1. Downsize your booth space.
If you reduce your booth space by even 100 square feet, that is a few thousand dollars especially if you produce new graphics. Downsizing on your booth space also saves on other related costs such as carpet, shipping, material handling and cleaning.
2. Rent your exhibit.
A rental exhibit can be about a 1/3 of the cost of a new booth built for ownership of equal design and will require a smaller initial investment. When renting your exhibit, you do not need to repair the exhibit or pay for storage costs. It is also much easier to update the look of your booth by changing configurations and graphics for the shows. You also save on storage, insurance, refurbishing and disposal fees.
3. Plan in advance.
Many times you can receive early bird discounts from your exhibit house for renting booths several months prior to the show start. Make it a point to order show services in advance and make arrangements to ship your properties by discount deadline. Get planning early!
4. Stay away from designing show specific graphics.
Spend the majority of your graphic budget for your booth design using graphics that are general to your company identity. Steer away from show or industry specific graphics especially on larger areas. When printing larger company graphics, planning them to be more general or generic for back walls and eye catching areas. By adding smaller banner stands, pop up graphic walls or using graphics which have Velcro backing make it easy to interchange them from show to show.
5. Use in house talent for graphic design and wording.
Often times it is more cost effective to design graphics and generate any copywriting using talent within your company. You can then use the exhibit house or printer as a resource to ensure that your technical files for printing are up to par.
6. Consider using stock photography.
If you don’t already have existing photography for graphics in your booth, you can use stock image companies which many you can find online for affordable images. You can purchase photography for less than hiring a professional photographer.
7. Source material options for graphics. Oftentimes you can source printers and material options which can cause you savings in the long run. A fabric graphic folds compactly and is much less in shipping than a hard panel wall graphic because of the dimensions and weight.
8. Save on storage fees. Negotiate storage with your exhibit house when signing your exhibit booth contract. Also, take inventory and purge old graphics, literature, and items that you plan on not using in the future.
9. Consolidate your properties to save on shipping.
Try to consolidate your small boxes, giveaways and miscellaneous items on several pallets. Not only will this decrease the chances of losing the properties, it will save you money when getting a quote from your carrier. Hint: you can ship padding and carpet rolls on top of the crate.
10. The earlier you ship, the more money you save.
The most cost effective way to ship booth properties is try to meet the advance warehouse discounted deadline. If you are unable to ship to advance warehouse for time reasons by the discount deadline, still ship to advance warehouse without meeting the discounted deadline. The last (and less desired) would be to ship direct to show site which will incur larger fees on material handling show services.
11. Ship during the weekday hours.
If possible, avoid weekend/evening pick-ups or additional services. Any additional services, such as after hours or weekend pick up, lift gate, expedited services will increase the transportation cost.
12. Use the same labor crew for every show.
If you hire an exhibitor-appointed contractor for I&D, try to use the same laborers and lead for each installation. Their experience with your exhibit will cut your I&D time considerably.
