The speaker lands tonight and the session is tomorrow
Someone flying into Singapore to speak at a conference, run a workshop or present at a client office almost always needs print they do not have. The handouts were going to be done by the organiser and were not. The name cards ran out at the last stop. The poster for the academic session is a PDF on a laptop because carrying a tube through three airports was never realistic. The visitor is at a hotel in Marina Bay or Orchard with a session at 9 am and no idea where to print.
This is a common express job and it has a standard solution: the visitor or their local host sends the files in the evening, the print shop produces overnight or first thing, and the job is delivered to the hotel front desk or the venue before the session. This guide covers what a visiting speaker typically needs, the file details that trip up international visitors, and how to arrange collection at a venue you have never seen.
The usual list
- Handouts. The slide deck or a summary, A4, stapled or saddle stitched, one per attendee. Ask the organiser for the registration number and add 10 percent.
- Name cards. 100 to 200 on a standard stock. A visitor from Europe or the US should know that the standard card size in Singapore (90 x 54 mm) differs slightly from the US size (88.9 x 50.8 mm); either prints fine, but a file built for one will have the wrong bleed for the other. Our piece on last-minute business cards covers turnaround.
- Academic or research poster. A0 or A1, printed on matte paper or synthetic, rolled and delivered in a tube. Conferences state the board size; A0 portrait (841 x 1189 mm) is the common one, but check, because a landscape board with a portrait poster is a familiar sight in a poster hall.
- Pull-up banner. For a workshop or a booth, 850 x 2000 mm, cassette and carry bag included. Produced in a few hours; the visitor leaves it with the local host afterwards.
- Workshop materials. Workbooks, exercise sheets, feedback forms, certificates of attendance. Workbooks are the part to plan first because they are the biggest and take longest to bind.
- Table tent or name plate, if the visitor is on a panel and the organiser has not made one.
File issues specific to visitors
International files fail in predictable ways.
- Letter size instead of A4. US and some Latin American documents are built at 8.5 x 11 inches. A4 is narrower and taller. Printing a Letter file on A4 without adjustment clips the sides or leaves odd margins. Tell the print shop the original size and ask them to fit to A4 with a small scale, or supply the file re-exported at A4.
- Poster dimensions in inches. A poster designed at 36 x 48 inches (914 x 1219 mm) is close to A0 but not the same. Ask the printer to scale to the board size, and confirm the board size with the conference.
- Fonts and languages. A PDF embeds fonts; a PowerPoint or Word file does not. If the material includes non-Latin scripts, a PDF is the only safe format.
- Cloud links that need a login. A shared drive link that requires a corporate account will not open at the print shop. Download and attach, or use a link that opens without sign-in.
- Time zones. A visitor sending files from the plane or from their home office may not realise it is 2 am in Singapore. State the session time and the Singapore date explicitly in the email.
The general rules for a rush-proof file are in our guide to building a rush-ready print kit.
Delivery to a hotel or venue
Getting the print to the right person at a venue is the part that goes wrong most often, because the visitor does not know the building and the print shop does not know the visitor.
- Hotel front desk is the reliable option. Address the parcel to the guest name exactly as on the booking, with the room number if known and the phone number. Hotels hold parcels for guests routinely. Ask for delivery the evening before if the session is early.
- Conference venue. Large venues (Suntec, Marina Bay Sands, Singapore Expo, the university campuses) have loading bays and registration desks, and a parcel addressed to "Dr Tan, poster session, Hall 401" will usually find its way, but slowly. Better: deliver to the hotel, or arrange for the local host to collect from the print shop.
- Client office. Deliver to reception with the host's name and phone number. Reception will call up.
- Self-collection. Fine if the print shop is near the hotel and the visitor has a free hour; give the address in a form that works in a ride-hailing app, and note the opening hours.
In every case, include a phone number that will actually answer: the visitor's roaming number is unreliable, the local host's number is better. Our guide on urgent print delivery has timing by district.
A sequence that works
| When | What |
|---|---|
| Two days before | Host or visitor emails the list and the files; print shop confirms sizes, quantities and delivery point |
| Evening before | Handouts, workbooks and name cards printed; poster printed and tubed |
| By 8 pm the evening before | Delivered to the hotel front desk, or held for morning delivery to the venue |
| Session morning | Any late change (a corrected slide, a different attendee count) printed and delivered by 8 am |
If the files arrive at 11 pm and the session is at 9 am, the job is still possible for handouts, cards and a pull-up banner; a large poster depends on when the wide-format printer starts in the morning. For the general timing rules see our note on same-day cut-off times.
Speaker and visitor printing with us
We handle print for visiting speakers, trainers and overseas teams as a single job: handouts, workbooks, name cards, academic posters and pull-up banners, produced overnight or first thing, and delivered to hotels, conference venues and client offices across Singapore with the guest name and a local contact on the label. We check page sizes and poster dimensions against what you tell us the venue needs and fix Letter-to-A4 and inch-to-metric conversions ourselves.
Hosts who regularly bring in speakers can send us the material as soon as it exists and tell us the hotel; we do the rest. See our express printing services for what can be done in a day, or contact us with the session time and the files.
