One fixed number. One project manager. A booth engineered for the Convention Center’s four-union floor before it reaches Arch Street.
The Pennsylvania Convention Center packs seven exhibit halls — 679,000 square feet of them — into four Center City blocks, and it runs on a rulebook most exhibitors haven’t re-read since 2014: four unions signed the Customer Satisfaction Agreement, the carpenters no longer work this floor, and drayage still bills by the hundredweight through each show’s contractor. Pure Exhibits builds Philadelphia trade show booth rentals around that system as it actually works today — 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 hold us to the promise we make in Philadelphia: a number that survives to closeout, a booth that matches its photo proof, and a person who answers the phone during move-in on Arch Street.
“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 Philadelphia calendar — PHS Flower Show · Philadelphia Auto Show · ISPOR · FAN EXPO Philadelphia · Fierce Pharma Week · PAX Unplugged
Every project below shipped against a single quoted number and matched its photo proof on the floor — inlines through 30×30 islands, security software to consumer brands. The booth you take into the Pennsylvania Convention Center comes out of this same inventory, built by this same 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 Philadelphia is won before the truck turns onto the Vine Street ramp. 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 install crew at the Convention Center re-assembles a known quantity in the fewest possible labor hours. Fortune 500 teams and first-time exhibitors run the same playbook with us across the Flower Show, ISPOR, Fierce Pharma Week, PAX Unplugged, 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 at the Convention Center — the hundredweight on your drayage bill, the labor hours, the rigging request, even which aisles feed you. Pick a size below and the fixed price comes with it. One Philadelphia-specific note: hanging-sign rigging is the venue’s exclusive service and complete drawings are due four weeks before move-in — decide 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.
Most exhibit quotes in this market are 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 PCC outing, one sharp message. |
| 10×20 | 200 sq ft | $20,000 – $24,000 | Inline. Two demos and a seat for a serious buyer. |
| 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 at the Pennsylvania Convention Center go to the show or the venue no matter who builds your booth: the exhibit space itself, electrical service — an exclusive in-house utility here, ordered through the Center — drayage, charged per hundredweight (CWT) by the show’s contractor because the venue accepts no event freight directly, and rigging, which the Center performs exclusively with drawings due four weeks out. 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.
Philadelphia earned friendlier work rules than most union towns, and exhibitors relax — then the paper arrives anyway: a CWT true-up because nobody weighed the crates before they left the shop, labor run past the eight-hour line into overtime, a reprint, a rigging revision, a “small” change order. Here is the same 20×20 island in Philadelphia, 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.
Seven halls over four city blocks, 45 loading docks fed from a ramp off the Vine Street Expressway, a four-union labor agreement that rewrote who touches what, and a rigging desk that wants drawings a month early — the Pennsylvania Convention Center 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.
Since the 2014 Customer Satisfaction Agreement, four unions work this floor: Laborers’ Local 332 on booth work, IBEW Local 98 on power, Iron Workers Local 405 on rigging, IATSE Local 8 on AV. The carpenters never signed and left the building. We design so each trade’s scope is clean, quick, and inside the eight-hour straight-time window.
Freight lands off the Vine Street ramp for the main halls, Race Street for Dock F, 13th Street for Dock G — and the venue accepts none of it directly. Everything moves through the show contractor’s advance warehouse or a dock target we book and hit. Your team never talks to a dispatcher.
Your booth is fully assembled in our shop — every wall, light, and bracket — photographed for your approval, then crated. What comes off the truck on Arch Street is a booth that has already worked once.
528,000 sq ft runs contiguous on the main exhibit level; street-level halls sit below; the Grand Hall occupies the 1893 Reading Terminal Train Shed. Which floor your space number lands on changes the freight run, the rigging plan, and the install day.
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 Philadelphia 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 the Flower Show floor, ISPOR, or Fierce Pharma Week.
▶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 Philadelphia 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 contiguous main level, where sightlines run for city blocks
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
Exhibit 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
Exclusive in-house electrical and rigging, drawings due four weeks early, CWT drayage through the show contractor, docks the venue won’t let you ship to directly — Philadelphia’s system is friendlier than most, but it still catches first-timers. We’ve designed for it so long it’s built into the booth itself. ✓ PCC 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 Philadelphia, where a missed dock target or a crate that weighs in heavy 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 at the PCC — 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 Philadelphia until you’ve seen it standing.
Final QC, then we run the logistics for you: carrier scheduling down I-95 or I-76 to the Vine Street ramp, the advance-warehouse deadline or a direct dock target, rigging drawings filed a month out, and the venue paperwork. Your team never talks to a dispatcher.
Because the booth has already stood once, the Laborers’ crew is re-assembling a known quantity — every panel labeled, every connection proven. Fewer billed hours, inside the straight-time window, 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.
Nearly all of Philadelphia’s show floor sits under one roof between Arch Street and the Vine Street Expressway — but that roof covers three very different kinds of floor, and the region’s other venues run by their own rules. If your program travels the corridor, the same fixed-price model runs in Washington D.C., Baltimore, Chicago, and Detroit.
The floor the anchor shows spread across, fed by docks off the Vine Street ramp. Long freight runs and long sightlines both get planned here — crate weights, rigging drawings, and dock targets are set around this level’s realities.
Halls at sidewalk level with drive-in doors and their own dock geography — Dock F off Race Street, Dock G off 13th. A different install rhythm than the main level above, and a booth that meets attendees the moment they walk in.
The single-span Reading Terminal Train Shed, now the Grand Hall. Registration, galas, and keynotes attached to larger shows — light builds, historic-fabric restrictions, and finishes that hold up under all that daylight.
A 55,400 sq ft ballroom, a second at 32,000, and 82 meeting rooms for the conference-plus-expo events that fill the fall calendar. Tabletop through 20×20 builds that install in hours and clear a ballroom’s door and floor limits.
The region’s suburban expo floor, a different animal from Center City: surface docks, consumer crowds, tighter budgets. Pre-staged builds that install fast fit these conditions exactly.
Conferences and corporate events across the city’s hotels run on freight elevators and overnight windows. Same fixed-price model, same photo-approved delivery, right-sized for the room.
Tattoo artists and auto dealers in January, a million flowers in March, museums and pharmacoeconomists in May, pharma in September, tabletop gaming in December — Philadelphia’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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Philadelphia Tattoo Arts Festival | January | Pennsylvania Convention Center | 5 months |
| Philadelphia Auto Show | January–February | Pennsylvania Convention Center | 5 months |
| PHS Philadelphia Flower Show | Late Feb–March | Pennsylvania Convention Center | 4 months |
| FAN EXPO Philadelphia | May | Pennsylvania Convention Center | 4 months |
| Fierce Pharma Week | September | Pennsylvania Convention Center | 4 months |
| PAX Unplugged | December | Pennsylvania Convention Center | 5 months |
The winter shows get five months, not four — PAX Unplugged opens in early December and the January pair follow it by weeks, which parks fabrication, freight, and approvals across Thanksgiving and the year-end 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 Fierce Pharma Week? Space came through late for the Flower Show? Tell us the date — we’ll tell you what’s buildable.
For most Philadelphia exhibitors the math favors renting. A booth you own still pays drayage, show-site labor, and show services every year it exhibits — plus warehousing and refurbishment between shows. A rental resets the design each cycle and drops the ownership overhead entirely; the Convention Center’s friendlier work rules lower the install bill, not the storage bill.
| 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 usually rent for a one-off Philadelphia stop like a rotating congress year.
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, I&D coordination, and project management, contractually. Separately, every PCC exhibitor is billed by the show or venue 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 is charged per hundredweight (CWT) by each show’s official contractor — the Convention Center itself accepts no event freight, so every crate moves through the contractor’s advance warehouse or a scheduled dock target. Drayage is billed by the show, not by us. What we do is estimate it line by line in your Philadelphia 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 Philadelphia bundles naturally, because the calendar hands you the Auto Show and Tattoo Arts Festival in January, the Flower Show in March, FAN EXPO in May, and Fierce Pharma Week in September, with Washington D.C. and Baltimore a truck-day away. 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 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 the Convention Center.
Three things, honestly. The price is contractual — the figure you sign is the figure you pay, with the PCC’s 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 crew in Philadelphia re-assembles a known quantity in fewer billed hours. And one project manager owns everything from sketch to closeout, including the dock 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, 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 through the advance warehouse or a Vine Street ramp dock target, file the rigging drawings a month out, manage the 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 Convention Center. 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, 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 or venue, 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 shape the week. The labor model: since the 2014 Customer Satisfaction Agreement — extended in 2019 through May 2029 — four unions work the floor, and exhibitors may set up and tear down their own booth regardless of size, with power tools and ladders up to six feet. The freight system: the venue accepts no event freight directly, so everything moves through the show contractor’s advance warehouse or a scheduled dock target, and drayage bills by the hundredweight. And the exclusives: electrical is the Center’s own service, and all rigging is performed by the venue with drawings due four weeks before move-in. All three are manageable if the booth was designed with them in mind, which is precisely how ours are designed. First PCC show? Start with a planning call — it costs nothing and saves plenty.
Yes. Philadelphia’s rules are unusually exhibitor-friendly — the Customer Satisfaction Agreement lets exhibitors self-set any booth with their own power tools — but an island still goes up faster and safer with a coordinated crew, and overtime only starts after eight worked weekday hours here, which a well-planned install never touches. We coordinate the labor, hand the crew a booth that has already stood once, and keep the hours inside straight time. Compliance is table stakes; cutting billed hours is where we earn the fee.
Your booth ships as one coordinated freight move — to the show’s advance warehouse by its deadline, or direct to the Center on a dock target. Trucks come down I-95 or across I-76 to the Vine Street Expressway; the main-hall docks load from the eastbound Vine Street ramp between 12th and 11th, with Dock F off Race Street and Dock G off 13th. The show’s contractor carries freight from dock to booth — that last leg is drayage, billed per hundredweight. We book the carrier, hit the window, and estimate the drayage from real crate weights in your quote.
The Greater Philadelphia Expo Center in Oaks, and hotel and ballroom events across Center City. The model doesn’t change with the address: fixed price, photo-approved prebuild, coordinated install — only the freight plan changes, because nothing else in the region has the Center’s docks.
Yes — the March, May, and September anchors are regular weeks on our calendar, along with PAX Unplugged in December and the January consumer pair. Fixed-price rentals run from 10×10 inlines to islands, every one pre-staged before shipping. The winter shows book early because the build crosses the holidays — 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 Philadelphia.
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 meeting-heavy shows like ISPOR and Fierce Pharma Week get mistaken for owned customs.
Eight to twelve weeks covers most Philadelphia shows comfortably — design, approvals, graphics, prebuild, and the venue paperwork all fit. The exception is the winter cluster: for PAX Unplugged in December and the January Auto Show and Tattoo Arts weekends, 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 Convention Center charges forecast beside it — the whole cost of exhibiting in Philadelphia on a single page anyone can approve.
