Exhibition Stand Prices — the Band, Its Scope and Its Date

The quotations we gave in 2026 for custom timber stands built in Istanbul ran from 200 to 500 €/m² of rented floor area. The lower end is a single-storey stand with a straightforward build; the upper end is a double-deck or an island stand carrying heavy lighting and rigging. It is not a tariff — it is the band our own quotations fell into, and if you are budgeting a Turkish fair from abroad it is the number to start from. Every stand is still calculated on its own.

The band is dated September 2026 and quoted in euro, converted at the Turkish Central Bank rate on the day of the quotation — so the figure you budget is the figure you are invoiced. Very few pages in this trade print a price together with its scope; below, line by line, is what sits inside it and what does not.

What the band includes

• Design: concept, 3D visualisation and revisions
• Technical project: construction drawings, structural calculation, the file submitted to the fair authority
• Production: timber and metal fabrication in our own workshop, paint, cladding, print
• Transport from the workshop to the fairground
• Installation and on-site support throughout the fair
• Dismantling and first cleaning

What the band does not include

• Floor rental and the participation fee paid to the organiser — that is not the price of the stand; see the separate section below
• Electricity, water and internet connection and subscription charges
• VAT
• Storage after the fair and transport to the next one (written as a separate line if you want it)
• For work abroad: customs, ATA carnet and international freight (see the section on working abroad)

What moves the price inside the band

Two stands of the same size can be priced very differently. Eight things decide where in the band your quotation lands:

1. Area and stand type. Corner, island and head-of-aisle stands mean more surface and more finishing work than a single-frontage stand.
2. Number of levels. A mezzanine needs structural calculation, a staircase, balustrades and, at most fairs, separate approval; it raises the cost per square metre noticeably.
3. Material and finish. There is a wide range between painted MDF and veneer, lacquer, glass, stone or metal finishes.
4. Lighting and rigging. Truss, moving heads, LED screens and suspended loads bring both material cost and a rigging permit.
5. Enclosed volumes — storage, kitchen, meeting room — cost more than open display area.
6. Fair rules. Height limits, flame-retardancy certificates, bans on fabrication inside the hall and mandatory equipment differ at every fair.
7. Calendar. The shorter the installation window, the more shifts. Deciding early builds the same stand for less.
8. Reuse. A build designed to be dismantled, stored and re-erected costs a little more at the first fair and noticeably less at the second.

Custom timber, system or modular

The band above is for a custom timber, turnkey stand — a structure built for one project and one hall. Two alternatives exist, and which one suits you depends on how you exhibit rather than on where you are based:

• Maxima / Octanorm system stands. A rented aluminium profile frame with printed panels on it. Noticeably below custom timber; fast to install, but the freedom of form is limited and it looks the same at every fair.
• Modular systems. Panel systems the company owns, dismantled and carried for years. The first investment can be close to custom timber; the cost per square metre falls at the second and third fair.

The deciding question is less the budget than how many fairs a year you do. Custom timber usually makes sense for a company exhibiting once; a modular system for one exhibiting three times — and the same panels can travel to the next fair.

Floor rental is not the price of the stand

These two are the items most often confused, and hardest to keep apart when you are budgeting from another country. Floor rental is paid to the organiser and the stand to the company that builds it: two separate contracts and two separate invoices. In organiser tariffs published in 2026, bare floor space in Istanbul was roughly 270 – 310 €/m² plus VAT; at the large German fairs 259 – 480 €/m²; raw space in Dubai around 595 USD/m². Give floor rental its own budget line, or the stand will look like the expensive half.

How the band compares with building at home

On the company pages we read in 2026, individual stands built by German firms in Germany ran roughly 750 – 2,250 €/m², custom-built stands in the United States 930 – 3,000 €/m², and local firms in the United Arab Emirates 350 – 940 €/m². If you are weighing us against a builder at home in Germany or the United States, that gap is the point of the comparison: it comes from where the work is made, not from cutting labour.

Dubai is the exception, and we would rather say so: the local band sits on top of the band Turkish builders quote, so there is no price advantage there. If your fair is in the Emirates, the reason to choose us has to be the design and the build quality. For freight, customs and the ATA carnet, see the exhibiting abroad page.

What a “cheap stand” means

There are honest ways to bring the figure down: take a system stand, reduce the enclosed volume, stay on one level, simplify the finishes, decide early and save the shift cost, and design the build so it can be re-erected at the next fair. We will talk each of them through and show each of them as its own line in the quotation.

And the dishonest way, because we see the result on the floor: a quotation that does not state its scope. If freight, dismantling, structural calculation or the flame-retardancy certificate are missing from it, the number looks low — and those items come back as extra invoices during fair week, in a country where you are not standing there to argue about them. Compare the scope of the figure, not the figure.

What we need from you in order to quote

The fair name, the stand size and type (corner, island, single frontage), how many levels you want and any sketch you already have — that much is enough for an indicative figure. If you do not have the fair authority’s technical specification, we will find it; you do not need to chase a Turkish organiser for it. Once the dimensions and the rules are settled, you get an itemised quotation with its scope written down.

Ask for a quotation, or simply send a message — WhatsApp is answered within 24 hours, and a band for your size and your fair usually comes back the same day. The process is set out on the services page, and the work itself is on the projects page, credited with the client, the fair and the year.