Candy Adams, CTSM, CME, CEM, CMP, CMM, “The Booth Mom,” is an independent exhibit-management consultant, trainer, speaker, writer, and an Exhibitor conference faculty member. CandyAdams @BoothMom.com

our exhibit is a dinosaur. You’ve reconfigured and refurbished until you’ve squeezed every last trade show from it. It’s time to buy a new booth. Or is it?

Before you purchase a new exhibit, consider the world of rental exhibits. Rental properties come in all sizes, from tabletops and pop-up portable back walls to custom and double-deck exhibits. And when the honeymoon of using it once or twice is over, there’s no long-term commitment.

Companies choose to rent exhibits for a number of reasons:

A lack of capital to replace or refurbish outdated exhibit properties.

Government funding or grants do not allow purchase of capital assets.

First-time exhibitors and start-up companies aren’t ready to make capital outlays.

A desire to appear larger and more impressive than their budget will allow.

An inadequate inventory of exhibit properties to cover conflicting show schedules, such as back-to-back or overlapping show dates.

Different strategic or vertical market segments that require a specific exhibit aesthetic.

A new booth footprint that requires a larger or smaller exhibit.

To take advantage of a “try before they buy” option, with a portion of the rental cost being applied to the purchase of a used exhibit.

To avoid the cost of shipping overseas by renting internationally.

Renting an exhibit will save you money on storage and insurance fees, repair and refurbishment, and ultimately disposal fees. It might also save you money in transportation, material handling, and installation and dismantle, depending on the properties you rent. Some companies are also turning to rental exhibits for their environmental benefits as well, since rental is the epitome of reuse.

Deciding Where to Rent

In the United States, exhibitors have three main sources for rental properties: the show’s general contractor, custom exhibit houses with rental inventory, and exhibit manufacturers with local distributors. Googling the keywords “exhibit rental” turns up nearly 62,000 hits. To narrow your results, add the name of your city or the show city to your search.

If you rent an exhibit from the show’s general contractor, it generally bundles the cost of material handling and a fixed I&D labor fee into the basic negotiated rental cost, which can save you plenty.

If you’re exhibiting internationally, many U.S. exhibit houses will design your exhibit here, translate your requirements and convert the exhibit’s dimensions if needed, then hand off the design to the international partner that will manage the rental or construction and I&D at your show destination.

Where you should rent the exhibit is another question: near your office, or near the city where you will be exhibiting to save on long-haul shipping costs? If you have complex rentals that require numerous planning meetings and previews, it may be more prudent financially to rent near your office, avoid travel costs to visit the rental vendor, and pay the additional expense to ship the exhibit to its destination.

Writing a Rental RFP

The request-for-proposal (RFP) process to rent an exhibit is similar to that of purchasing an exhibit. You start with setting clear objectives with all of the stakeholders. Although it’s important to provide specific information about your show program and company background, preliminary discussions with rental vendors usually begin with whether or not they have adequate rental properties to meet your basic exhibit-property needs. For example, your preliminary must-have list might consist of properties scaled to a 40-by-40-foot space, including a 16-foot tower for storage and company ID, a theater and meeting rooms; product displays or demo kiosks; reception counters; and overhead truss.

Let the rental vendor know if you have existing properties that you’d like to integrate into the rental design. Do you already own a hanging sign or exhibit carpet? Many rental vendors are masters of disguise and can save you money by upgrading pieces of your current exhibit and supplementing them with rental properties to create your new look.

During the RFP process, ask your rental vendor to determine the approximate weight of the exhibit so you can compute your material-handling costs as part of your budget. Also make sure the rental properties are guaranteed to be in good condition and will be refurbished and cleaned prior to your use.

The more information you provide with your RFP, the better vendors’ presentations will be. There are multiple schools of thought about providing rental vendors with your exact budget. Some exhibitors believe this gives vendors free reign to spend every single budgeted dollar, while other exhibit managers believe that the rental vendor, who will become one of your critical team members, needs all of the information you can provide to maximize your rental budget.

There is no right answer, but I lean toward full disclosure of budget information (holding back 10 percent for emergencies).

Estimating Rental Costs

When requesting price quotes for rental exhibits, ask each vendor to include a line-item budget to make it easier to compare proposals. Let vendors know if your analysis and decision to choose a proposal is more design or cost oriented.

Also request an estimate of the total number of hours for I&D labor. Ask if other specialized labor and equipment (such as rigging and forklifts) are required. If possible, negotiate I&D labor as a flat-fee line item, and have it included as part of the fixed fee for the rental.

Plan on spending about 25 to 33 percent as much for a one-time rental exhibit as an equivalent new custom build that you purchase. The more personalized the exhibit and the more custom components required, the more costly it will be.

In addition to exhibit-rental costs, don’t forget to factor in expenses for material handling, graphics, exhibit transportation, electrical, and I&D.

If you negotiate up front, your rental vendor may be willing to apply a percentage of your rental fee toward purchase, should you decide you’d like to own the rental.

While there’s no right or wrong answer about choosing to rent, the industry rule of thumb is that if you’re going to use the same exhibit three times, you should purchase it instead of renting. But, if you want something to use only once or twice, renting can be the best way to go.e