How to read an exhibition stand quote

The most common request on a first call is a number. The thing that hurts a buyer most is getting one. A figure given before anyone knows the size, the height and the materials is not a quote but a guess — and after signature a guess turns into extra items arriving one after another.

This is not about the fair price — there is no fixed rate per square metre for exhibition stands. It is about how to read the sheet in front of you, and how to tell whether it describes the whole stand or only part of it.

The lines that must be written down

A complete quote describes the stand well enough that a third party could build it from the sheet. If you cannot picture the stand from reading it, it is incomplete:

• Dimensions in metres and the number of open faces — not just "4×6" but which sides are open.
• Height, whether there is a second deck, and who obtains the venue approval for it.
• Materials per element: walls, flooring, frontage, reception counter. "Painted timber" is one line; "illuminated acrylic" is another line at another price.
• Print: how many metres, of what kind, and who supplies the print-ready files.
• Power and lighting: how many points, at what load, and who deals with the venue to get them connected.
• Furniture itemised, not lumped — "a seating area" can mean two chairs or eight.
• Build and breakdown: the dates, the crew size, and who carries the cost of night work if it is needed.
• Transport and storage — two separate lines, and the second is always forgotten.

The lines that go unsaid

These are what make up the thirty per cent gap. They are absent from the low quote because they were never costed, and they appear after signature because they are unavoidable:

• Venue permits, plan approval and the height limit.
• Fire-rating certificates for materials — many venues require them and nobody asks until late.
• Insurance for working inside the hall.
• Venue charges for building outside normal hours.
• Supervision during show days — is there a person in the hall, or a phone number?
• Making good anything damaged during the build.
• Cleaning before opening and after breakdown.

Ask about those seven explicitly before comparing two quotes. The one that includes them looks more expensive and is not — it is simply written in full.

Three signals of an incomplete number

A single total with nothing behind it

If a whole stand arrives as one figure, you cannot compare, cannot object, and cannot cut a single line if the budget is tight. Ask for the breakdown before discussing the number — and a refusal to break it down is itself an answer.

A rate per square metre and nothing else

A square metre knows nothing about height, a second deck, how many faces are open, or that half the stand is printed wall and half is illuminated acrylic. Pricing by area alone prices floor space, not a stand.

No build dates named

The build window at any show is narrow and shared with dozens of contractors. A quote that names no entry date and no unloading hour has not checked the venue's schedule at all — and that is the most dangerous thing on the sheet, because a delay here cannot be recovered: opening day does not move.

Two questions that shorten the comparison

If you have no time to read two quotes line by line, ask each supplier two questions and read the answers: where is the stand fabricated? and who will stand in the hall on build day?

The first reveals whether the supplier builds or brokers. Both are legitimate in this market, but a broker passes the workshop’s delay to you and cannot speed it up. The second reveals whether there is an accountable name, or a phone number to call when something breaks. Ask to visit the workshop — a supplier who sub-contracts fabrication will not be able to arrange it.

We fabricate in our own Dammam workshop, and the visit is available before you sign rather than after.