5 reasons not to hire Dennis De Priester a stand designer and stand builder from the Netherlands

I made the big mistake hiring Dennis De Priester for 3 exhibitions in Europe: Amsterdam, Berlin and London. These are the 5 reasons why I wouldn’t hire him again. I share this information not to hurt him; I just don’t want anyone else to live what I had to live while working with him. He put at risk the life of our employees and clients, damaged the image of the company I worked for, and ruined my reputation as an Art Director.

These are the five reasons why I wouldn’t hire the architect Dennis De Priester, so called stand builder and stand designer for Europe again:

1. Dennis De Priester showed to be very good at making amazing 3D renders in his first proposal sent. His mockups, great website and nice talking convinced us to hire him, but in reality, his work showed to be far from the renders, and the quality of his work in reality is far behind the quality he shows on his site. After he got 100% of the money prior to the event, Dennis from De Priester or WOW stands (as he calls his company now) suddenly stopped answering the phone and he would answer just by email when it was suitable to him. When we had questions or complaints, there was no one to help us. He has a one-person company, no secretary, no bosses, no one to attend your requests or answer your questions. We had many critical problems in the build-up on our last two events and there was no one to talk with, and no one supervising the process, we had to deal with all the issues by ourselves. When he would answer our emails, he would just blame us for all the problems we had. When the entire exhibition was his responsibility.
2. After signing a contract in which it was agreed we would pay 70% up-front and 30% prior to the event, Dennis De Priester threatened us that if we wouldn’t pay 100% a few weeks before the exhibition he wouldn’t build the stand. We did not have another option than paying him the whole 100%, taking the risk he would not build the booth for us. At that moment, we didn’t have time enough to hire another provider, so we paid.
3. Dennis from WOW stands changed the price of his proposal after the second event, from a price of € 9,000 he raised the price to € 14,000 saying he charges this price because he wants to deliver a great exhibition with the highest quality materials and that he would supervise the build-up himself. Again, we didn’t have a choice since the date of the event was very close, so we made a mistake and hired him again. The truth is that he didn’t show up to supervise the build-up and the stand quality was awful, as you will see below.
4. You should not let De Priester, a stand designer and stand builder in Netherlands and Europe, handle your entire exhibition project, because he just won’t do it. From the three events we hired him to build, in the last two all what he did was to subcontract another company service with no supervision on his side. The result was very poor stand building, visibly cheap materials and a stand which finishings made us feel embarrassed next to other stands. The team he hired to build the stand wasn't qualified to do the work, they didn't know how to work the electrics burning the fuses multiple times, not knowing how to stick the adhesive cut outs, and not having any idea of high quality finishes. We had to direct them all the time helping them to do the work. 
5. Dennis De Priester, a stand builder from Holland, won’t do all what is written in his proposal, in fact, he will change deliberately the design and the conditions he set himself. In our case, he hired less people than what he mentioned in the contract making impossible to reach the deadline of the build-up, delivering a terrible stand. He did not supervise the building in any of the events. He changed the furniture planned delivering equipment that was evidently cheaper than what was planned. The stand it self, started braking apart after a few hours of being built, a piece of it fell over one of our employees (a door), fortunately it didn’t fell over one of the attendees of the event, otherwise we could have been sued. The team the hired to build the stand showed to be completely lack of experience and knowledge, it caused power supply problems and a terrible quality stand.

Images say more than words. Check the images below, they show that Dennis De Priester is not the best option as a stand builder. When investing lots of money in an exhibition in which you want to impress your clients you wish you deliver the best stand possible, but it is something that didn't happen to us while working with De Priester. Having so many options in the market, there is no reason to hire him, and risk your events.

As you can see, the real set up is not even close to the render. The logo has an unnecessary frame, you can see the panels divisions, the walls are not sanded neither painted. The finishings are simply terrible. It was embarrassing to be in this exhibition next to other stands that look great. This is De Priester's work quality.

Dennis De Priester's workers sticked the adhesive words over fresh paint, then heated the wall with a fan causing the words to wrinkle and ruining the whole design. They didn't have spare words to stick, in the end we had to stick them with tape. It is one of the most unprofessional things I have seen in stand exhibitions.

Again, using adhesive printings over fresh paint caused terrible results. It was embarrassing to expose our clients to such stand quality.

Terrible finishings as you can see here.

Different white colors were applied to the walls.

Panels started cracking after a few hours of the stand being built.

Visible cracks that showed that the workers didn't have time enough to let the cast to dry. At some point we feared it was a sign that the whole structure could collapse.

This is in my opinion the most serious failure in Dennis De Priester work. The door of the deposit fell over one of our workers. Luckily it didn't harm him, but it could have been worst, it could have fall over the people passing by. It was evident that the hinges used weren't strong enough to hold the heavy door. A probe that the materials used were not good enough.

Furniture used didn't correspond to the 3D renders, and to Dennis De Priester proposal. They were delivered in bad condition and dirty as you can see in the photo.

Note: I have full video footage to document the information written in this post, together with that, I have all the emails crossed with Mr. De Priester. all of them probe his gall attitude and insolence when dealing with the problems we had in the exhibition. Read some of them below:

Email from Dennis De Priester when the deposit door fell, you can read how professional he is:

From: WOW Stands [mailto:mail@wowstands.com] 
Sent: Friday, February 10, 2017 7:13 PM
Subject: Re: The deposit door fell

Good evening,

You can absolutely assure me that the door 'just' fell out and it wasn't brutally opened by you, since we know your temper now? 

I've asked you before, i need ALL pictures from the booth, complete shots, close ups everything. I mean absolutely everything!!

Send them over ASAP, so i can get to work and arrange something. The boys should come back, they are next to the venue. But if you only rant about the booth, then i cannot do a thing...

Send the pics from around of the entire booth.

Best regards,


Dennis de Priester

Note: As you can notice, he was not in the build-up, he didn't have no one in charge, so he had to request from us all the pictures, since there was no one he could ask this from, when everything started failing. He also blames us for ranting about the booth. How can you work with someone that doesn't take responsibility of his failures?

Email from Dennis De Priester when the adhesive text was sticked to fresh paint:

From: WOW Stands [mailto:mail@wowstands.com]
Sent: Friday, February 10, 2017 11:35 AM
Subject: take the line off


Hello,

If the lettering is really sad, it would be a good idea to take that line off, since it all is on fresh paint. Better no tagline and a fresh booth, than a loose tagline right above the TV.

I would like to have pictures of this booth asap. Now all is fresh, would you mind sending over pictures? Also of the entire booth, not only closeups. If you see anything, maybe i can get the guys in after this day to polish up items. Maybe get a new tagline produced.

Best regards,

Dennis de Priester

Email from Dennis De Priester when he ordered a coffee machine to be delivered at our hotel, and not at the event venues. It was something we didn't have to deal with, but in the end we had to, since there was no one in charge at the build-up. Highlighted his unprofessional answer:

From: WOW Stands [mailto:mail@wowstands.com]
Sent: Wednesday, February 8, 2017 8:55 PM
Subject: Re: Problems coffee machine delivery

Good evening,

That coffee rental service, i've ordered today, you're correct. There is, of course, a reason.

The earlier one tried to sell me a regular Bravilor today while i've ordered a Nespresso lasr week (they were overbooked for LAC Nespresso's). Therefore i invested 340 GBP today to get you the Nespresso as in the contract. That is why Robert drove to your hotel and delivered the machine and assets. And that is why these actions are so called client services.

This is just a bit pre-event stress you have, or fatigue from the flight, stretched to a big problem. My advice to you is to not have a few cups Nespresso tonight. It makes you uptight.


There is no ground for worries, all is perfectly organized. Michal is in charge instead of Pawel. This change is not so bad or dis-organized, is it? They changed shifts.

Best regards,

Dennis de Priester

Note: Michal, the guy Mr. De Priester mentions as the person in charge was a Polish worker who didn't speak English at all, and who didn't know how to handle this big project. He burned the fuses twice and didn't know how to speak with the people of the ExCel in London to fix it. You can notice Dennis De Priester tone calling not to worry, but there was a lot to worry about.

Email from Dennis De Priester giving excuses not to deliver the coffee machine at the venues and saying the booth is the quality he wants. So if this is the quality he wanted, what can you expect for your next event?

From: WOW Stands [mailto:mail@wowstands.com]
Sent: Wednesday, February 8, 2017 5:30 PM
Subject: Re: Coffee & details

Hello,

Correct. I heard it this morning. It really doesn't matter for the booth, but i should have let you know. Today is a busy-busy day. Yet all for the good cause.

The Nespresso and assets will be delivered first thing tomorrow morning. The driver couldn't make it today, since we're close to start and everybody needs coffee all of a sudden.

We're all set and if the booth is the quality i want, you should be okido.

Good luck, if you need anything, let me know asap.

Dennis de Priester
WOW Stands b.v.
stands - booths - interiors

Exhibit stand development partner for overseas companies,
having tradeshows in greater Europe...

Summary

We really hope that this information is useful to as many people as possible. Since we don't want anyone to have such bad time when exhibiting in Europe (we really had a bad time working with Dennis De Priester).

Since this blog was published we have got multiple threatening messages from unknown sources and together with that, we've had got a WhatsApp message from Lukas, the sales manager of Linga Expo (the company Dennis De Priester hired for our exhibition in London) saying the following:

Chat about Dennis De Priester - a message we got from Lucas, from Linga Expo, a company in Poland.

Note: If you are a victim of Dennis De Priester services, please write you story as a comment below. As many people we manage to warn, the better we do to the world.

If there is any doubt on the veracity of the information published in this blog, you are welcome to visit the website of Linga Expo (http://www.expo.linga.pl/), and check by yourself that the project we show here indeed happened as is part of Linga portfolio.

Good Luck on your next project!