Over the years, I’ve been helping customers with trade shows worldwide, I’ve seen how amazed they are every time at the steep costs, mainly in the U.S., where the regulations, restrictions, and unions are stricter. I believe that anywhere in the world – even in the U.S. – exhibitors, small and large, can present themselves respectably and make a great impression without spending an arm and a leg.
Setting a trade show budget certainly isn’t simple. Let’s explore a few of the areas that will use up most of your budget – and some tips for easily saving money on all of them.
Spending on your trade show space can sometimes cost up to 30% of your entire trade show budget. There are two important points to take note of here.
First – the registration date. Here, too, early registration (sometimes even at the end of the previous trade show) could save you a lot of money.
Second – size always matters.
When it comes to choosing your space, you have to consider many additional details, such as the location of your booth relative to your competitors’, the entrance to the hall, as well as considering traffic directions: the way people move through the space, and even the location of the nearest restaurant and restrooms.
An example of an incorrect decision: a customer who “grabbed” a space in a strategic area – with the result that they were surrounded on all sides by companies who set up giant booths. This meant they had to spend a lot more than they’d planned to build something much bigger than they’d originally wanted simply so they wouldn’t be overlooked in the hall.
Your booth is another major expense, and as mentioned, you don’t have to sell an organ to make a great impression with a respectable trade show booth. When it comes to planning the booth, you need to take a number of things into consideration. The cost of setting it up on site (you can use a system that saves a lot of time and personnel and still look terrific), reuse for the next trade show, and many more issues. With proper planning, it’s possible to save a lot of money in this area.
For example, when it comes to your booth’s design: only after you decide how to build your booth should you start thinking about design, based on the limitations of the system. In this area, too, you don’t always need the most expensive, radical design to get your company’s message across. Lots of times, smart, clean design which incorporates a single correct element can get the message across and create a booth that stands out. The kind that makes people stop for a second to take a look. (This is the stage at which our work stops and yours begins. ☺)
Moving on from the previous section, drayage is the cost to transfer your booth’s shipping crates from the advance warehouse into the hall itself. You’ll find this cost in the U.S., and I make a point of mentioning it separately because it’s usually unexpected and sometimes manages to surprise exhibitors (unpleasantly).
This cost is determined according to weight and therefore using lighter materials for your booth can reduce this expense considerably.
As with drayage, you can really save a lot on all the costs that exhibitors are usually charged by organizers. Carpeting, setup and breakdown assistants, furnishings – these are all essential areas for every booth and because of the prevalence of unions, many exhibitors simply accept these charges from trade show organizers as the “default.”
However, you can also arrange for these services from companies like ours, among others (who are licensed to work in trade show spaces in the U.S.), and save dozens of percentage points off these costs.
Every tradeshow has its precise and detailed timetable for everything, starting from ordering hanging structures, electricity, lighting, and additional services and moving on to times of entrance to the trade show and more.
I strongly recommend adding all these dates to your calendar the minute you register for the trade show so it will be easier to stick to the schedule! These dates are often long before the trade show, so customers tend to miss them. And submitting these documents late usually drives up the price significantly.
I’d be happy to consult with you during your initial planning stages, sharing what you need to know to do it right, represent your company, and most important – stay within your budget.
