Exhibition Stand Hire Vs Purchase – What’s Best for You?

Exhibition stands are unrivalled in their ability to give businesses a platform to spark meaningful interactions with potential customers and industry colleagues. It doesn’t matter if you’re exhibiting in UK, Europe or around the world, well-designed exhibition stands can have a hugely positive impact on your business.

But when it comes to choosing an exhibition stand, one of the first decisions to make is whether to buy one outright, or hire/rent one. With all the benefits that exhibiting gives businesses, there are financial costs as well as the time and effort involved, so businesses need to ensure they make the right decisions when it comes to their exhibition stands.

We’ve put together this mini guide to help showcase the benefits of buying or renting stands to help you understand if purchasing or hiring is the best option for your business.

Deciding between hiring and buying an exhibition stand will ultimately depend on your specific circumstances and requirements. For a chat about different options, pricing, and everything that goes into exhibiting, make sure you get in touch with us here at Smart Display.

Benefits of Buying an Exhibition Stand

Buying your exhibition stand gives you the ultimate bespoke experience. You can have something designed and custom built to suit every requirement. There are fewer limitations and you can really design something that will leave a lasting impression with event attendees. This is perfect for creatives and those who want to think out-side-of-the-box when it comes to their exhibition stand. What could you dream up?

If you own your stand, you also have full autonomy of editing and changing it how you like. It can evolve over time with your business’s message and marketing. They can be customised in the future to ensure they always bring value to your business.

If you are a seasoned exhibitor and looking to attend quite a few events throughout the year, then buying a stand is likely to offer a better overall ROI over hiring one each time.

It also gives you a great marketing asset to use how you like – you may decide to keep it up in your lobby for example and get more out of it. It’s entirely up to you.

Stands come in many shapes and sizes, so understanding where this will be stored and how you’ll get it to events is worth thinking about. The team at Smart Display can also help you understand the range of options available when purchasing a custom built or modular exhibition stand.

Benefits of Hiring or Renting an Exhibition Stand

There are many benefits to hiring an exhibition stand. If it’s your first exhibition, hiring may be a better option. This means you can dip your toes into the world of exhibiting, without needing as much of an initial financial investment. If things go well, you could then look to buy a stand for the following year.

If you are only intending on exhibiting occasionally, with your focus subject matter likely to change, then hiring will offer a better overall ROI than buying.

Hiring is often better for those looking for hassle free exhibiting. This often means you can simply turn up to the event and discover your stand is there waiting for you. You don’t need to worry about a lot of the logistics and potential challenges (as long as you use a quality stand rental company).

Hiring an exhibition stand doesn’t mean you only have to pick basic patterns/colours/shapes. They can be customised to suit your requirements, giving you freedom to create something really powerful for your event.

You can also test very different designs and also be aware of different nuances at different events. For example, having designs that respect regional/cultural customs may be the difference between a winning international exhibition and one that fails to resonate. A stand that was successful in the USA, may not work as well in Japan or vice versa. These details could be worth watching out for.

At Smart Display we have a large stock of modular frameworks which we can hire out to our clients and install at the show. You can still have a fantastic design with maximum impact, but we just take the kit back after the show.

Learn More with Smart Display

If you’d like to learn more about either hiring or buying an exhibition stand, simply get in touch with us here at Smart Display.

When you invest in a stand from Smart Display, we take care of absolutely everything, from design and production, to logistics and project management.

Learn more about how we can help.