Exhibiting at McCormick Place rewards preparation. Our free guide walks you through the realities that catch first-time and veteran exhibitors alike: labor jurisdiction, rigging and hanging-sign rules, drayage and material handling, line-of-sight and height limits, electrical ordering, targeted move-in windows, and how to budget the full landed cost of a Chicago show rather than just the exhibit. Enter your email and we will send it straight to your inbox.
McCormick Place is the largest convention center in North America, and exhibiting there rewards teams who plan for its scale rather than react to it. The guide opens with the single most misunderstood topic on the floor: labor jurisdiction. Knowing which tasks your own staff may perform, which require union labor, and how straight-time and overtime windows are scheduled is the difference between a calm move-in and a budget-wrecking surprise. We lay out the practical rules in plain language and show you how to sequence your install so you are never paying a crew to wait.
From there the guide walks through rigging and hanging-sign approvals, the drayage and material-handling process that quietly drives a large share of total show cost, and the line-of-sight and height limits that govern what you can build in an inline versus an island space. Each section pairs the rule with a budget range so you can plan the full landed cost of your Chicago program, not just the price of the exhibit. Finish the guide and you will walk into your space assignment knowing exactly what to order, when to schedule it, and where the avoidable costs hide.
We wrote this guide because the exhibitors who succeed at McCormick Place are the ones who treat logistics as part of the design, not an afterthought. Whether this is your first Chicago show or your fiftieth, use it as a planning checklist alongside your free 3D rendering, and call us whenever you want a second set of eyes on a floor plan or a budget.
Call Chicago Exhibits at (872) 369-0187 for a free 48-hour 3D rendering. Serving Chicago and McCormick Place since 2014.