Frequently Asked Questions: Shipping

How does the rental display get to the show?

Ship, in advance, to the warehouse.
Tradeshows and larger conventions are generally serviced by a "decorating" company, such as GES, which has operations in cities across the country. The show organizers provide information about how to ship to an advance warehouse, usually a different address than the event location. The decorating company then moves all the displays in the warehous to the event location floor and deposits them in the appropriate booth spaces. You arrive at your booth and your display system and supplies are waiting for you.

You can ship anything to the advance warehouse, including big display systems packed in crates to cartons of brochures. The shpment has to arrive by a certain date, but it can arrive over a window of time that is several days - or even weeks. One of the key advantages of shipping to the warehouse it that it does not have to arrive ON a certain day, only BY a certain day. A lot easier.

There are two disadvantages of shipping to the warehouse. 1) You have to have your display ready weeks in advance. 2) The decorating company charges a "drayage" charge for storing and transporting your supplies to your booth.

Ship the exhibit display directly to the show.
If you aren't ready weeks in advance of the show, you could consider the option of shipping to the show site. The shipping address is to the booth number at the show site, thus, with luck on your side, the display will be waiting there when you arrive.
There is some risk here because sometimes you are given only one day on which the shipment can arrive. This is the only day it will be accepted. If anything causes a delay or if the shipping company fails to meet its promised (guaranteed) delivery date, you have no fall-back position. Larger events often have two days designated for set up, and will accept delivery on either day. Plan for your display to arrive the first of these two days, giving you a one day safety margin.

It may not work. Our experience is that a goodly number of the time, when someone goes to the desk and says, "Do you have a package for me?" they say no, even though the tracking number report says someone at the hotel has signed for it.

You will have to take the display system and any other supplies yourself from the hotel to your booth space in the exhibit hall. That may be OK for a box of brochures, but i may be very inconvenient for a larger or heavier display item.

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How can I be sure the display will get there on time?

This is a major issue, because if it doesn't get there on time, you could ruin or
seriously degrade the whole event for your company and damage all your other efforts. The solution is two-fold, with an emergency contingincy.

First: Planning. Use a calendar to plan preparation and shipping, being sure to take every factor into account. We prepared a couple of sample calendars to show how we do the planning. Build a margin of safety into your planning by adding extra days.

Second: Be extra careful. For example: double check the address after you have written it down. All it takes is one wrong number, and the shipment can end up in the wrong place. If it takes 2 days to straighten out the mistake, that is 2 days you do not have. Also, double check that the address is valid. We receieved a hotel address from a customer, sent it to that hotel, only to find he had no reservation there. We called another hotel near the reservation center and found out he was registered there. In short, it pays to check and double check the details.

Emergency Solution: Even if no one in your office and in our office makes no mistakes, there is the chance that someone else will. For those 11th hour panic calls, we can still ship another display by FedEx overnight for early next day delivery. This is expensive, but nothing compared to the overall investment a company makes in going to show. Our policy is to rush to action to solve the problem, then figure out how the costs will be paid. It is rarely the customer's fault.

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How much will the shipping costs be?

The shipping costs vary from the "no charge" of picking up the system, here in our RI location, to priority overnighting to wherever your show is, for the next morning, and anywhere in between.

We have posted the aproximate cost of shipping by ground with each rental unit. Whenever possible, make your arrangements well enough in advance to allow ample time for ground shipment to the venue location.

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