Rent vs Buy an Exhibition Stall

Quick answer

Rent when you exhibit only a few times a year or your stall size changes. Buy (and store) a stall when you do several shows a year with a similar size, so you spread the cost over many events.

Still unsure?

Tell us how many shows you do a year, your stall sizes and budget. We will recommend the option that costs you less over the year, even if it is the cheaper one for us.

How to decide

Comparisons like this usually come down to how often you exhibit. A single annual show rewards the cheapest adequate option; three or more shows a year change the arithmetic completely, because a reusable structure amortises across editions while a single-use build does not.

The second question is how much of your stand's value is in its appearance. If visitors judge your product by the environment around it — jewellery, premium consumer goods, hospitality — the finish is part of the product and worth paying for. If they judge it by specification, it is not.

What people get wrong

The common error is comparing headline prices rather than total cost across a year of shows, including storage, refurbishment, transport and the staff time spent coordinating vendors. The cheaper option on paper is frequently the more expensive one in practice.

The other error is deciding before the stand plan arrives. Open sides, height limits and venue rules can rule out an option entirely, so the organiser's paperwork should come before the decision, not after it.

Stall sizes, staffing and lead time

The table below uses the same arithmetic as our stall planner, so a number here and a number from the tool will agree. Storage takes 10% of the area up to 18 sq.m and 15% above it, a meeting corner takes 5% unless you are hosting meetings, and display takes the remainder.