One fixed number. One project manager. A booth that rolls straight through the Kentucky Expo Center’s drive-in doors.
Louisville runs on scale and asphalt: the Kentucky Exposition Center stacks 1.2 million square feet of indoor space at the junction of I-65 and I-264, a mile from the airport, and the Kentucky International Convention Center holds down another 200,000+ square feet downtown. No union jurisdiction chart decides who touches your booth here — the schedule does. Pure Exhibits builds Louisville trade show booth rentals to use that freedom — 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.
The logos on this wall belong to teams that exhibit nationwide and answer to finance departments. What keeps them here is boring and rare: the number on the contract is the number on the closeout, the booth matches its photo proof, and a person — not a queue — picks up during move-in.
“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 Louisville calendar — National Farm Machinery Show · Mid-America Trucking Show · Equip Exposition · NAILE · Kentucky State Fair · Street Rod Nationals
Every build below shipped against a single quoted number and matched its photo proof on the floor — inlines through 30×30 islands, cybersecurity to consumer brands. The booth you rent for the Expo Center or KICC comes from this inventory and this build crew. 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.
Louisville is the easiest major show city in America to truck into — three interstates meet downtown and the Expo Center sits a mile from the airport — which is exactly why the competition here is won in the shop, not on the highway. Pure Exhibits fabricates every exhibit in-house, stands it up completely, photographs it for your sign-off, then crates it so the install crew re-assembles a known quantity in the fewest possible hours. Fortune 500 teams and first-time exhibitors run the same playbook with us across NFMS, MATS, Equip Expo, 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 sets the whole budget: crate weight, labor hours, how much of a 27-foot-ceiling South Wing hall your brand can claim. Pick a size and the fixed price comes with it. One Louisville note: the halls here are long, and at NFMS or Equip Expo your neighbors may be combines — an island that reads from three aisles away earns its rent, and height earns it twice.
“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.
Most exhibit quotes are a floor. These are a ceiling — the figure on the contract is the figure on the closeout. Budget against them and hold us to them.
| Footprint | Area | Fixed price | Typical use |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10×10 | 100 sq ft | $13,000 – $15,500 | Inline. First show, single message, smallest freight bill. |
| 10×20 | 200 sq ft | $20,000 – $24,000 | Inline. Two demos and room to sit a dealer down. |
| 20×20 | 400 sq ft | $31,000 – $35,000 | Island. Four open sides in a four-aisle hall. |
| 20×30 | 600 sq ft | $33,000 – $38,500 | Island. Adds the closed room dealer meetings need. |
| 20×40 | 800 sq ft | $38,500 – $49,500 | Island. Demo, briefing, and hospitality, zoned. |
| 20×50 | 1,000 sq ft | $44,000 – $55,000 | Island. A product run at showroom length. |
| 30×30 | 900 sq ft | $44,000 – $55,000 | Island. Built around a center structure that carries. |
| 30×40 | 1,200 sq ft | $60,500 – $71,500 | Island. Flagship scale; double-deck capable. |
Some costs in Louisville belong to the show no matter who builds your booth: the exhibit space itself, electrical service, material handling when the show’s contractor carries your freight — billed per hundredweight (CWT) at the rates in the exhibitor kit — and rigging where a show hangs signs. At many Kentucky Expo Center shows a drive-in move-in slot shrinks or erases the handling line entirely; where it can’t, we estimate every line against your booth’s real crated weight before you commit to anything.
Payment terms: 50% opens design and production, the balance lands 30 days before the show — and the whole cost picture is in writing from the first quote.
Louisville looks cheap until the paperwork lands. The quote covered the booth; it didn’t cover the material-handling true-up after the crates got weighed, the overtime crew when move-in compressed, or the change orders that trailed the graphics deadline. Here is the same 20×20 island in Louisville, quoted two different ways:
The cheap market is where surprises hide best. One contractual figure from design through dismantle, the show-billed items forecast beside it — and a closeout your finance team approves without a follow-up question.
A 1.2-million-square-foot fairground campus with two arenas, 40+ docks, and five large-vehicle entrances by the airport — and a rebuilt 200,000-square-foot convention center ten minutes up I-65 downtown. Louisville’s two floors run by different rules, and we plan for both.
The fixed price runs design through dismantle, with the show-billed lines — space, electrical, material handling, rigging — forecast beside it. The budget is complete the day you sign, not reconstructed at closeout.
Kentucky has been a right-to-work state since 2017, and Louisville show floors carry no union jurisdiction chart — your own employees may set your booth, and hired labor is a choice. The savings only materialize if the booth assembles fast; ours are engineered and rehearsed for exactly that.
KEC’s halls sit at ground level behind 40+ docks and five large-vehicle entrances — whole tractors and mowers drive to their booths at NFMS, MATS, and Equip Expo. We book the slot, sequence the truck, and keep your crates off the CWT meter wherever a drive-in window allows.
Your booth is fully assembled in our shop — walls, lighting, graphics, screens — photographed for your approval, then crated. What comes off the truck on Phillips Lane has already worked once.
The Expo Center is a fairground campus at I-65 and I-264 with the airport across the road; KICC is a tight downtown block with 52 meeting rooms above the halls. Freight plans, install windows, even booth engineering differ — the fixed number and the process don’t.
The invoice reconciles against the PO to the dollar. No true-up weeks later, no overtime line you never approved — the project ends when the show does.
Quotes within 24 hours — sooner if your Louisville show date is close.
Renders flatter; video testifies. Walk finished builds from a 10×10 to 40×40 flagship scale and judge the finish yourself — every Pure Exhibits rental ships to this standard, whether it’s bound for NFMS, Equip Expo, or a KICC ballroom.
▶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 striking booth that produces nothing is set dressing. Each design choice we make for a Louisville floor answers a working question: who stops, what do they touch, and what does your team carry out of the hall when it closes?
Scaled to carry across KEC’s long halls, where sightlines run for hundreds of feet
Openings placed for how the aisles actually feed your space number
The core message legible before a visitor is close enough to scan
Demo stations that hold a crowd without damming the aisle behind them
Height and lighting spent where a 27-foot ceiling rewards them
Layouts built from your lead and meeting targets, not a catalog page
Meeting space positioned where a buyer will actually use it
Modular bones that re-skin for next year’s show instead of starting over
Space confirmed late, a vendor folded, the launch moved up. The rush track builds, stages, and ships a complete exhibit in 24 business days, at the same fixed price. ✓ Rush rentals, 24 business days
Quotes in an inexpensive market grow the quietest. Ours can’t — the contract is the price, and the show-billed lines sit forecast beside it before you commit. ✓ One contractual number
A designer, a fabricator, a freight broker, a labor crew, and a graphics shop, each pointing at the next when something slips. Here it’s one team and one phone number, sketch to teardown. ✓ Single-team delivery
A fairground campus with drive-in halls by the airport, and a downtown center with city-block logistics — one program can hit both in a single year. Same booth, same number, either floor. ✓ KEC and KICC coverage
Somebody promised a CMO or a client what this booth would cost and when it would stand — usually the event manager. Louisville is forgiving on freight and unforgiving on assumptions: a missed move-in slot or a surprise handling bill breaks the promise just as fast here as anywhere. Our process exists to keep your word for you — and to hand you the paper trail that proves it.
One conversation about your show, hall, and goals. You leave knowing what your budget genuinely buys in Louisville — including the show-billed lines other quotes skip until the invoices arrive.
3D concepts within 3–5 business days, drawn around your actual space number and the hall’s sightlines, then revised until they’re right. Revisions are 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 Kentucky until you’ve seen it standing.
Final QC, then logistics: carrier scheduling, target dates, advance-warehouse or direct-to-show timing, drive-in slots where the show offers them, and the venue paperwork. Three interstates and a freight-hub airport make this the easy leg — we still run all of it for you.
Because the booth has stood once already, the crew re-assembles a known quantity — every panel labeled, every connection proven. In a right-to-work hall, fewer labor hours is a real line item, not a slogan.
A screen misbehaves, a graphic needs swapping, the client wants a change before day two — one call and it’s handled while the hall is still open.
Teardown, crating, and outbound freight are ours. Your team leaves when the show closes; the closeout that follows matches the contract you signed.
Louisville splits its show floor between a fairground giant by the airport and a rebuilt convention center downtown, and nothing else in the region operates at either scale. If your program travels, the same fixed-price model runs in Chicago, Detroit, Atlanta, and New Orleans.
The main event floor, where NFMS, MATS, and Equip Expo anchor. Long halls and high ceilings reward islands that read from a distance; dock and drive-in sequencing decides how smooth the week goes.
The campus’s other big rectangle, in rotation for its largest weeks. Ceilings step from 15 to 28 feet across the floor — where your space number lands changes what the booth should spend on height.
Ground-level space with direct drive-in doors — the wing that consumer and vehicle-heavy shows lean on. Booths here come off the truck and install in hours when the slot is timed right.
Two arenas on the same campus — the Championship Tractor Pull, the World’s Championship Horse Show, and rodeo weeks live here. Exhibit space tied to arena events runs on tighter floors and faster changeovers.
Rebuilt for $207 million and reopened in 2018: modern halls, 52 meeting rooms, and a 40,000 sq ft ballroom on South 4th Street. City-block logistics — dock scheduling and crate staging matter more than mileage.
Conference exhibits and corporate events across the downtown hotel ring run on freight elevators and overnight windows. Same fixed price, same photo-approved delivery, right-sized for the room.
Farm machinery in February, trucking in March, street rods and the State Fair in August, landscape equipment in October, livestock in November — Louisville’s calendar runs on heavy machinery and heavier attendance, with downtown conventions at KICC in between. Pure Exhibits designs for the specific floor you’re walking into, not a generic hall.
Every opening day implies a start date. Set the runway against these anchors — and if your show isn’t listed, we’ll pull its exhibitor kit before we quote.
| Show | When | Venue | Start planning |
|---|---|---|---|
| National Farm Machinery Show | February | Kentucky Expo Center | 5 months |
| Mid-America Trucking Show | March | Kentucky Expo Center | 4 months |
| NSRA Street Rod Nationals | August | Kentucky Expo Center | 4 months |
| Kentucky State Fair | August | Kentucky Expo Center | 4 months |
| Equip Exposition | October | Kentucky Expo Center | 4 months |
| North American Intl Livestock Expo | November | Kentucky Expo Center | 4 months |
February gets five months, not four — a Farm Machinery Show build runs its critical weeks across the year-end holidays, when shops close, carriers thin out, and approvals sit in out-of-office queues; MATS in March feels the same squeeze one step later. Book by September and the runway is comfortable. Already compressed? The rush track below exists for exactly that.
Vendor collapsed before MATS? Space confirmed late for Equip Expo? Tell us the date — we’ll tell you what’s buildable.
Louisville tempts exhibitors toward ownership — freight is cheap here and the halls are forgiving. The ownership costs that ignore geography still arrive on schedule: warehousing between shows, refurbishment after every outing, insurance, and a structure you’re stuck redesigning around. A rental resets the design every cycle and drops the overhead entirely.
| Factor | Renting | Owning |
|---|---|---|
| Cash outlay | One predictable fee per show | Capital purchase up front |
| Between shows | Nothing to store or insure | Warehousing billed all year |
| 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 at KICC, island at KEC | 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 many times a year — and even then, most would rather spend the storage line on the show itself.
Published fixed pricing runs $13,000–$15,500 for a 10×10 up to $60,500–$71,500 for a 30×40, and the figure covers design, fabrication, graphics, freight, I&D labor coordination, and project management — contractually. The show separately bills exhibit space, electrical, and material handling where its contractor moves your freight; we forecast those lines against your actual booth before you sign, so the complete cost of exhibiting in Louisville is on one page from the start.
When a show’s contractor — Fern at the Farm Machinery Show and Equip Expo, Genesis Exposition Services at MATS — carries freight from dock to booth, it bills per hundredweight (CWT) at the rates in the exhibitor kit. Louisville’s edge is that many KEC shows run drive-in move-in windows through the ground-level doors, which shrinks or eliminates that line. We estimate handling from your booth’s real crated weight and flag every show where a drive-in slot can be had.
50% on signing, which opens design and production; the balance 30 days before the show. No true-ups follow and no reconciliation invoice arrives after teardown. To see the fixed model size by size, browse the priced rental exhibits.
Yes — and Louisville rewards it, because the calendar stacks: NFMS in February, MATS in March, the Street Rod Nationals and State Fair in August, Equip Expo in October, NAILE in November. Booking a program locks pricing across the run, carries your design and graphics between shows, and keeps one project manager on the whole sequence.
Both. We fabricate every exhibit in-house — structure, graphics, finishes — and deliver it on a rental model, so you get build-shop quality without buying, storing, or maintaining anything. Every booth stands up completely in our shop and passes a photo approval before it’s crated for Kentucky.
Three habits. The price is contractual — the signed figure survives to closeout, with the show-billed lines forecast beside it instead of discovered later. The booth is proven before it ships — fully assembled in the shop and photo-approved by you, so the Louisville install is re-assembly of a known quantity, not a first attempt. And one project manager owns the whole file, from the 3D concept to the last crate out of the hall.
Structure, custom graphics, flooring, lighting, furniture, and AV where the design calls for it — plus freight to the Kentucky Expo Center or KICC, I&D labor coordination, show-services filings, and a dedicated PM. One quote, one budget line. The rental packages page breaks scope down in detail.
Pick or commission a design; we build it, stand it up, and send photographs for approval. Then we crate it, schedule the carrier against the show’s target dates, handle the venue and contractor paperwork, run the install, stay on call through the show, and manage dismantle and return freight. Your involvement peaks at design; by show week the only job left is working the booth.
One, kickoff to closeout — the person who priced the booth is the person answering during move-in on Phillips Lane. No relay between a sales rep, a producer, and a site lead. Want to start there? Talk to a project manager before committing to anything.
Yes — your PM covers move-in, show days, and dismantle. A dark screen or a graphic that needs swapping gets fixed while the hall is open, not ticketed for next week.
Yes — electrical, material handling, and labor are each estimated as their own quote line, computed from your booth’s crated weight and power plan rather than guessed. Those items stay billed by the show where applicable, but the estimates are tight enough for finance to budget as real numbers.
The working set is — counters, tables, seating, lockable storage, all sized to the design. If your brand standard specifies premium pieces, we source them inside the same fixed number instead of adding a rental line later.
Three things work in your favor and one against. In your favor: the campus sits at the junction of I-65 and I-264 with the airport across the road, the halls are ground-level with drive-in doors and 40-plus docks, and Kentucky’s right-to-work law means no union jurisdiction chart stands between your staff and your booth. Against: the sheer scale — 1.2 million square feet means real distance from dock to space, and the big shows run tight target-date schedules for docks and drive-in slots alike. Miss your window and the easy venue stops being easy. First KEC show? Start with a planning call — it costs nothing and saves plenty.
Yes. Kentucky has been a right-to-work state since 2017, and Louisville show floors don’t divide booth work among union jurisdictions — exhibitors can generally set their own booths, and hired I&D labor is a choice rather than a mandate. We coordinate experienced crews where the booth size warrants them and deliver a pre-assembled, labeled build either way; fewer labor hours only happen when the booth is engineered for them.
Louisville is a freight town: I-64, I-65, and I-71 converge downtown, UPS runs its Worldport air hub from the airport a mile from the Expo Center, and every national carrier knows the market. Your booth moves as one coordinated shipment to the advance warehouse or direct to the venue on its target date; where the show offers drive-in access, we sequence the truck for it. We book the carrier, file the paperwork, and estimate any contractor handling from real crate weights.
The Kentucky International Convention Center downtown — 200,000+ square feet of exhibit space, 52 meeting rooms, and a 40,000 square foot ballroom, rebuilt for $207 million and reopened in 2018 — plus hotel ballrooms and specialty venues across the city. The model doesn’t change with the address: fixed price, photo-approved prebuild, coordinated install. Only the freight plan changes, because a downtown block loads differently than a fairground.
Yes — the February–March run of the Farm Machinery Show and MATS and the October Equip Exposition are fixtures on our calendar, from 10×10 inlines to island builds. Each show’s contractor (Fern for NFMS and Equip Expo, Genesis Exposition Services for MATS) publishes its own deadlines, and February builds cross the holiday shutdowns — book early, or use the 24-business-day rush track if you’re already late.
That’s the assignment. We work from your brand guidelines and show objectives, iterate the 3D design until you approve, and then you approve a second time from photographs of the physically assembled booth before it ships. Two sign-offs; nothing left to imagination on the floor.
All of it — floor plan, signage, screen count and placement, counters, lighting temperature, demo stations. The portfolio on this page is entirely rentals, and none of them read as siblings, because the modular frame is only the skeleton.
Yes. Revision rounds are assumed in the process and priced into the fixed number — most teams take two or three before final sign-off. What never happens is your changes returning as a surprise change-order invoice.
All formats, 10×10 inline through 30×40+ islands and peninsulas — each engineered to its space type’s sightline and height rules and pre-assembled in-house before it ships to Louisville.
At NFMS and MATS you share a hall with combines and long-haul tractors — out-sizing the product is a losing game. What works is function: a demo someone operated, a quiet meeting that closed, a message readable from three aisles out. We spend the design budget there, which is why our rentals get mistaken for owned customs.
Eight to twelve weeks covers most Louisville shows comfortably. The exception is the February–March run: an NFMS or MATS build crosses the year-end holidays, when shops and carriers thin out — start around five months ahead. Equip Expo in October is a straightforward four-month runway.
Already behind? The rush track compresses the build to 24 business days without touching the price or skipping the photo proof.
If the aisle can tell it’s a rental, we’ve failed. The bones are modular; everything an attendee perceives — graphics, layout, lighting, finishes, furniture — is produced for your brand and this show. Book a design consultation and judge the portfolio yourself.
Send the show and your space number. Within 24 hours you’ll have design directions, one contractual figure, and the show-billed charges forecast beside it — the full cost of exhibiting in Louisville on a single page anyone can approve.
