One fixed number. One project manager. A booth that clears the BCEC guard shack the first time through.
Boston splits its show floor between two buildings that behave nothing alike: the BCEC in the Seaport, with 516,000 square feet of contiguous hall and a marshalling yard off the South Boston Bypass Road, and the Hynes in Back Bay, where freight stages miles away in Allston and gets called in truck by truck. Both run on Teamster labor and drayage billed by the pound. Pure Exhibits builds Boston trade show booth rentals around that system from the first sketch — designed, fabricated, fully pre-staged and photo-approved before anything ships, priced in one contractual figure — so the only thing your team manages on show week is the show.
More than 500 exhibiting teams have held us to the promise we make in Boston: a number that survives to closeout, a booth that matches its photo proof, and a person who answers the phone while the Teamster crew is still on the BCEC floor.
“They never just build the booth and disappear — I always know I have someone on call when the unexpected happens.”
Amanda Horner · Three years of Adobe Summit booths · Google Review
“It’s always a pleasure to work with Utsav. The process is simple, straightforward, and high quality. I have worked with them for 3 years now and will continue!”
Carlos Bautista · Three-year client · Google Review
On the Boston calendar — Seafood Expo North America · PAX East · Yankee Dental Congress · DeviceTalks · MEDevice · MRS Fall Meeting
Every project below was quoted once and delivered to match its photo proof — inline booths through 30×30 islands, medtech to consumer brands. The exhibit you rent for a Boston hall comes out of this same inventory, from this same build team. Click any project for a closer look.
Curious what sat behind a build — the brief, the budget, and how the show went? Teramind, Appdome, Afresh, WillowTree, Yuna, LHH and Genea each tell it in the case study hub.
A booth that works in Boston is won before the truck reaches the Bypass Road. Pure Exhibits fabricates every exhibit in-house, stands it up completely in the shop, photographs it for your sign-off, then crates it so the Teamster I&D crew at the BCEC or the Hynes can re-assemble it in the fewest possible labor hours — the line where Boston budgets usually bleed. Fortune 500 teams and first-time exhibitors run the same playbook with us across Seafood Expo North America, PAX East, DeviceTalks, MEDevice, and 200+ events a year nationwide, all on one contractual number.
“The prospect of managing all of the details with big trade shows is daunting to say the least. But the Pure Exhibits team made it easy… If you are looking for a real partner that you can count on, then I recommend you talk with Utsav and his team.”
Footprint decides almost everything in Boston — the drayage bill, which is charged by the pound, the Teamster labor hours, hanging-sign rights, even how long your truck waits at the yard. Pick a size below and the fixed price comes with it. One Boston-specific note: overhead rigging runs through the venue and the show contractor, and the order windows close well before move-in — decide on hung signs on day one, not week six.
“Since being with SpyCloud, Pure Exhibits has exceeded our expectations at every turn. They truly understand our brand and needs, from starting with a 10×20 booth to maximizing our presence with a 20×30 including a meeting space and four demo stations! Pure Exhibits has been with us every step of the way. They have helped us create a commanding presence on any expo floor that authentically represents who we are. It is a thrill to work with them and see what’s next on our journey. I highly recommend them.”
Torn between two sizes? Send the show and your space number — we’ll tell you which one that floor plan actually rewards.
Boston’s exhibiting costs have a reputation, and the quotes that follow them tend to be opening bids. These are finishing numbers — the figure on the contract is the figure on the closeout. Take them into your budget meeting and hold us to them.
| Footprint | Area | Fixed price | Typical use |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10×10 | 100 sq ft | $13,000 – $15,500 | Inline. A first BCEC outing, one sharp message. |
| 10×20 | 200 sq ft | $20,000 – $24,000 | Inline. Two demos and a place to sit a buyer down. |
| 20×20 | 400 sq ft | $31,000 – $35,000 | Island. Open to all four aisles. |
| 20×30 | 600 sq ft | $33,000 – $38,500 | Island. Adds a closed meeting room. |
| 20×40 | 800 sq ft | $38,500 – $49,500 | Island. Zoned demo, briefing, and hospitality. |
| 20×50 | 1,000 sq ft | $44,000 – $55,000 | Island. A product wall at showroom length. |
| 30×30 | 900 sq ft | $44,000 – $55,000 | Island. Center structure, theater seating. |
| 30×40 | 1,200 sq ft | $60,500 – $71,500 | Island. Flagship, double-deck capable. |
Four costs in Boston go to the show or venue no matter who builds your booth: the exhibit space itself, electrical service — ordered through the venue at the BCEC — drayage, the material handling the show’s contractor bills by the pound to carry crates from dock to booth, and rigging for anything hung. We can’t make those ours, so we do the next best thing: estimate each one against your booth’s real crated weight and plan, before you commit to anything.
Payment terms: 50% to open design and production, the balance 30 days ahead of the show — the full cost picture in writing from the first quote.
Ask a Boston exhibitor where the budget actually went and the booth is rarely the answer. It’s the paper that followed: a drayage true-up because nobody weighed the crates before they crossed the scale, Teamster overtime because the truck sat in the yard past the straight-time window, a reprint, a filing fee, a “small” change order. Here is the same 20×20 island in Boston, quoted two different ways:
Certainty costs less than surprises. One contractual figure from design through dismantle, the show-billed items forecast beside it — and a closeout your finance team approves without a single question.
Two buildings, one authority, and a union on every task. The BCEC gives you 516,000 square feet of contiguous hall, 62 covered dock bays, and a marshalling yard with a guard shack; the Hynes gives you Back Bay foot traffic and freight that stages in Allston. Boston rewards exhibitors who plan for its system and punishes the ones who discover it on move-in morning. We plan for it.
The fixed price covers design through dismantle, with the show-billed lines — space, electrical, drayage, rigging — forecast right beside it. Your budget is complete on day one, not reconstructed after closeout.
Boston is a Teamster town — Local 25 crews handle freight and, at most shows, booth install and dismantle, while electrical service is ordered through the venue at the BCEC. Massachusetts is not a right-to-work state. We design so every billed hour does visible work — labor is the biggest lever on a Boston budget.
BCEC freight runs the South Boston Bypass Road to Cypher Street and checks in at the guard shack; the yard sits beside the docks. Hynes freight stages at a marshalling yard in Allston off I-90 and gets called to the Cambria Street dock. We time both so your crates never sit in the wrong queue.
Your booth is fully assembled in our shop — every wall, light, and bracket — photographed for your approval, then crated. What the crew unpacks on Summer Street is a booth that has already worked once.
The BCEC’s Halls A through C run 516,000 contiguous square feet with five elephant doors; the Hynes stacks four smaller halls on two levels above the Back Bay, with drive-on access only to Hall B. Which building your show books changes the freight plan, the install order, and the labor estimate — ours arrives already adjusted.
The invoice matches the PO to the dollar. No overtime line you didn’t expect, no drayage true-up weeks later — the project ends the day the show does.
Quotes within 24 hours — sooner if your Boston show date is close.
Renders sell booths; video proves them. Walk finished builds from a 10×10 up to 40×40 flagship scale and judge the finish for yourself — the same standard every Pure Exhibits rental ships with, whether it’s bound for Seafood Expo, PAX East, or MEDevice.
▶30′×60′ Custom Rental Booth Build
▶40′×40′ Custom Rental Exhibit
▶30′×30′ Custom Exhibit
▶30′×30′ Custom Exhibit
▶30′×30′ Custom Exhibit Rental
▶20′×30′ Custom Exhibit Booth
A beautiful booth that captures nothing is expensive decoration. Every Boston design decision we make traces back to a working question: who stops, what do they do next, and what does your team leave the hall holding?
Scaled to read across a BCEC hall, where sightlines run 500 feet if you let them
Openings set for how the aisles actually feed your space, not how the render looks
Your core message legible before an attendee is close enough to badge-scan
Demo stations that hold a small crowd without choking the aisle behind them
Height and lighting spent where the hall demands it — and nowhere else
Layouts built from your lead and meeting targets, not a template library
Meeting space placed where it will actually get used between sessions
Modular bones that re-skin for next season’s show instead of starting over
Space confirmed late, a vendor backed out, the launch moved up — it happens every season. Our rush track builds, stages, and ships a complete exhibit in 24 business days, at the same fixed price. ✓ Rush rentals, 24 business days
Boston quotes have a way of growing between signature and closeout. Ours can’t — the contract is the price, and the show-billed lines are forecast next to it before you commit. ✓ One contractual number
A designer, a fabricator, a freight broker, a labor company, and a graphics shop — each pointing at the others when something slips. Here it’s one team and one phone number from sketch to teardown. ✓ Single-team delivery
Teamster jurisdictions, drayage by the pound, a guard shack on Cypher Street, a Hynes yard that isn’t even in the same neighborhood as the Hynes — the system catches first-timers every show. We’ve designed for it so long it’s built into the booth itself. ✓ BCEC & Hynes experts
Somebody told a client, a CMO, or a board what this booth would cost and when it would be standing — usually the event manager. In Boston, where a missed marshalling call or a heavy crate can break both promises before lunch, our whole process exists to keep your word for you — and to hand you the paper trail that proves it, stage by stage.
One conversation about your show, space number, and goals. You leave it knowing what your budget genuinely buys in Boston — including the show-billed costs nobody else brings up until the invoices arrive.
3D concepts within 3–5 business days, designed around your actual placement and sightlines — then revised until they’re right. Revisions are part of the process, not a change order.
The booth goes up completely in our shop — walls, lighting, graphics, screens — and you approve photographs of the real thing. Nothing is crated for Boston until you’ve seen it standing.
Final QC, then we run the Boston gauntlet for you: carrier scheduling, the advance warehouse or the show’s target date, the Bypass Road to the Cypher Street guard shack — or the Allston yard if you’re at the Hynes — and the venue paperwork. Your team never talks to a dispatcher.
Because the booth has already stood once, the Teamster crew is re-assembling a known quantity — every panel labeled, every connection proven. Fewer billed hours, no improvising on the floor.
A screen misbehaves, a graphic needs swapping, the client wants a change before day two — you call one number and it’s handled while the hall is still open.
Teardown, crating, and outbound freight are ours. Your team walks out when the show closes; the closeout invoice that follows matches the contract you signed.
One authority runs both of Boston’s big floors — the BCEC on Summer Street in the Seaport, renamed for Mayor Thomas M. Menino in 2025, and the Hynes on Boylston Street in Back Bay — but they install like two different cities, and your freight plan has to know which one it’s driving to. If your program travels, the same fixed-price model runs in Chicago, Washington D.C., Baltimore, and Detroit.
The anchor floor where Seafood Expo, PAX East, and Yankee Dental spread out. Hall B splits into two 92,000 sq ft sections, and sightlines run the length of the building — crate weights, rigging calls, and target dates get planned around this room.
Trucks leave I-90 or I-93 for the South Boston Bypass Road, turn onto Cypher Street, and check in at the guard shack — yard to the right, docks straight ahead. Elephant doors put vehicles and oversize freight directly on the hall floor.
Where Boston’s conference-plus-expo events put their tabletops and 10×10s. Freight still moves through the same dock system as the halls — a detail that surprises teams expecting hotel-style load-in.
Street-level halls in the middle of Back Bay, fed by 14 weather-protected docks off Cambria Street. Freight stages at a marshalling yard in Allston off I-90 and is called in truck by truck — timing is everything here.
The upper halls where Anime Boston and the MRS Fall Meeting run, linked to the Sheraton and the Prudential Center. Freight elevators serve the level — we crate to their dimensions so nothing waits for a second trip.
Conferences and corporate events across the Seaport and Back Bay hotels run on freight elevators and overnight windows. Same fixed-price model, same photo-approved delivery, right-sized for the room.
Dentists in January, seafood and gamers in March, medtech in May and August, materials science after Thanksgiving — Boston’s calendar swings across industries, and each floor has its own rules of engagement. Pure Exhibits designs for the specific show you’re walking into, not a generic exhibit hall.
Every show date implies a start date. Count backwards from these anchors and the runway each one needs becomes obvious — and if your show isn’t on the list, we’ll pull its exhibitor manual before we quote.
| Show | When | Venue | Start planning |
|---|---|---|---|
| Yankee Dental Congress | January | BCEC | 5 months |
| New England Boat Show | February | BCEC | 4 months |
| Seafood Expo North America | March | BCEC | 4 months |
| PAX East | March | BCEC | 4 months |
| Anime Boston | April | Hynes | 4 months |
| MRS Fall Meeting & Exhibit | Nov–Dec | Hynes | 4 months |
Yankee Dental gets five months, not four — the show opens in late January, which parks fabrication, freight, and approvals squarely across the holiday shutdowns. Carriers thin out, nobody answers a phone the week your crates need to move, and the advance warehouse keeps its own schedule. Plan the runway and it’s routine; miss it and the calendar does the negotiating. Already compressed? The rush track below exists for exactly that.
Vendor fell through before Seafood Expo? Space came through late for PAX East? Tell us the date — we’ll tell you what’s buildable.
For most Boston exhibitors the math favors renting, for a reason specific to this market: a booth you own still pays Boston drayage, Teamster labor, and show services every year it exhibits — plus warehousing and refurbishment in between, at New England storage rates. A rental resets the design each cycle and drops the ownership overhead entirely.
| Factor | Renting | Owning |
|---|---|---|
| Cash outlay | One predictable fee per show | Large capital purchase upfront |
| Between shows | Nothing to store or insure | Warehousing billed year-round |
| Wear and repairs | Our problem, not yours | Refurbishment on your budget |
| Design refresh | New look every cycle | Rebuild costs to change anything |
| Scaling | 10×10 this year, island next | Locked to what you bought |
| Show logistics | Bundled into the rental | Sourced separately each time |
Ownership pencils out only for teams running one large footprint at many shows a year — and even those teams often rent in Boston rather than warehouse a booth between a January congress and a March expo.
Our published fixed pricing runs $13,000–$15,500 for a 10×10 up to $60,500–$71,500 for a 30×40 — and that figure covers design, fabrication, graphics, freight, union I&D coordination, and project management, contractually. Separately, every Boston exhibitor is billed by the show for space, electrical, drayage, and rigging; we forecast those four lines against your specific booth before you sign, so the complete cost of exhibiting is visible up front.
Drayage in Boston is billed by the pound by the show’s official contractor — Freeman at many BCEC shows, including Seafood Expo North America — to carry your freight from the dock to your space and back. It is billed by the show, not by us, and Boston’s rates run among the highest in the country. What we do is estimate it line by line in your quote from your booth’s real crated weight; because our booths are engineered light and crated tight, that number is usually smaller than exhibitors fear.
Half on signing, which opens design and production; the other half 30 days before the show. Nothing follows — no true-ups, no post-show reconciliation invoice. To see how the fixed model works size by size, browse the priced rental exhibits.
Yes — and Boston is a natural place to bundle, because the calendar hands you Yankee Dental in January, Seafood Expo and PAX East in March, and the medtech pair — DeviceTalks in May, MEDevice in August. Booking a program locks pricing across the run, holds your design and graphics between shows, and puts one PM across the whole sequence instead of three separate projects.
Both, and that’s the point. We fabricate every exhibit ourselves — structures, graphics, finishes — then deliver it on a rental model. You get build-shop quality without buying, storing, or maintaining anything, and every booth is stood up and tested in our shop before it’s crated for Boston.
Three things, honestly. The price is contractual — the figure you sign is the figure you pay, with the Boston show-billed costs forecast beside it rather than discovered later. The booth is proven before it ships — fully assembled in our shop and photo-approved by you, so the Teamster crew at the BCEC re-assembles a known quantity in fewer billed hours. And one project manager owns everything from sketch to closeout, including the marshalling timing and paperwork grind that eats event managers’ weeks.
The structure, custom graphics, flooring, lighting, furniture, and AV if the design calls for it — plus freight to the venue, union I&D coordination, show-services filings, and a dedicated PM. One quote, one line on your budget. The rental packages page breaks down scope in detail.
You pick or commission a design; we build it, stand it up in the shop, and send you photographs to approve. Then we crate it, weigh it, route it down the Bypass Road to the Cypher Street check-in on its target date, manage the union install, stay on call through the show, and handle dismantle and return freight. Your involvement peaks at the design stage — by show week, your only job is working the booth.
One, from kickoff to closeout — the same person who priced your booth answers the phone during move-in at the BCEC or the Hynes. No handoffs between a sales rep, a producer, and a site lead. If you’d like to start there, talk to a project manager before you commit to anything.
Yes — your PM is reachable through move-in, show days, and dismantle. A flickering screen or a last-minute graphic swap gets handled while the hall is open, not logged in a ticket system for next week.
Yes — drayage, electrical, union labor, and rigging are each estimated as their own line in the quote, calculated from your booth’s actual crated weight and power plan. Those items remain billed by the show, but the estimate is accurate enough that your finance team can budget them as real numbers, not placeholders.
The working set is — counters, tables, seating, and lockable storage sized to the design. If your brand standard calls for specific premium pieces, we source and include them in the same fixed number rather than tacking on a rental line later.
Three systems catch first-timers. Union labor: Boston is a Teamster town — Local 25 crews handle freight and, at most shows, booth install and dismantle; exhibitors may generally self-set only with their own full-time employees, and borrowed carts or ladders trigger a labor call. Electrical is ordered through the venue. The marshalling yard: trucks leave I-90 or I-93 for the South Boston Bypass Road, turn onto Cypher Street, and check in at the guard shack before a dock is assigned. And drayage: you pay by the pound to move crates from dock to booth. All three are manageable if the booth was designed with them in mind, which is precisely how ours are designed. First BCEC show? Start with a planning call — it costs nothing and saves plenty.
Yes. We coordinate union-trained I&D crews and, more importantly, we hand them a booth engineered to install fast — pre-assembled once, labeled, and documented. Compliance is table stakes; cutting the hours the union bills is where we actually earn the fee.
Your booth ships as one coordinated freight move — either to the show’s advance warehouse, which typically opens about 30 days out, or direct to the venue on its target date. BCEC trucks come off I-90 at the Ted Williams Tunnel exit or off I-93, run the South Boston Bypass Road — a commercial route — to Cypher Street, and check in at the guard shack; Storrow Drive is off-limits to trucks entirely. Hynes freight stages at a marshalling yard in Allston off I-90 and is called to the Cambria Street dock. The show’s contractor carries the freight from dock to your space — that last leg is drayage, billed by the pound. We book the carrier, manage the timing at either yard, and estimate the drayage from real crate weights in your quote.
The Hynes Convention Center in Back Bay — four halls on two levels, connected to the Prudential Center and the Sheraton — plus hotel and ballroom events across the Seaport and Back Bay. The model doesn’t change with the address: fixed price, photo-approved prebuild, coordinated install — only the freight plan changes, because nothing else in Boston has the BCEC’s docks.
Yes — the March doubleheader is a fixture on our calendar. Fixed-price rentals run from 10×10 inlines to islands, every one pre-staged and union-ready. Seafood Expo booths get refrigeration and sampling infrastructure planned from day one; PAX East booths get queue design and finishes that survive the crowds. Both floors book out early — and if you’re already late, the 24-business-day rush track exists for exactly this.
That’s the whole job. We start from your brand guidelines and show objectives, design in 3D until you approve, and then — unusually — you approve again from photographs of the physically built booth before it ships. Two sign-offs, zero surprises on the floor.
Everything visible and most of what isn’t: layout, signage, screen count and placement, counters, lighting temperature and intensity, demo stations. The gallery on this page is all rentals — none of them look like they came from the same kit, because the kit is only the skeleton.
Yes — iteration is budgeted into the process, and most teams take two or three revision rounds before final sign-off. What we don’t do is convert your changes into surprise change-order fees; the fixed price already assumes the design will evolve.
All of them, from a 10×10 inline to 30×40+ islands and peninsulas — each configured to its space type’s rules (line-of-sight limits for inlines, height and hanging-sign allowances for islands) and prebuilt in-house before shipping to Boston.
The structure is the least memorable part of any booth — what people remember is what happened inside it. A demo they touched, a meeting that felt private on a loud floor, a message they could read from thirty feet. We spend the design budget on those moments, which is why our rentals at Seafood Expo and DeviceTalks get mistaken for owned customs.
Eight to twelve weeks covers most Boston shows comfortably — design, approvals, graphics, prebuild, and the venue paperwork all fit. The exception is January: for Yankee Dental, start around five months out, because the build calendar crosses the holidays and freight capacity thins exactly when you need it.
Behind schedule already? The rush track compresses the whole build to 24 business days without touching the price or skipping the photo proof.
If you can tell it’s a rental from the aisle, we’ve failed. The underlying structure is modular, but everything an attendee actually perceives — graphics, layout, lighting, finishes, furniture — is produced for your brand and your show. Book a design consultation and judge the difference from the portfolio yourself.
Send the show and your space number. Within 24 hours you’ll have design directions, one contractual figure, and the Boston charges forecast beside it — the whole cost of exhibiting at the BCEC or the Hynes on a single page anyone can approve.
