The three rules that shape a Vegas build
Show floor realityFreight handling is not yours to decide. Major convention venues restrict who may move equipment, from where, and using what. Our crew plans around whatever the show specifies, but we need the manual during scoping. A load-in plan written in ignorance of the rules gets stopped at the door and costs you build time you cannot get back.
Power is ordered, not found. Show power is a paid, advance-ordered service with a deadline, and the on-site rate is dramatically higher than the advance rate. We give you the circuit count in writing early specifically so it lands on the order before the deadline. This is the single largest avoidable cost on a Vegas build.
Aisles belong to the show. A queue that spills into an aisle gets shut down by floor management, and that conversation happens in front of your guests. Orient the counter so the line runs inside your footprint or along its edge, and account for the queue in the square footage you book.
Booth math
Space planningA working two-lane build wants roughly a 10×10 area including crew room behind the counter. In a 10×10 booth that means the station is the booth — often the right decision, but one to make deliberately at contract stage rather than discover at build.
If you have a 20×20 or larger, the station can sit at the open edge with the queue running along the inside of your footprint, leaving room for conversations, seating or a demo behind it. That layout tends to work better for exhibitors whose real objective is qualified conversations rather than raw traffic.
Traffic in a convention hall is driven by the agenda. Sessions end, the floor fills, and twenty minutes later it thins again. Lane count should be sized to that burst rather than to exhibit hours. A station that is comfortable for six hours and swamped for four twenty-minute windows has been sized wrong.
Travel, hours and lead time
Cost shapeTravel is a flat $900 — not a mileage calculation, not a surprise. What genuinely changes on a Vegas job is the crew day. Early show-floor load-ins usually mean travelling the day before, and that appears in staffing hours rather than in the travel line. We scope it explicitly so nothing arrives at invoice stage that was not on the quote.
Lead time matters more here than anywhere else we work. Advance power deadlines, freight paperwork, badging and certificates of insurance all sit weeks ahead of the show. A Vegas station booked eight weeks out is straightforward; the same station booked ten days out is expensive, and some of those costs cannot be avoided at any price because the advance windows have closed.
Beyond the logistics, the build is the same one we run everywhere else: two to four lanes, tablet intake with a ticketed queue distributed across presses by least-pending-work, adult XS–3XL with per-size caps, roughly nine characters on a name, one to three digits on a number, and full-colour transfers pressed onto polyester. Client-supplied garments are welcome, and for exhibitors shipping booth freight anyway they are often the simplest option.