Are graphics included in a trade show booth rental?

Yes. The rental rate covers the exhibit hardware and the custom printed graphics for the booth. When the graphics were printed for an earlier show and the same hardware is rented again, a lower hardware-only rate applies: on one 16-foot rental tower that rate is $8,483 against $16,601 with graphics.

How much does drayage cost at a trade show?

Material handling commonly runs $110 to $185 per hundredweight with a 200 pound minimum, charged by the show's general contractor to move a crate from the dock to the booth and hold the empty until teardown. The minimum is the floor rather than the typical case: a 980 lb crate costs roughly $1,078 to $1,813 in material handling alone, before freight and before labor. A third-party coordinator arranging labor and handling typically adds a management fee of around 30 percent.

How late can I book a trade show rental before the show?

Later than a custom build, which needs six to twelve months. Quick Ship rental designs exist for short lead times. The binding deadlines are usually the show's own, such as the advance warehouse cutoff and the discount deadlines for labor and electrical, rather than hardware availability.

Trade Show Booth Rental Cleveland & Akron OH

Q: How much does it cost to rent a trade show booth?

A 10x10 inline booth starts at around $2,575 with custom printed graphics included, a 10x20 at around $6,708, and a 20x20 island at around $5,911, as of October 2026. Rental counters start around $780. Those rates cover hardware and graphics. Freight, drayage, labor and show-floor extras are quoted for the specific show and venue and itemized, so the exhibitor sees a landed cost rather than a hardware price.

Q: Do you install the rental booth?

Yes, including dismantle. At most major venues installation is union labor, which DG Creativ arranges and supervises. Nobody from the exhibiting company needs to be on the floor before the show opens.

Q: Will you store and ship an exhibit I already own?

Yes, including exhibit hardware originally supplied by another company. Properties are warehoused between shows and shipped directly to the next show rather than returning to the exhibitor's own building.

Q: Do you rent carpet, furniture and AV?

Yes, and they are ordered alongside the booth so that one vendor coordinates the whole show-floor order. Which route each item comes through depends on the show, and it is identified on the quote rather than appearing as a surprise line afterward.

Show management assigns your space. You find out in the confirmation email whether this year is a 10x10 inline or a 20x20 island — and if it is the island, the backwall sitting in your warehouse is worth nothing to you in March.

That is the ordinary reason Cleveland and Akron exhibitors rent, and it usually has nothing to do with budget. A rental matches the hardware to the space you were actually assigned, for the one show, without a purchase that has to earn itself back over four years.

When renting is the right call

You do one or two shows a year. Ownership does not pay back at that frequency. Storage, refurbishment and graphics updates run the entire time the booth is sitting still.

The footprint changed. A different size, a corner instead of a run, an island instead of an inline. Renting for the odd show costs less than owning two sets of hardware for one of them.

You are testing a show. First year at an unfamiliar event, and you do not yet know whether you will be back. Rent it, find out what the floor traffic is worth, then decide.

If you are doing four or more shows a year with a consistent footprint, the math flips and owning wins. We will tell you that rather than rent you something twice. The reasoning is laid out on the turnkey program page.

And if the space you were assigned is a 10x10, it is worth reading what actually fits a 10x10 booth before you decide either way. That page carries finished display heights in inches against the 8-foot back wall and 4-foot aisle limits, and purchase prices alongside the rental rates below — a fabric pop-up back wall costs less to buy outright than to rent once.

What a rental costs

Two things about the rate that most exhibitors get wrong, because almost nobody in this industry publishes either one.

The rental price includes your custom printed graphics. Not the frame on its own — the hardware and the printed graphics for your booth, in one number. Current starting points, as of October 2026:

What you are renting	Designs available	From, graphics included
10x10 inline booth	67	About $2,575
10x20 inline booth	28+	About $6,708
Quick Ship inline displays	7	About $4,543
Island exhibits, 20x20 to 40x50	156	About $5,911
Counters, kiosks and bars	84	About $780
Charging tables	11	About $883
Banner stands	4	About $902
LED lightboxes	4	About $1,725

Your second show with the same look costs considerably less. If we printed your graphics the first time and you rent the same hardware again, you pay a hardware-only rate. On one 16-foot rental tower in the current program that is $8,483 instead of $16,601 — a little over half. Rental is usually assumed to be the expensive way to repeat a booth. For a company doing a show or two a year, it is not.

Every exhibit is still quoted for your specific show, so treat the table as real starting points rather than a price list.

What is available to rent

The rental catalog we work from runs to more than 480 configurations across three galleries. These are the sizes and types, not a sample:

Inline displays — 10x10, 10x20, 10x30 and 10x40. Tension fabric backwalls, modular systems, backlit lightboxes, and Quick Ship designs for when the show date is closer than a normal lead time. Browse the rental inline gallery.

Island exhibits — 20x20, 20x30, 20x40, 30x30, 30x40, 30x60 and 40x50. The island designs include enclosed conference rooms, overhead towers and lockable storage closets, which are the three things exhibitors discover they need on the second morning of a show. Browse the rental island gallery.

Counters and accessories. Reception counters, workstations, kiosks and bars, charging tables, banner stands, LED lightboxes, and Aero overhead hanging signs. Rented on their own or added to a booth you already own. Browse rental counters and accessories.

Photographs of the rental inventory in use. Renderings tell you the dimensions; photographs tell you what the fabric, the lightboxes and the counters actually look like standing on a floor. There is a rental photo gallery of the systems themselves, alongside lead times, exhibit weights and cord management notes.

The rental rate is one of three numbers

An exhibit costs you money three times: the hardware, getting it to the booth, and the labor to stand it up. Only the first number is ever on anybody's website, which is how two rental quotes that look identical finish the show hundreds of dollars apart.

Material handling. Drayage commonly runs $110–185 per hundredweight against a 200 lb minimum, charged by the show's contractor to move your crate from the dock to your space and hold the empty until teardown. The 200 lb minimum is the floor, not the typical case. Work it on a real crate: a 16-foot rental tower in the current program ships at about 103 x 55 x 37 inches and 980 lbs, which is 9.8 hundredweight — so material handling alone lands around $1,078 to $1,813, before an hour of labor and before the freight that gets it to the city.

Which is why crate weight is worth asking about while you are still choosing a design. Two exhibits that look alike on screen can differ by several hundred pounds, and that difference repeats at every show you take it to.

Labor. Install and dismantle hours, billed at the hall's rates under the hall's rules, which at most major venues means union crews and minimum labor calls. A Sunday morning install is not priced like a Thursday afternoon one.

Everything that is not the booth. Carpet, furniture, lighting, AV and electrical are separate orders with separate deadlines, and ordering any of them on the show floor costs more than ordering them in advance.

We quote all three with the hardware, itemized, so you can see what each piece costs and drop anything you would rather handle yourself. For reference, a third-party coordinator brought in to arrange labor and handling typically adds a management fee of around 30% on top of it.

Rent or buy, with the actual numbers

This is usually argued on opinion. It does not need to be. Take the same 16-foot tower: renting it with graphics is about $16,601, and buying the equivalent is about $31,120.

One show: renting is roughly 53% of buying.
Two shows: about $25,084 renting, using the hardware-only rate the second time. Still less than buying.
Three shows: about $33,567 renting, which is where buying starts to win on hardware cost alone.

And that crossover is before ownership's other costs: somewhere to keep a 980 lb crate between shows, refurbishment when panels get scuffed, and the risk that a booth built for this year's message does not suit next year's. Those fall on the owner, not the renter.

One or two shows a year, rent. Four or more with a stable message, buy. Three is a real judgment call and worth working through with someone rather than guessing.

That math is for a large island tower. At the 10x10 end of the range it comes out differently, because a portable fabric back wall can be bought for a few hundred dollars and a rental cannot.

If you already own your exhibit

Two things worth knowing, because they are the parts exhibitors rarely find out are available.

Accessories rent on their own. Counters, charging tables, kiosks, banner stands, lightboxes and hanging signs can be added to a booth you already own — often the least expensive way to make an owned 10x10 work in a 10x20 space.

We will store and manage hardware we did not supply. Your exhibit properties are warehoused between shows and shipped directly to the next one, rather than coming back to your building and taking up floor space. That applies to exhibits you bought from somebody else, and it means you can keep the hardware you have and still stop managing the logistics around it.

What we do and what you do

You send the show details. Show name, dates, venue and city, booth number and size, and your assigned setup window.
We put designs in front of you that fit your actual space. Not catalog pages — configurations that work in the footprint you were assigned, with your sightlines and your neighbors accounted for.
We print the graphics, and they are in the rental price. The hardware is a rental; the graphics are printed for your booth. On a wide backwall the whole run prints in one pass, because panels printed weeks apart do not match across a seam and people catch it from across an aisle.
We ship it, we handle the drayage paperwork, and we set it up. Advance warehouse or direct-to-show, target dates, EAC filings, install, on call during the show, and back for dismantle.
It goes back to the rental fleet. There is nothing for you to store and nothing to inspect afterward.

Shows we work

The Huntington Convention Center of Cleveland, the I-X Center, the John S. Knight Center in Akron, and the fairgrounds and expo halls across Summit, Cuyahoga, Portage, Medina and Stark counties. We are in Stow, so a damaged crate on move-in morning at a Cleveland show is a drive rather than a flight.

Rentals also go to shows well outside this market. If your calendar includes Las Vegas, Orlando, Chicago or Atlanta, it is the same program and the same point of contact.

What we need in order to quote one

Six things, and most exhibitors have five of them in the confirmation email from show management: the show name, the dates, the venue and city, your booth number, your booth size, and your assigned setup window. Add your artwork direction and we can come back with designs and a landed cost rather than a hardware price.

Common questions

Do you rent trade show booths in Cleveland?
Yes. Inline displays from 10x10 through 10x40, island exhibits from 20x20 through 40x50, and counters, kiosks, charging tables, banner stands, lightboxes and overhead hanging signs, with install and dismantle at Cleveland and Akron venues or anywhere else on your calendar.

How much does it cost to rent a trade show booth?
A 10x10 inline starts around $2,575 with custom printed graphics included, a 10x20 around $6,708, and a 20x20 island around $5,911, as of October 2026. Counters start around $780. Those cover hardware and graphics. Freight, drayage, labor and show-floor extras are quoted for your show and venue, and we itemize all of it so you are looking at a landed cost rather than a hardware price.

Are the graphics included in a booth rental?
Yes. The rental rate covers the exhibit hardware and the custom printed graphics for your booth. If we printed your graphics for an earlier show and you are renting the same hardware again, there is a lower hardware-only rate — on one 16-foot tower, $8,483 against $16,601.

Should I rent or buy a trade show booth?
On hardware cost alone the crossover is around the third show. One 16-foot tower rents with graphics for about $16,601 against about $31,120 to buy; two shows renting runs about $25,084 using the repeat rate, three shows about $33,567. One or two shows a year, rent. Four or more with a consistent footprint, own it — particularly if storage, maintenance and shipping are handled for you. At the 10x10 end it is different: a portable fabric back wall costs less to buy outright than to rent once.

How much is drayage?
Commonly $110 to $185 per hundredweight with a 200 lb minimum, set by the show's general contractor rather than by us. A 980 lb crate therefore runs roughly $1,078 to $1,813 in material handling alone. We put the figure for your show in the quote rather than letting it arrive afterward.

How late can I book a rental before a show?
Later than a custom build, which needs six to twelve months. Quick Ship rental designs exist for exactly this situation. The binding constraints are usually the show's own deadlines — advance warehouse cutoff, discount deadlines for labor and electrical — rather than the hardware, so the first thing to check is your exhibitor manual, not the catalog.

Do you install the rental booth, or do I?
We do, including dismantle. At most major venues installation is union labor, which we arrange and supervise. You are welcome on the floor, but nobody from your company needs to be there before the show opens.

Can I rent accessories for a booth I already own?
Yes. Counters, charging tables, kiosks, banner stands, lightboxes and hanging signs rent separately, which is often the cheapest way to make an owned 10x10 work in a 10x20 space.

Will you store and ship an exhibit I already own?
Yes, including hardware originally supplied by another company. It is warehoused between shows and shipped straight to the next one instead of returning to your building.

Do you rent carpet, furniture and AV as well?
Yes, and they are ordered alongside the booth so one vendor is coordinating the whole floor order. Which route each item comes through depends on the show, and we will tell you which it is on your quote rather than leave it as a surprise line.

Send us the show

Request a quote or call 330.968.0678. Send the show name, the dates and the booth size you were assigned, and we will come back with designs that fit it and a cost that includes getting it there and standing it up.