How we paid only $25.00 for exhibition TV hire

Exhibition TV hire these days can be incredibly expensive. The supply of audio visual equipment to organisations attending events and conferences is big business.

Over the years, our digital learning solutions company has paid for stand space and exhibited all over the world. Since we don’t want to fly large TV screens thousands of miles, hiring equipment in-country is the only reasonable alternative.

But when an eye-watering quote for exhibition TV hire is a significant proportion of the overall stand cost, alternative ideas and new thinking is required. Small businesses don’t have corporate budgets.

So how can you save money?

Florida 2019 – alternative Exhibition TV hire – case study

Back in January 2019, our team had booked stand space at an event taking place in Tampa, Florida. Getting away from the UK winter blues was a tonic and the promise of sunshine was exactly what my colleague Paul, and I both needed.

Before boarding the flight, one of my last tasks whilst at Heathrow was to email the US-based rental company and confirm the exhibition TV hire screen. Our digital learning solutions make a strong visual impact and we need to ensure people passing our stand can see what we do.

Unfortunately, I got distracted at one of the airport bars. As a result, I completely forgot about the TV. It was only when our plane was sat on the runway that I recalled my error and shared the mistake with Paul.

“Well, at least you’ve saved us $900.00” he replied.

Paul was right. We had saved a whopping nine hundred dollars on exhibition TV hire.

But, how much had we potentially lost because people passing or visiting our exhibition stand wouldn’t understand what we offered? Such are the dilemmas faced by business owners all over the world.

TV solution – impressive savings

Thankfully, being an east coast US trip, land was sighted within 7 hours of leaving UK shores. And not long after the plane taxied to a stop at Orlando airport, Paul and I were standing in the inevitable slow-moving US customs queue.

And whilst I grew increasingly frustrated with the wait-time, Paul had flight wisdom to share.

“Instead of the exhibition TV hire” Paul began, “Why don’t we just buy a television? It’s probably way cheaper than the rental.”

“But where do we get a television from and what do we do with the telly at the end of the show?” I replied without really thinking.

Paul looked at me and smiled. He was way ahead of me. He explained that he had already Googled a Walmart store (that we would be passing in our hire car en-route to Tampa) and then offered the ‘slam-dunk’ part of the solution.

“Hundreds of people are attending the event Pete. Surely someone will want to buy a brand new television at the right price…”

Paul was right on all fronts.

The next day we visited the Walmart ‘Supercenter’ just north of Lakeland and they had the television we needed for about $300. Within minutes of purchase, a kindly assistant was wheeling the thing out into the car park and then fitted the hardware into the trunk.

The hyper-modern television was the perfect event aid (and looked way better than the expensive exhibition TV hire deals for which other exhibitors had paid through the nose).

Then on the last day of the event we promoted our TV offer (with original box and stand) to all passing delegates. Within an hour of going on sale our top telly was snapped up for only $25.00 less than we paid for it at Walmart.

Entrepreneurship is a wonderful thing. And on that note, thank you Nigel Adams for encouraging me to share this story.