This has a different slant – it’s not about how you have to overpay for your exhibit space, electricity, and rigging, and material handling. Those things are a given. Other than making certain that you pay early and get the discounts you are pretty much out of luck because there is really only one resource for those services. I am talking about your exhibit display; specifically your exhibit rental.

As more and more of the space owners use rental exhibits, more and more exhibit houses and brokers get into the rental game. Thus come the questions: do you really need an exhibit that will stand like a house for 50 years, what are you willing to give on to met your budget, and most importantly is everyone sending you designs and no show floor build pictures? Can the people that you are talking to actually build and what is the quality of materials?

We have seen incredibly beautiful and overbuilt 3-day exhibits. We have had exquisite renderings shown to us on the show floor by terribly disappointed exhibitors with shambles around them for their exhibit. Foreign clients come from cities where exhibits are built on the show floor and then painted, buffed, and shined because their labor costs are so inexpensive. In Brazil everyone serves breakfast and lunch and have open bars all day. Many exhibitors are now importing their exhibits from Asia. However many times all of the electrical has to be stripped and redone on the show floor at union wages. There are so many issues to consider.

So what is the answer? Comparison shopping. Get a design settled and stick with it – then ask your final three companies for pricing of the same exhibit, materials to be used, a list of references, pictures of completed exhibits, and the bottom line. That means what is included – we include the exhibit, the AV and furnishings, the flooring, the shipping, and the I&D. If you are not getting the entire pricing, you can never be certain what your final costs will be. Try this scenario next time – it really does work.