Rental Exhibit or Custom Exhibit?
To rent or buy…this is the question.
You have faced this question before. When it came to getting a car, you needed to decide whether to lease a car or buy it outright. There are lots of factors that you ran through your mind before making the decision. How about where to live? Buy a place, or rent one? This decision probably had more to do with cash than did the car… but still you ask yourself a number of questions to see what makes sense for you.
So here is a list of questions to ask yourself when you are considering a new custom exhibit:
- How many shows will I go to each year, where this new booth will meet my needs?
- Do I want flexibility to change the look each time it goes out?
- Are there financial benefits to “writing off” the entire show expense rather than dealing with a capital purchase and issues of depreciation?
- Do we have an overlap of shows and need a fill-in property?
- Do we need an international show solution one time a year?
- Do I want to do away with storage costs?
- Is my program primarily made up of smaller events with one large show per year where you really need to make a splash?
- If I rent, do I want a kit that is simple; or a custom solution that looks like it was really built for me?
Depending on your answers, you might benefit from renting a booth. Or, perhaps the right decision is to own property – OR, maybe you need to do both.
Here is a good rule of thumb. Rental exhibits tend to cost about 1/3 the price of a purchased exhibit. If you are doing one show a year in a certain size space, chances are renting makes good sense. That allows you to eliminate a large initial capital outlay, stay flexible from year to year, and eliminate storage costs.
If you have a number of shows per year and you design a flexible program where your inventory can adapt to many size exhibit spaces, then chances are purchasing an exhibit makes sense. Once you get beyond that 3rd show, the rented property would start to cost you more.
And then there is “Both”. If you have a number of shows throughout the year and find yourself short on property due to overlap, or a larger size space, there is the “Hybrid Exhibit” concept. You can add to your inventory with rental materials that allow you to either be in two places at once, or increase your size and presence without looking like your booth is a hodge podge of different items.
At the end of the day, the decision is yours. Using the information above can hopefully help you make the decision that is right for you and your company.
Check out the BlueHive rental movie for inspiration...
... or see some samples of our recent custom exhibit or rental exhibit projects! Call us with any questions and we’ll be happy to be a sounding board to help you make the right decision.
Chris Dunn is a Sr. Account Executive with BlueHive, a full service firm which specializes in the design and production of Strategic Brand Environments. He is an 18 year veteran of the trade show industry. Why? Because he's got mad skills taking a napkin sketch to a completed project...regardless of whether it is a rental, lease or purchase. He can be reached at cdunn@blue-hive.com