When buying a banner stand or a pop up display stand most people look at one thing...........the price. This can be a costly mistake when buying anything with print because opting for a product with a rock bottom price often means cheaper media, which can result in a poor looking display.

When buying printed display stands always look out for what media it's printed on. Pop up display stands printed on the incorrect media can look truly awful. One of the first things to look out for is how many microns the media is, which is a measurement of thickness.

A micron is a micrometre, which is 1x10^-6 of a metre. For pop up display stands we would say the thicker the better.  A thicker pop up graphic will be easier to hang and much more durable. Most printers will offer a 450 micron graphic as standard and anything below that I would steer well clear of as your graphics won't last long and you will end up spending more money getting them reprinted on a thicker media. As well as offering our pop ups with a 450 micron graphic we also offer a heavy duty 600 micron graphic, which I would highly recommend if you intend on using your pop up regularly.

When it comes to buying banner stands, anything over 200 microns will be a safe bet but there is one other thing to look out for, which is whether or not the media is stoplight. Stoplight media normally has a grey backing, which stops any light transmission. Non-stoplight media doesn't have any backing and will let through a small degree of light through. Whether you need a stoplight media or not will depend on where you intend on using your banner stand. If you want to use it in an area where there will be a lot of direct light, go for a stoplight media, if the stand will be in a poorly lit area a non stoplight media will probably suffice.

So always look out for what media a printer is actually printing on. I think the old saying "You get what you pay for" come to mind when buying display stands. So something cheap may have a sub standard media, which can make or break a display stand.