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MATERIAL HANDLING · DRAYAGE · MOVE-IN LOGISTICS
It’s the line item that ambushes first-time exhibitors: the show’s general contractor charges by the pound to move your freight from their dock to your booth space. Where you ship, when you ship, and how much your booth weighs decide whether it’s a formality or a lost install day. Here’s exactly how it works — and how we handle it for you.
MATERIAL HANDLING · DRAYAGE, EXPLAINED
Drayage is the fee the show’s general contractor charges to move your freight from their dock to your booth space — and it confuses more exhibitors than any other line item. There are two ways in, and the difference can be a full install day. Watch both.
STAGE 01 / 06
Weight and rate above are an example for illustration. Material handling is billed by the general contractor per CWT (100 lbs), and every show publishes its own rate card. Pure Exhibits estimates your drayage line in every quote — before you sign anything.
INCLUDED IN THE FEE
Drayage feels expensive until you see the round trip it covers. One fee, billed once on inbound weight, pays for every touch your freight gets inside the show:
Forklifts, dock labor, and the crew that moves your crates from the loading dock (or advance warehouse) to your exact booth space.
After install, our crew tags your empties with the show's empty-crate labels — the GC then hauls them to on-site storage for the entire run of the show.
When the floor closes, the GC brings every labeled crate back to your booth space so your dismantle crew can repack.
Repacked crates are moved from your space back to the loading dock and staged for outbound carriers.
Your freight is loaded onto our carrier's truck at the dock — the drayage round trip ends where it began.
The marshalling yard, scales, dock scheduling, and traffic control that keep thousands of crates moving during move-in and move-out.
TEN-SECOND MATH
Enter your exhibit weight and the show's published rate. Material handling is billed per CWT — every 100 pounds — and billed weight always rounds up to the next hundred.
ESTIMATED DRAYAGE
$6,800
Billed weight: 4,000 lbs (rounded up to the next 100 lbs). Example rate shown — every show publishes its own rate card in the exhibitor manual.
THE DECISION
Same freight, same GC, same billing math — completely different move-in day.
| Advance Warehouse | Direct to Show Site | |
|---|---|---|
| Arrival window | Ships 2–4 weeks early; received during warehouse business hours | Must hit your targeted move-in date exactly |
| Check-in line | None — no marshalling yard involved | Mandatory marshalling-yard queue; waits can run hours |
| Unloading wait | Zero on show day — freight moved to the hall overnight | Dock unloading itself can take hours after the wait in line |
| Install day risk | Crates waiting at your booth when move-in opens — day one intact | Between the line and the dock, you can lose most of a scheduled install day |
| Weather / traffic buffer | Weeks of buffer — a delayed truck is a non-event | No buffer — a delayed truck is a crisis |
| Rate | Published per show in the exhibitor manual; advance-warehouse rates can run slightly higher — and are almost always worth it | |
WHERE WE COME IN
Most exhibitors meet drayage for the first time on an invoice. Our clients meet it in their quote — priced, planned, and routed before anything ships.
Your drayage line appears in our proposal alongside the booth itself, calculated from real crate weights — not discovered on the GC's invoice after the show.
Because every booth is 100% pre-built and crated at our facility before it ships, we know precisely what your freight weighs. No estimates, no billing surprises at the scale.
We route to the advance warehouse whenever the show offers one, and our project schedule works backward from its deadlines — so your install day is never hostage to a dock queue.
Our install crew applies the empty-crate labels, coordinates with the GC's storage, repacks at dismantle, and hands your freight to our carrier at the dock. You never touch a crate.
STILL WONDERING
The questions every first-time exhibitor asks us — and a few that veterans get wrong.
Drayage — also called material handling — is the fee the show's general contractor charges to receive your freight, move it from their dock or advance warehouse to your booth space, store your empty crates during the show, return them at close, and move your repacked freight back to the dock for pickup. It is separate from shipping: your carrier gets the freight to the show, drayage covers everything that happens inside it.
The show's general contractor charges it, not the convention center and not your shipping carrier. Each show appoints a GC, and their published rate card in the exhibitor manual governs what you pay.
By weight. The GC bills per CWT (per 100 pounds) based on your freight's certified weight, and billed weight rounds up to the next 100 pounds. At an example rate of $1.70 per pound, a 4,000 lb exhibit comes to $6,800. Every show sets its own rates, and categories like special handling or off-target arrival can add surcharges.
Advance warehouse, almost always. Freight shipped early skips the marshalling-yard check-in line entirely and is waiting at your booth space when targeted move-in opens. Direct-to-show freight must queue at the marshalling yard and then wait through dock unloading — which together can cost most of an install day. Advance-warehouse rates can run slightly higher, but the schedule certainty is usually worth far more.
After install, the crates are tagged with the show's empty-crate labels and the general contractor moves them to on-site storage for the run of the show. When the floor closes, the GC returns every labeled crate to your booth space for repacking. Both moves are covered by the drayage fee. When Pure Exhibits handles your install, our crew applies the labels and coordinates all of it.
Only in a very narrow sense. Most shows allow hand-carry of small items an exhibitor can manage in one trip without equipment, but anything requiring a cart, dolly, or dock — which is any real booth — must go through the general contractor's material handling. The rules vary by show and facility, so check the exhibitor manual before planning around it.
Two ways. First, every booth is fully pre-built and crated at our facility before shipping, so we know your exact freight weight and estimate the drayage line in your quote — before you sign. Second, we route to the advance warehouse by default and build your project schedule backward from its deadlines, protecting both your budget and your install day.
NO SURPRISE INVOICES
Tell us your show and booth size. Your quote comes back with the drayage line estimated from real crate weights, the advance-warehouse deadlines already on the schedule, and fixed pricing on the booth itself.
PREFER TO TALK? (800) 379-8451 · INFO@PUREXHIBITS.COM
