Filed Under:
Industry
Published on
April 24, 2025
The logistics of exhibiting and tradeshows call for super-efficient transportation, setup, and teardown. The success of any event often relies—invisible to the convention crew and often taken for granted by the audience—on smooth, quick operations and professional presentation. All of this can be enhanced and made more reliable with custom exhibit cases.
When I say, "exhibit cases," my intent covers both cases for use at the event and cases for transporting items to and from the event. This often includes ATA cases, wood shipping crates, soft cases and hard cases for specific products and equipment, or other custom-built solutions that make getting your materials to the show easier.
Cases should serve as tailored solutions for your specific items and for the operations to be performed with the cases.
Streamlined Setup and Breakdown
Exhibitors are faced with one of the greatest challenges—minimizing the time and effort required for event setup and breakdown. We used to rely on extensive manual labor, complex packing arrangements, and disorganized storage. What we got for it was increased labor expense, more setup errors, and a good deal of frustration. Not to mention the issues you face in getting materials to the show, tracking them down from the delivery company or show coordinator, or trying to find a replacement for missing parts in an unfamiliar city. This is especially the case when shipping multiple packages that could be misplaced.
The direct solution for these problems is a custom designed case to ship and organize all your materials in one place. Take for example ATA cases and wooden crates. They are often large, compartmentalized cases that allow you to create custom inserts and internal features to stack, support, and organize your equipment to your specific setup needs. Features like straps, shelves, sectionals, foam, and locks create a user-friendly structure that decreases labor time for setup and take down. Also, by keeping all your materials in one place, you increase the chances your materials all arrive at the correct location. It’s much easier to label and track down a single large container than several smaller packages.
When these crucial jobs are performed in a more efficient manner, it helps exhibitors save a lot of money and helps them run their operations in a way that is much smoother and more professional.
Protective Transportation
Display units, signage, monitors, lighting systems, audiovisual equipment, and product samples are among the tradeshow materials that are most likely to be damaged when being transported. The equipment is in danger from lots of different potential hazards, like being dropped or jostled (the big problem), moisture getting in somehow (the little problem that can lead to big things), and just plain handling (the great unknown).
Many companies simply stack their show materials and equipment on a pallet and wrap it with cellophane plastic. The problem is, cellophane isn’t very protective, so your materials are only protected by, in many situations, their individual cardboard boxes or cases. But also, what if the plastic rips and you lose materials; replacement cost can be high and leave your team in a pinch at the show.
Exhibit cases that are customized to the needs of a particular installation offer the required solution to security and effective exhibit construction. They are built of strong, impact-resistant materials—like reinforced ABS plastic, aluminum, wood, and polyethylene—that can withstand the kind of stress a traveling case must anticipate. And where most cases simply use foam to hold their contents, the interiors of a custom case are precision-engineered to hold and protect the specific piece of equipment for which the case was made.
Enhanced protective features prevent moisture, dust, and environmental contaminants from getting to delicate exhibit materials.
Operational Efficiency
Improvement in the operational workflow and setup error reduction all stem from one thing: organization. Companies often send sales, marketing, and other employees to trade shows with the goal of connecting with customers both in and out of the show. By spending more time in setup and take down, they are costing themselves valuable opportunities to connect.
According to our team, show organization begins even before the actual assembly of the exhibit. It starts with a carefully planned design, packing all materials, labeling, and shipping in time for show delivery requirements. Ensuring there is a place to store or organize all materials while at the office can save time and get employees back to work by allowing for fast packing or already having materials in place.
In shipping, its often cheaper to ship one large case than to ship multiple small cases. This also comes back to the exhibit crew that receives your materials. When they receive multiple small packages, the cost for handling can increase due to multiple trips to deliver to your booth or tracking down missing materials. We all know those drainage fees are high!
Once at the show, your exhibit staff should spend the least time possible at the facility on set up day. From our team’s experience, show coordinators rarely get all materials in one place at one time if there are multiple shipments. That means your personnel either must wait around or come back multiple times to check or track down materials themselves. Exhibit cases solve this issue or can make tracking much quicker.
When it comes to take down, the same benefits apply in reverse. Your staff has somewhere to put everything, the shipping company can pick up one container, and you can store everything together at the office much easier.
For you and your staff, time is money. Make sure you aren’t losing money by having the right storage and shipping solutions.
Recap of Benefits
Quick Assembly and Disassembly: Keeps labor time and effort to a minimum and event logistics smooth and efficient.
Dependable Protective Transportation: Protects valuable exhibit materials from damage while in transit and during handling.
Organization at a Professional Level: Increases the efficiency of workflows, reduces errors, and boosts the quality and presentation of exhibits.
Financial Benefits: Lowers expenses related to harmed resources, substitute costs, and overabundant labor needs.
Improved Efficiency of Operations: Makes better use of resources, simplifies operations, and makes events that have better outcomes and results.
Maximize your event success and optimize your exhibit efficiency with Royal Case Company's custom exhibit cases. Our expertly designed display solutions do more than look good (and they really look good); they also offer dependable protection, logistics that are a breeze to work with, and a kind of streamlined organization that your exhibit space will sorely miss if not utilized. Hit us up, if you will, and let us show you what our custom cases can do for your tradeshow performance.
Author: Kelvin Gentry
Kelvin Gentry is the Marketing Director for Royal Case Company Inc. based out of Sherman, TX.
