Why Choose A Complete Rental Booth Solution?

Matt LaBruzza - EP News

What does it mean to request a complete rental booth? It generally means you’re requesting a custom trade show exhibit rental that includes everything but the booth space itself. Exhibitors looking for a Complete Rental Booth Solution have secured their booth space and they now want everything else booth-related to come on one easy-to-understand invoice from the rental company. In a truly complete rental booth solution, the flooring, structure, overhead sign, custom printed graphics, AV, and furniture are all included in the price.

The only portion of a Complete Rental Booth that’s ever in question will be the Show Services. This is because these services are performed by Union Workers with a variable amount of time and materials. Many factors can influence the final cost of show services. The most common will be differences in the skill and speed you get with the workers assigned to your booth. If you’re lucky, they will be a top-level crew and their work will go smoothly.

If the show is stretched thin, your crew may be less experienced and simply take more time. Other factors may come into play as well. For example, your electrician may need to retrieve a ladder from another show hall to complete the work, and could have trouble finding one available. This is done on the clock and adds to the bill. Also, these workers are human and working against a deadline. Mistakes and damage can occur that take time to resolve.

Other Exhibit Houses likely handle these costs similarly to us, but at Exhibit People, we go the extra mile to minimize these costs for our clients. We study the floor plan, review the price sheets, and apply experience from hundreds of past shows to develop a show service estimate. Our goal is to be as close as possible, but not over the actual amount you will pay. We place orders for services, like electrical and rigging, as far in advance as possible to take advantage of advance pricing. We provide the show with drawings and descriptions of services required to ensure things aren’t left to chance. We add 10% to the show service costs for our efforts in placing the orders, using our credit card to secure orders, and finally for supervising the show service labor to make sure it all goes as quickly and smoothly as possible.

With our Complete Rental Booth Solutions, you get a quote with firm costs for booth, graphics, shipping and labor- all of which are within our complete control. Below these firm costs, we list the estimated show services, along with our 10% listed as a separate line item. Once the show ends, we request the final invoice from the show and adjust your order, changing the estimates to actual figures from the invoice. You receive a copy of the show invoice to verify the costs along with our final balance due invoice for your complete rental booth solution.

Lets dive into some detail:

What is included in your Booth Space fee? Booth space in based on a per-square-foot price. Larger booths cost more than smaller booths, naturally. Usually, all show services are separate fees. However there has been a movement in recent years to include Material Handling in the booth space fee, rather than charging separately based on weight. This is a a new concept being tested at the NAB Show held each year in Las Vegas, as well as a few others.

Included in a Complete Rental Booth price:

Flooring – Many rental companies offer only the booth structure and assume that you will order your flooring from the show’s General Contractor. This is an option but may not be your best option. A complete rental booth will always include the flooring whether it is carpet or vinyl.

Structure – This includes the walls, rooms, towers and counters that make up the bulk of your booth design. If your space is an inline booth space, then 8 feet tall may be the height limit for your space. If you have an island booth space, your height limit for ground structure is typically 16 feet. Most exhibits use the full allowable height for their walls and towers. All complete rental booths will provide all the structure of your booth so that you’re not piecing together mismatched items from different vendors.

Custom Printed Graphics – Today’s booths are pretty much 3D billboards. Advances in large format printing have allowed Exhibit Houses to print on virtually every wall surface of your booth, including your counters. A complete rental booth will include the custom-printing onto the panels or fabric, sourced from a print vendor with a solid reputation. The graphic design is typically separate, as it is very common that the exhibitor already works with a literature or web designer who is well-versed in the brand, marketing and messaging of the company. With that said, many Exhibit Houses provide graphic design at a separate hourly cost.

AV – Although you can rent TV’s and other AV from the preferred show provider, it’s usually best to allow your rental company to provide these items. They will make sure the mount fits the TV and the proper cables are included. Involving a separate vendor can delay the install should there be any incompatibilities. At Exhibit People we carry a sizable inventory of Samsung Smart TV’s from 40” to 82”. Samsung is a trusted name, their TV’s are truly made better. One benefit of stocking only Samsung TV’s is that all your TV’s will match each other no matter your booth size or design.

In addition to LED TV’s, we also specialize in LED Video Walls. We have high quality LED tiles and equipment in our rental inventory, and more importantly we know how to install them, troubleshoot them, and integrate them into our rental booth designs. This translates into significant savings, both in the rental price and the show service costs.

Furniture – You could order furniture from the show, or from industry suppliers that focus on furniture rental, but you should first evaluate the furniture offering from your booth rental company. Just like with AV, your install will go smoother and your booth look more cohesive if all your accessories come from your one provider. At Exhibit People, we don’t have a huge selection of chairs, stools, tables and lounge chairs, but the ones we do carry are high quality, look great and fit our design style completely. They are, in many cases, half the price of your other options.

Shipping – This is a firm quote. Shipping includes all costs from the shipping dock to the receiving dock. With trade shows this can include some other fees such as Marshaling Yard waiting time and special fees for weekend and holiday deliveries. There is a small fee for delivering at a specific time on a specific day.

Here at Exhibit People, we ship every custom booth rental to the show’s advance warehouse weeks before the install date, and we ship anywhere in the United States. This saves some hassle and delivery costs while also ensuring the freight is in the care of the General Contractor. Delivering to Advance Warehouse ensures the freight is at your booth space, on time, for your scheduled install.

This is a cost that is within our control, and if we are wrong with the quote we provide, we will eat the difference. Shipping fees are determined based on dimensions, weight and shipping lanes. The only variable we guess at is the exact weight. We don’t know this weight until the booth is packed, which is long after we’ve committed to a firm quote. Fortunately we have done this for decades and are fairly good at calculating weights.

Install and Dismantle – You may wonder why this is not considered an estimated show service. For many Exhibit Houses, Labor is estimated just like all other show services. At Exhibit People, we feel confident in our ability to give a firm labor price because we are in control of who is on our crew and we take responsibility for ensuring the show is capable and ready to perform the services as ordered. For many clients, this hands-on approach sets us apart from our competition.

A look at the common Show Services:

General Contractor services
Material Handling
Electrical Power
Electrical Labor
Rigging Crew ( usually 2-3 man crew )
Overhead Lighting ( optional )

General Contractor – It’s important to understand the distinction between the Organization that’s putting on the show and the General Contractor they hire to provide labor and services for the show. Most Exhibitors rent their booth space from the Organization putting on the show (CES or SEMA, for example), and separately place service orders with the General Contractor who manages the move-in and move-out (Freeman or GES are most common). Freeman is the country’s largest General Contractor and GES comes in second from what we know.

Material Handling – It’s the fee the General Contractor charges to forklift crates and store empties. This is separate from and is not the same as shipping cost. There are a few factors that determine the cost other than weight (charged per 100 lbs). Factors such as when the freight is delivered, how the freight is delivered, and how the freight is packaged. To get the best prices your freight needs to be crated and your delivery truck must have a dock height delivery trailer. Anything outside these requirements will increase the price per 100 lbs.

Electrical Power – In other words, the amount of watts/amps needed to power all your AV equipment and product demos in the booth. For example, TV’s usually require 150 watts, laptops – 100 watts, individual LED booth lights – 25 watts. You simply add these together to determine the amount of power your booth will need. There are other considerations, for instance, your install may require that flat extension cords are taped along the floor before your carpet or vinyl flooring is installed over it, in order to hide the cords. Many show venues require that you order a minimum of 500 watts for each extension cord when providing this service. We plan and draw up electrical layouts in advance, allowing us to ensure that power minimums are met and minimizing cost whenever possible.

Electrician Labor – Most booth designs will require extension cords to be taped in place along the show floor in the booth space, running power under the booth flooring to specific locations, such as the reception counter or demo stations – this is called Floor Work and will require an Electrician. Also, if you have TV’s to hang and connect to outlets, that’s considered Booth Work and the same crew, or possibly a different crew, will come to do that when your install reaches that point. Not all venues require Union Workers to hang and plug in TV’s. The new trend is to allow install crews and exhibitors to hang them when they can.

Rigging – Union Stagehand workers handle all the suspension of booth elements from the ceiling, such as truss or hanging signs. They are the guys with the large Condor lifts that you can see across the show floor during install and dismantle. When power is required above for lights or video walls, Stagehands coordinate with Electricians to provide the power.

Hopefully this detailed explanation not only helps you fully understand what a Complete Rental Solution is, you now even better understand your options involved in a Complete Rental Solution. If you’d like to discuss more, simply give us a call or shoot us an email.