Tips for Planning Your
Tradeshow Budget

The amount to allocate to your tradeshow budget correlates to the scope of your efforts and the number, size, and location of shows you are planning to attend in a given year.

While exhibiting strategies vary significantly from one company to the next, the budgeting process is relatively similar and includes the following expense categories.

For more on trade show planning and marketing, click on these links:

• Trade Show Planning Timeline
• Trade Show Marketing Strategies
• Trade Show Giveaways
• Trade Show Speaker Sponsorships

Utilities and Relateds Booth Expenses... This includes costs you may need to incur to have your trade show booth installed and dismantled (if you are not doing it yourself) and to cover any electricity, gas, water, and other related expenses that you may need at your booth.

Exhibit Display, Signage and Accessories... Everything from display production, graphics, and banners to booth furniture, literature racks and demonstration equipment need to be calculated for your tradeshow budget.

You may also include crating and storage costs in this category so you have a complete picture of your total exhibit-related costs.

Shipping and Drayage... Include in your tradeshow budget all expenses associated with transporting your exhibit and materials to each location. This involves a two-step cost allocation.

1. Freight: Charges associated with shipping your exhibit, literature, accessories and other materials to the event location and back to your office or warehouse (where you are storing the booth).
2. Drayage: Costs of having your items delivered to and from your reserved booth space from the loading dock of the show site.

Trade show participation can be a highly effective strategy in your marketing mix. It can also be a costly one if not budgeted, planned and managed appropriately. For more information on tradeshow budgeting, click here.

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