Should you Rent your Trade Show Exhibit Booth? Part 1/3
Is your company planning to purchase a new exhibit booth sometime in 2009 or 2010? The more and more I speak with trade show coordinators and marketing guru’s who have been charged with this responsibility, the more resolute I am as an ALL-OUT ADVOCATE for renting exhibit booths. Some companies go to 20 shows a year, some 12, some 5, and others 1 or 2. Heck, if you’re going to NPE this year, you might even go to a show once every 3 years! The rationale for each trade show exhibit program decision may be different, but here are a few “variations.”
There is a sort of “conventional wisdom” that I often hear:
-
We do the same thing at every show.
-
If you saw our booth, you would understand!(these exhibit are just TOO AWSOME for me to grasp, apparently)
-
Renting is just too expensive. (These conversations typically give me this eery feeling that I must be unknowingly scamming all of my faithful clients that would excitedly volunteer as references. Those “suckers.”)
I absolutely loathe conventional wisdom. So let me break this down very succinctly:
-
My brain hurts! Since when was marketing about being predictably boring at every opportunity, with tens or hundreds of thousands of marketing dollars invested to achieve mediocrity? Find a better excuse please!
-
Custom rental with some custom built components can achieve unbelievable results, just as a custom purchase exhibit can. The rental approach will likely be lighter and allow you to do another creative and original exhibit at your next show - attendees will wonder just what you will come up with next!
-
Cost is a factor of quality or extravagence, not rental or purchase. The market for trade show exhibits is very efficient and rental and purchase prices are not grossly disproportionate from one another.
As I mentioned earlier - I am not quick to back off of my convictions that renting is just flat-out smarter. Display booths are not meant to be stale marketing pieces that you begrudgingly pull off of the shelf for your next show. They should not embarass you with outdated styling or graphics, poor refurbishing work, or damaged exhibit pieces.
Part 1 of 3 means I have more to say on this topic… Still think it makes sense to buy your exhibit booth? Please let me know why!
Tags: display booth rental, exhibit booth rental, exhibit rental, exhibit strategy, rent v. own, trade show blog, trade show strategy
February 7th, 2009 at 7:35 pm
Kind of a bold statement from someone who is involved with the Sales of Trade show exhibits. Anecdotally, I have to say that with the economic downturn (I don’t know if you heard… the economy is bad, makes me long for the dreamy days of 2003 when money was no object… but back to the item) that folks are quite interested in renting exhibits over purchase. I am sure you are going to address this but one neato thing about rentals is you don’t have to pay for storage!
February 9th, 2009 at 8:25 am
But it’s not that bold a statement from someone that’s involved with the RENTAL of trade show exhibits… The logistical advantage of rentals, which you alluded to here, is definitely a major advantage - I’ll get into that in part deuce.
February 10th, 2009 at 5:07 am
I will look forward to your artilce Catalyst. “Part Deuce” would be an excellent title for the sequel to the film “21″ But likely there will be no sequel to that movie. I was working on a big rental today for a client. They are going all rental…. no purchase.
February 12th, 2009 at 6:19 pm
Very well written. I think companies that don’t offer rental solutions are going to fair badly in this economic time. I think that being an exhibit professional is finding the “right” solution for your client whether it’s rental or purchase. Also who says that all rental booths have to come of a shelf so to speak, you said it bang on when you mentioned “custom” rental exhibits.
January 24th, 2010 at 10:41 pm
Renting a trade show booth is nothing new. Companies that attend events overseas find it more afforitable to rent a booth then pay the shipping. You just have to plan accordingly to make sure the booth will do what you want it to do. Most booth are straight forward in design