booth, the use of  ENVRI coloring book (see printed material section) was used as the initiator for conversation, leading to discussion on potential use of RIs. In addition, screens playing the videos of different RIs were rented. Different visual elements, together with the iPads, screens and lunch-time talks made the booth a lively place. Cost considerations for booth can be reduced by planning. The ENVRIplus project (together with ICOS) also purchased a set of 8 cardboard chairs. The costs were smaller than those for renting the booth furniture from the local company and they can be re-used in future. Transporting this foldable furniture is very simple.