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Trade Show Display Shipping Basics
2 min read
Trade Show Display Shipping Basics
There are three elements of freight handling to be aware of. The first is shipping to the show venue itself. The Exhibitor’s Manual will provide detailed shipping address and booth labeling instructions. It’s critical that you put your company name and booth number on your shipping labels to ensure that your exhibit ends up at your booth instead of one of the hundreds of other booths at the show. Most shows allow you to ship to an “Advanced warehouse” well ahead of the show in order to reduce the tight time window provided for booth shipping. There is generally no additional charge for using the Advanced Warehouse option – but be sure to check your show guide.
The second area of freight handling is the delivery of your booth property from the on-site warehouse to your actual show floor location. This is called “drayage” and is surprisingly expensive given the small amount of work involved. Display delivery timing is not in any particular order, but you may be able to expedite delivery if you talk to show management during setup hours.
The third category of freight handling is known as “empty storage”. The show management will generally provide you with labels to place on all empty crates, boxes, and other containers that say “empty storage”. It’s very important to use these labels and write your booth number on them so that the freight handling staff can return your empty containers to you at the end of the show. Without these empty boxes you won’t be able to pack up your exhibits at the end of the show and get them sent back to you.
The final category of shipping is “return shipping”. As soon as the show is over the freight handlers will start sending out the empty storage containers to the booth locations. At that point your laborers can begin to dismantle your trade show display. It’s important to do this carefully to avoid damaging your exhibit property. You should pay special attention to the packaging of your graphics in order to avoid damage during shipping and the need to reprint your large format graphics (which can be quite costly).
