A marketing director who considered purchasing a truss display ten years ago might have been putting his job at risk. They were basically heavy, cumbersome and difficult to use exhibits designed originally for the entertainment industy for the purpose of holding heavy lights. However, Truss display designs have proliferated over the last two years and have brought new truss booth options to the attention of many exhibiting companies. It might be useful to some if we examine the pros and cons of trade show exhibit truss.

Trade show truss provides a lot of positive benefits. Among them is the fact that you can build an island exhibit with truss for about 50% of the cost of a custom laminate exhibit system. The new designs lend themselves to large format graphics, a major step forward from the truss design available 6-7 years ago. With Truss, you can combine large format graphics with height, product displays, plasma/LCD presentations and conference areas. Another positive is that at the recent Exhibitor Show in Las Vegas a new lightweight truss system was introduced that packs into portable clamshell cases.

Now for the cons of display truss. Most  truss systems are bulky and heavy which means that even a 10 x 10 truss exhibit is most frequently packed into a non-UPSable tub. Truss may take longer to set up than some of the other “portable” systems on the market. This means that, depending upon the rules of the convention hall, you may need to hire show labor. it may take longer to set up than you are allowed without hiring show labor. One reason in the past for using truss was that truss is able to support plasmas and LCD’s. Now, however, even light weight portable trade show displays hold plasmas. Not as large, perhaps, as truss is capable of holding but in an in-line exhibit they are adequate. So, why would you want truss in a 10′ exhibit space? For one, Slatwall. You can have a nice mixture of Slatwall panels to display product, hang clothing, etc., with tension fabric mural panels. Secondly, if you have a heavy product that needs to be mounted you may need truss. Finally, shelving. You can have an entire backwall of shelves.