Welcome to the latest addition to the Catalyst arsenal: our blog. Through this forum, we aim to provide you, our discerning audience, with advice, guidelines, examples and anything else we feel can help make your trade show experiences that much better. Allow us to lend you our industry knowledge in the hopes it helps you along your way. So without further ado, we present a topic that is as contested as it is misunderstood: the myths of cost when it comes to renting or owning exhibits.
The Myth of Cost
The “myth of cost” states that there is an intrinsic price gap between exhibit purchase options and exhibit rental options – i.e., it costs more (or less) to rent than to own.
We refer to it as a myth because we don’t find it to be necessarily true.
When it comes to rental and purchase, each has its own benefits, and each is loaded with price in different ways. When you purchase, most of the costs are upfront. When you rent, the cost is spread out across the time frame of an exhibit program. But the differences do not end there.
Purchase items are “capital expenditures” that, theoretically, create future benefits and can be repaid over an extended period. Rental items are “marketing expenses” or “operating expenses.” They are an ongoing cost and are not amortized – oftentimes making them an easier expenditure to make.
But in the same breath we say the two differ, we must also point out how they are alike. Sure, the two deals may look different, but in terms of actual dollars spent over the life of a tradeshow program, rental and purchase can be considered equivalent. Perhaps a better way to put this: There is no cost benefit inherent to either strategy – it depends on what you want or need to do.
In the end, we do not believe it is even possible to compare rental and purchase costs in a qualitative (or even meaningful) way. Rental suggests flexibility, whereas purchase suggests a long-term commitment. And yes, there are rental options in the marketplace today where the price exceeds that of purchase. The converse is true as well. The only thing to do is see both as possible strategies, and determine which works best for your company.
That said, we invite you to share your thoughts on this issue. Just as we’ve concluded the two cannot be fairly compared, you might have a different angle – and we welcome you to share that. We aren’t the only experts out there… and we look forward to sharing with all of you.
