Standard banner sizes, and how to pick yours

Common banner sizes and where they go

Written width by height. These are sizes people often order, not a list we print from — any of them can be longer, shorter or taller to fit your spot.

Measure the spot, then pick the size

• Storefronts. Measure the wall or fascia where it hangs, and the clear space between signs, lights, doors and windows. A banner that crowds its neighbours reads worse than a smaller one with room around it.
• Fences and railings. Measure the height of the fence and the run between the posts you'll tie to, so the grommets land where the ties go.
• Stages and backdrops. Measure the stage front or the opening of the frame or truss, and what the audience or the camera sees.
• Poles, stands and frames. For a pole, measure its diameter; for a stand or frame, use the graphic size its maker gives, not the outside of the hardware.
• Reading distance. Note where people will be when they need to read it — across the street, the parking lot, the ballroom — because that sets the letter size, and the letter size often sets the banner.

How big the letters need to be

The United States Sign Council Foundation's research gives a rule for this, the legibility index: the reading distance in feet for every inch of capital-letter height. Its average is 30 feet per inch in clear conditions. On busy streets, where people are also watching traffic, it recommends adjusting that to 25 feet per inch in moderately congested areas and 20 in highly congested ones. Lettering set in all capitals needs about 15% more height than upper and lower case, and the USSC warns that the average can fall short for a particular sign — so treat the numbers as a floor, not a target (USSC Foundation standards for on-premise signs, pp. 15–18).

Leave room around the words

Big letters aren't enough if the banner is packed edge to edge. The USSC's minimum is a 40/60 split: the lettering, logos and pictures take up no more than about 40% of the banner, and open background the other 60% (same USSC standards, p. 20). A short message in big letters with room around it reads from farther away than a long one that fills every inch. Pick the one line people must take away, make it the biggest thing on the banner, and let everything else be smaller or go.

Hems, grommets and pole pockets

We finish each banner for the way it will hang. Tell us how that is, and we'll finish it to match:

• Hems — the edges folded over and sealed, so the banner holds up under tension instead of tearing at the edge. For banners that are tied or pulled taut.
• Grommets — metal eyelets along the hem for ties, bungees, zip ties or hooks. Tell us the spacing you need, or how the banner will be tied off, and where — corners only, or all the way round.
• Pole pockets — a sleeve across the top, the bottom or both, for a pole, a pipe or a stand's crossbar. Give us the pole's diameter so the pocket fits.
• Trimmed flush — cut to size with no finishing, for a banner going into a frame or a stand that clamps the edges.

Indoors or out: solid or mesh

Solid vinyl blocks light completely and carries the richest colour — the choice for indoor banners, stage backdrops and anything photographed. Mesh is perforated so wind passes through, which matters on fences, scaffolding, building faces and open lots, where a solid banner catches the wind like a sail and pulls at its ties. Tell us where it hangs and how exposed it is, and we'll recommend one.

Some venues decide for you. At the Las Vegas Convention Center, all banner material used outdoors must be mesh with at least 30% pass-through, or slatted to let air flow through.

Outdoors in Las Vegas, tie a banner off at every grommet and keep it taut so it doesn't flap itself apart, and plan a banner that has to last past a season as a replacement — desert sun fades every print over time. A banner on the outside of a building may also need the landlord's or the local jurisdiction's sign approval; check before you hang it.

Source: LVCC Facility Guide, July 2026, p. 35, as of October 2026. Rules change each season — confirm with your show.

Hanging banners at venues and shows

Convention venues control how banners hang. At the LVCC, banners and signs may be attached to the building only in approved locations, and nails, tacks, screws and tape can't be used to hang them. At Venetian Expo, banner hanging is one of the venue's exclusive technical services, and every banner must be flame-retardant to the fire department's satisfaction, with the maker's fire resistance certificate accompanying the material — if your venue asks for one, ask us about the material before you order. Hotels and resorts set their own rules for ballrooms and pre-function space; ask the property's event services team before you choose the finishing.

Inside a trade show booth, banners follow the booth's rules. IAEE's guidance is that pipe and drape isn't a display fixture and signs shouldn't be attached to it, so a banner in a booth needs its own stand or frame. Banners hung overhead count as hanging signs: ISC West and SHOT Show both hold hanging banners to the same height limits as signs. See booth graphic sizes for the limits, trade show graphics for printing for a booth, and the LVCC and Venetian Expo pages for each building's rules.

Sources: LVCC Facility Guide, July 2026, p. 7, as of October 2026; Venetian Expo General Contractor & Production Guide, pp. 6, 19, as of October 2026; IAEE Guidelines for Display Rules and Regulations, 2023 North American Update, p. 16, as of October 2026; ISC West 2026 Display Rules and Regulations, p. 5, as of October 2026; SHOT 2027 Display Regulations & Height Restrictions, section 6, as of October 2026. Rules change each season — confirm with your show.

Big banners and seams

A banner bigger than the width of the material needs a seam. If yours does, we'll show where it falls on your proof — and, as with any seam, it belongs in open background, not through a logo or a line of text. Leaving clear space between the main elements of a big banner gives the seam somewhere to go.

Setting up a banner file

Build the file at the finished size or to scale, with the scale in the file name — at 10%, a 3 × 10-foot banner is a 3.6 × 12-inch file. Run the background past every edge, keep text and logos clear of the hems, grommets and pole pockets, outline or embed the fonts, and keep type and logos as vectors so they stay sharp at any size. Build in CMYK if you can: the brightest screen colours can print a little duller.

Banners are read from farther away than most graphics, so photos don't need to be enormous — but they need to be big enough. The pixels per inch that look sharp fall as people stand farther back, about 3,438 divided by the distance in inches, the same rule our wall, window and floor quotes use. Past about 19 feet the formula drops under 15 pixels per inch; our quotes never rate an image under 15 as better than too low, so treat 15 as the floor. We check the images at the banner's size and tell you if anything will look soft.

How to order a banner

Send us a request with the size, how many, where and how it will hang, the finishing you need and the date it has to be up, and attach your artwork if it's ready. We'll reply with a quote and a proof; you approve it, pay, and we print. Pick it up at the shop on W Reno Ave, have it delivered in Las Vegas or to a venue, or have our crew hang it where the property allows — see installation.

For the product itself — materials, finishing and hanging — see banners. The large-format file setup guide covers scale, bleed and resolution in more depth, and event graphics covers the rest of an event.