Exhibit installation and maintenance costs: How exhibit storage containers affect costs

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We have been using these tips and tricks to save 30% on a wide variety of our clientele’s trade show costs for 15 years. By applying these tricks, you can save $30K from previous costs of $100K per show. If you are attending 2 shows per year this is a savings of $60K per year.
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As we are currently involved with overseeing the building of two new trade show exhibits and the design of a third we are exploring the use of alternative means and methods for exhibit storage. With our current experiences fresh in mind, we would like to address the issue of exhibit storage containers as it relates to running costs and exhibit maintenance.

Crates
Traditionally with the construction of a custom exhibit, crates are also built for storage of these pieces. Crates are the best way to protect the parts of your exhibit. However, there are several reasons to consider options other than crates for your exhibit.

Weight – Crates are heavy
An empty crate of standard size – 4’ W x 4’ D x 8.5’ H typically weighs about 350 lbs. Thus a trade show exhibit that is packed in 10 crates, or fills ½ truckload weighs 3500 lbs before any part of the exhibit is packed inside the crates. As a result, at a typical tradeshow, where the freight handling costs are $50 / 100 lbs you will spend $1750 to move just the crates for such an exhibit into and out of the trade show hall or convention center.

Protection – Is it too good?
A crate protects an exhibit and its pieces extremely well from the abuses that movement and storage can dish out. However, what if the protection is too good? Our observation is that the crates are handled very hard. Crates can and are often flipped over, and delivered upside down or on their sides. While in a properly jigged crate all of the contents are well protected even if the crate rolls, the crate itself gets beat up. It is our contention that the crate is treated poorly simply because it is a crate. Crates and consequently their contents are then subject to un-called for stresses and strains again and again, simply because they are crates.

Cost – Crates Cost
Crates are not inexpensive to build. In general, a custom jigged standard size crate is $1150 or more before any of your exhibit is contained inside. Crates usually account for 10-15% of an exhibit’s total costs. Many other types of storage containers are considerably less expensive.

Access to the contents: Effects on Cost of I & D Labor
Crates have a door. The contents are only fully accessible once the door is fully open. If you are working in cramped quarters it may be difficult to open these doors. As a result you may have to continually move crates in order to gain access to their contents. This will increase the costs of running your exhibit, by increasing the costs of labor each time the exhibit is installed and dismantled in cramped quarters.

Spatial Constraints – Crates are the same size empty or full
Also, at a trade show where space is at a premium during set-up and dismantle crates will continue to take up the same amount of space whether empty or full. By using other packing methods you may be able to stack your storage containers or paraphernalia so that you gain valuable construction space as you empty the storage containers or on the dismantle you will have the most space when you first begin exhibit dismantle and the hall is the most crowded and chaotic.

Exhibit Storage
Most warehouses charge for exhibit storage in terms of billable units per 100 lbs of exhibit weight. By reducing your exhibit’s storage container weight, you will reduce your storage costs even if you take up the same amount of space in the warehouse as an exhibit of the same size that is stored adjacent to yours. The typical crate when filled weighs 1000+ lbs. The crate empty weighs 350 lbs. So by eliminating all of the crates, you may eliminate up to 35% of the exhibits weight. This translates into a lot of marketing dollars saved.

Coming Attractions: Please refer to our article next week for our conclusions and additional ideas regarding exhibit storage containers. This article will include our first set of Observations from the field: Real life results that clearly illustrate the possibilities for exhibit design, construction and management.