For people who have already exhibited at Moscone and want the building-specific knowledge, not the basics.
RSAC is the most competitive exhibit floor in security and one of the most demanding buildings in the country. This guide is the planning cycle we run for the security companies we build for at Moscone every spring — hall choice, the deadline ladder, what the show bills you directly, labour, and the decisions that cannot wait. Live dates and the advance-order deadline for the next edition are on the RSAC booth rentals page.
RSAC sells its expo in two halls, North and South, and priority selection for returning exhibitors happens during or right after the current edition. That means the most consequential design decision — where you are — is usually taken with next year’s budget still unapproved. Three things to settle before you pick:
The two halls are separate buildings under Howard Street, and attendees choose which to walk first. Neighbours matter more than square footage here: a 20×20 among the platforms your prospects already use outperforms a 30×30 in a quieter aisle. Read the current floor plan by category, not by size.
An inline 10×20 with a corner behaves like a small island for traffic; a mid-aisle 20×20 island behaves like an inline if the neighbouring structures block it. We ask for the exact position and the booths around it before drawing anything, because the design that wins depends on the sightlines you actually own.
Ceiling height and rigging availability differ across the halls and within them. If a hanging sign is central to your plan, confirm rigging is permitted at that position before you sign — a sign you cannot fly is a hole in the design, not a saving.
Building detail — levels, ceilings, docks and the freight route — is in the Moscone Center guide for RSAC exhibitors.
The exhibitor services manual sets an advance-order deadline roughly eight weeks ahead of the show; after it, every show-billed line moves to floor rates. Everything below is arranged around that cutoff. The exact date for the next edition is in the facts strip on the RSAC booth rentals page and updates automatically.
Why the ladder starts so early: RSAC’s expo opens with a Monday-evening reception before the Tuesday floor, so the booth has to be finished a day earlier than the show dates suggest. Move-in is targeted by hall and position, and a truck that misses its slot waits.
The total cost of an RSAC booth is the exhibit house’s number plus a set of lines billed directly to you by the show, the venue and the general contractor. The second set is where budgets break. Every line below exists at two prices — advance and floor — and the spread in San Francisco is among the widest in the country.
| Line | Billed by | What drives it | How to control it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Booth space | The show | Square footage, hall, corner premium, sponsorship tier | Priority selection; a smaller space in the right aisle |
| Material handling (drayage) | General contractor | Weight in hundredweight, crated vs loose, advance warehouse vs direct, overtime windows | Lighter modular structure, crated freight, advance warehouse, no special handling |
| Electrical | Venue / contractor | Circuits, amperage, drop locations, 24-hour power for demo hardware, labour to distribute under carpet | One floor plan filed early; consolidate drops; order 24-hour power only where servers need it |
| Internet | Venue | Hard-line drops and bandwidth; conference Wi-Fi is not demo-grade | One wired drop per demo cluster, ordered at advance rates |
| Rigging | Venue’s exclusive rigger | Sign weight, motors, hang points, hall rules | Confirm rigging at your position before designing around a sign |
| Labour | General contractor / union | Hours, straight vs overtime, supervision, number of trades | A pre-built structure that installs in hours; a supervised, planned labour call |
| Cleaning · lead retrieval · furniture add-ons | Show / contractor | Daily vacuuming, scanners, last-minute rentals | Order at advance rates; furniture inside the fixed price |
Put your footprint and hall into the RSAC booth cost calculator and it estimates these lines at advance and floor rates alongside a fixed booth price for that size. Every booth we build is published with its San Francisco price on the San Francisco booth rentals page.
Moscone runs on contracted union labour, and the general contractor governs which tasks exhibitor staff may perform themselves. Plan on your team not building, wiring or moving crates. What you control is hours: a structure that has already stood up once installs fast, and a supervisor on site keeps the call from drifting into overtime.
Trucks do not simply arrive at Howard Street. Freight is marshalled off site and called to the docks on a target time, then moved into halls that sit below street level. Crate dimensions matter here more than at a Las Vegas hall. Advance-warehouse freight avoids the worst of it and is usually the cheaper drayage class.
An April show puts the advance-order cutoff in early February and graphics production over the year-end break, with sample or demo hardware often arriving from overseas ahead of factory shutdowns. Teams that start planning in January discover the advance window is already closing.
The building itself — levels, connections between halls, dock reality and the walk from Moscone West — is covered in the Moscone Center guide.
The RSAC audience is CISOs, security architects and the engineers who run the SOC. They decide in a minute whether a booth is worth their time, and the conversations that lead to a pipeline happen away from the aisle, under NDA, in front of a live dashboard. Every year we build to the same four requirements, in different proportions:
The aisle test is brutal. A single message on the tallest surface you are allowed, then everything else.
Live attack simulations, SOC consoles and telemetry dashboards need dedicated circuits, wired internet and screens that read in bright hall light.
Enclosed or screened rooms with acoustic separation — the place a deal is discussed while the aisle keeps moving.
A presentation stage earns its footprint when the speaker calendar is already booked. Otherwise the space is better spent on demo positions.
How these look built — command-centre islands, suspended overhead structures, open high-traffic inlines — is in the RSAC booth design gallery.
Tell us your hall, your position and what the booth has to demo. You’ll have design concepts and one fixed price back within 24 hours — including what Moscone and the show will bill you directly.
Or call us directly — (800) 379-8451
