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Connectivity at a convention center is sold by the venue’s exclusive telecom provider — you can’t bring your own line, and wireless routers are flatly not permitted. The real decision is a ladder: wifi by the device, a shared-bandwidth wired line around $1,300, or dedicated bandwidth that starts near $4,000 and climbs past $20,000 at 100Mbps. What breaks at 11am on day one decides your rung.
THE SEQUENCE
Connectivity is an order form with a deadline, and for hardlines, a drop that goes in before your floor does:
List everything in the booth that touches the internet: demo stations, video walls streaming content, lead-capture devices, payment terminals, staff laptops. Then split the list — what merely wants a connection versus what fails publicly without one.
Three tiers. Exhibitor wifi, sold per device, for email and browsing. A shared-bandwidth wired line — one pipe split across every booth on it — for reliable general use. Dedicated bandwidth, with guaranteed Mbps that are contractually yours (NAT or public IP addressing), for anything that must not fail. Demos, streams, and payments belong on dedicated.
Wired connections price by connected device — at our reference venue, a second device adds $572, a third $858, a fourth $1,144 — and connecting more than one requires a switch (rental about $338, or bring your own). Wireless routers are not permitted, so the $99 router in your crate is not a workaround.
The venue provider is the only source — order by the advance deadline through the exhibitor manual, and attach a floor plan marking where the line lands. Skip the plan and the line defaults to the back of the booth, with a relocation fee (about $250) to move it after the fact.
At move-in the line terminates at your marked spot; connect the switch, wire the stations, and test while there’s still time to escalate. Show wifi that felt fine during setup saturates when ten thousand badges arrive — day one at 11am is the stress test, and by then your critical devices are already on the wire.
TEN-SECOND MATH
A 20×20 running lead capture and a wired demo station on a shared-bandwidth line — the workhorse order for most booths:
EXAMPLE ORDER · ADVANCE RATE
Figures modeled on a real venue’s published exhibitor rate card. Dedicated-bandwidth lines run higher: roughly $3,800 (NAT IPs) or $5,100 (public IPs) at 10Mbps, with bandwidth add-ons from +$1,339 for 15Mbps to +$16,068 for 100Mbps — a streaming-heavy build can pass $20,000. No floor plan on the order means the line lands at the back of the booth, with a ~$250 relocation fee to move it.
WHERE BUDGETS GO SIDEWAYS
Connectivity failures at shows are rarely technical surprises — they’re planning decisions made by default:
Shared show wifi is fine at 8am and saturated by 11 — exactly when your booth is fullest. If the product demo, the payment terminal, or the lead scanner rides on it, the failure happens in front of your best prospects.
A dedicated line is ~$3,800–$5,100 before a single extra Mbps. The tiers climb fast: +$1,339 for 15Mbps, +$5,356 for 30, +$16,068 for 100 — so a streaming-heavy build passes $20,000. Buy the Mbps your demos actually need, not a round number that sounds safe.
Not discouraged — prohibited, in writing, on the order form. Extra devices are priced per connection ($572 for a second, $858 for a third) through a rented or approved switch. The router in your crate isn’t a loophole; it’s a violation the venue’s team will find.
WHERE WE COME IN
Your booth’s network needs are knowable at design time — so that’s when we spec them.
Demo stations, video walls, kiosks — we know every connected device in the design, so your order matches what the booth genuinely runs, not a guess made from the order form.
Revenue-critical devices go on the wire at the tier they actually need — shared for lead capture, dedicated Mbps sized to the real stream — so you’re not paying $16,000 for bandwidth a demo never uses, or gambling a launch on a shared pipe.
The internet line is marked on the same booth floor plan as your electrical, so both go in under the carpet together, exactly where the demo stations sit — no back-of-booth default, no relocation fee.
Connectivity checks are on the install checklist — every station verified during move-in, while there’s still time to escalate to the provider, not at 9am on day one.
STILL WONDERING
Public attendee wifi sometimes exists, but it’s not built for exhibitors — and booth connectivity is sold separately by the venue’s exclusive telecom provider, per device for wifi or as a dedicated wired drop. Free floor wifi during peak hours is not a plan; it’s a hope.
A shared-bandwidth wired line (about $1,300 at our reference venue) is one pipe split across every booth on the run — far more reliable than wifi, right for browsing and lead capture. Dedicated bandwidth is guaranteed Mbps that are yours alone, sold in tiers, and it’s what live demos, streams, and payments need. Within dedicated, NAT addressing (~$3,800) suits most uses; public IPs (~$5,100) cost more and matter when you need inbound access — VPNs, remote monitoring, static addressing.
No — wireless routers are explicitly not permitted at most facilities, stated on the order form itself, because they interfere with the paid network. The sanctioned path for multiple devices is per-device connection fees plus a switch (rented from the provider or approved from your own kit). Don’t build a demo plan on a device the venue’s enforcement team is trained to find.
It’s an exclusive utility, like power: one provider, temporary infrastructure, thousands of simultaneous heavy users — and bandwidth is metered hard. Real rate-card math: a shared line ~$1,320; dedicated ~$3,828–$5,148 at 10Mbps; 100Mbps adds another $16,068. The levers you control are ordering by the advance deadline, sizing bandwidth to actual need, and counting your devices honestly.
Before your flooring goes down, at the location marked on the floor plan attached to your order — like electrical. No floor plan means the default: the back of the booth, with a relocation fee (about $250) to move it once your layout makes that obviously wrong. The plan costs nothing; the missing plan doesn’t.
THE REST OF THE INVOICE
NO SURPRISE INVOICES
Your quote comes with connectivity specced from the actual booth — the hardline where failure isn’t an option, wifi where it is, and the drop mapped alongside your power before the carpet goes down.
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