Electronics headed to a Las Vegas trade show need a crate built for four things that ordinary freight never faces: repeated forklift handling by people who have never seen your equipment, a hard target date that cannot slip, storage of the empty crate somewhere during the show, and a return trip in the same container. Add ESD protection and lithium battery compliance and you have the full specification. Here is how to get all of it right for CES, SEMA, NAB and the rest of the Las Vegas calendar.
We are five minutes from the Las Vegas Convention Center and we have been crating show freight for over 25 years, including gaming equipment and show assets for Wynn, Aria, Caesars, Hard Rock and Mandalay Bay. Most of what follows comes from watching what goes wrong on the dock.
Why Use a Wood Crate Instead of a Case or Carton?
For show electronics, the choice is usually between a custom wood crate, a molded plastic road case, and heavy corrugated. Each has a place.
| Option | Best For | Advantage | Limitation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Custom wood crate | Large, heavy or odd shaped displays and racks | Built to the item, forklift ready, reusable, ISPM 15 for export | Heavier than a case, needs storage between shows |
| Molded road case | Repeating standard sized gear, frequent tours | Fast pack and unpack, wheels built in | Only works if your gear fits a stock size |
| Heavy corrugated | Light accessories, literature, giveaways | Cheapest, disposable | Will not survive drayage or stacking |
The deciding factor is usually handling touches rather than fragility. Show freight is moved by forklift at least four times before it reaches your booth space, by operators working a queue. A crate is the only one of the three that reliably survives that on the first trip and the fifth. More on the underlying build in our guide to wood crate building materials.
How Should a Crate for Electronics Be Specified?
- Anti static interior. Exposed boards, bare drives and unenclosed assemblies need ESD safe foam and liners rather than standard pink or charcoal foam chosen by color. Enclosed consumer devices in retail packaging usually do not. Specify based on what is exposed, not on the word “electronics.”
- Vibration isolation, not just cushioning. Foam stops impact. Long haul truck freight is a vibration problem, which loosens connectors, fasteners and mounted components. Isolation mounts matter more than foam thickness on a cross country lane.
- Full immobilization. The item should not move in any direction inside the crate. Movement inside the container does more damage on show freight than any single impact.
- Screwed lids, not nailed. The crate will be opened and resealed at least twice per show. Nailed panels chew their own edges on the second cycle and stop sealing by the third.
- Moisture control that actually works. Desiccant packs and a vapor barrier bag inside the crate, or heat shrink wrapping for larger assemblies. This is what protects against condensation, not the wood itself.
- Fork entry from the correct sides. Skids positioned so a forklift can enter from at least two sides. Single access skids are fine in your shop and a problem at every dock afterward.
- Marked and labeled. Weight, center of gravity, orientation arrows, booth number, show name and your company name on multiple faces. Unmarked crates are the ones that go missing.
What Exhibitors Get Wrong About Show Floor Logistics
The crate is the easy part. The schedule is what catches people out, and none of this appears in a general crating article.
Advance Warehouse or Direct to Show?
Most shows accept freight two ways. The advance warehouse takes delivery weeks ahead and guarantees your freight is in the hall when your target time arrives. Direct to show means arriving in a delivery window on move in day, usually cheaper but with no margin for a late truck. For anything you cannot replace or rebuild, the advance warehouse is worth the difference. Check the exhibitor service kit for your specific show, since deadlines and rates vary by event.
Drayage Is a Separate Cost From Freight
Material handling, commonly called drayage, is the charge for moving your freight from the dock or warehouse to your booth space, storing the empties during the show, and returning them at teardown. It is billed by the general service contractor, typically by weight in hundredweight with a minimum, and it is not included in what your carrier quoted you. Exhibitors budget freight and then get surprised by drayage, which is often the larger number. Building a lighter, tighter crate is one of the few levers you control here.
Where Does the Crate Go During the Show?
Empties get labeled with the show’s empty sticker and hauled to storage for the duration, then returned to your booth after the hall closes on the last day. Two consequences: your crate has to survive being stacked among thousands of others, and it will not come back instantly at teardown. Crates that collapse under stacking, or that have no rigid lid, are the ones that come back damaged. This is also why we hold crates in our Las Vegas warehouse storage between shows for local and repeat exhibitors, which removes the empty entirely from some setups.
Target Move In Times Are Real Deadlines
Large shows assign target dates and times for move in. Missing yours does not mean setting up an hour late, it means waiting until the schedule allows and paying for the privilege. This is why proximity matters. Being minutes from the Convention Center for show and event freight means we can do same day re-crating, emergency builds, and last minute pickups that an out of state vendor structurally cannot.
Shipping Lithium Batteries to a Trade Show
This is the item that gets shipments refused, and it is the part most exhibitors handle wrong. Lithium ion and lithium metal batteries are regulated as dangerous goods. The rules differ by transport mode, by whether the battery is loose, packed with equipment, or installed in equipment, and by watt hour rating. Air freight is the strictest, with state of charge limits and packaging requirements that ground freight does not impose.
Practical points for show freight: keep the UN 38.3 test summary for every battery type in the shipment, declare correctly rather than hoping, expect that installed batteries in a demo unit still trigger the rules, and check whether your venue or general service contractor restricts battery storage on the floor. Current guidance lives with IATA for air and PHMSA for US ground transport, and it changes, so verify against the current edition rather than last year’s checklist.
We handle lithium battery shipping, packing and storage as a dedicated service, including compliant packaging and storage between events. If your booth includes anything battery powered, raise it at quoting rather than at the dock.
Bringing Electronics in From Outside the United States
Wood packaging crossing a border must be heat treated and stamped under ISPM 15. Uncertified wood gets held, re-crated at the port at your cost, or refused entry, and a crate stuck in customs during show week is a booth that opens empty. We apply the ISPM 15 stamp in house, so international show freight does not need a separate vendor or an extra week in the schedule. For exhibitors flying gear in and shipping the crate separately, we also build to spec and have the crate waiting.
Does a Reusable Crate Pay for Itself?
For anyone doing more than one show a year, usually yes. A screwed or knock down crate divides its cost across every trip, and a booth exhibiting at three shows annually reaches break even against disposable packaging inside the first year. Add the avoided damage and the avoided rush rebuild and the case gets stronger. The fuller cost breakdown is in our post on how custom crates save money, and the container options are on our reusable plastic and wood crates page.
Where it does not pay: a single one off appearance with light, replaceable gear. In that case ship it cased or boxed and spend the money on the booth.
The Honest Drawbacks of Wood Crates
- Higher upfront cost than a carton, and heavier, which raises both freight and drayage.
- They need somewhere to live between shows. Storage is a real recurring cost unless someone holds them for you.
- A crate built for one booth configuration becomes dead weight if the booth is redesigned.
- Wood crates are field repairable, which is an advantage, but it means they do get damaged and do need inspection between shows rather than blind reuse.
None of these outweigh a damaged demo unit on opening morning, but they are real, and any vendor who tells you a crate has no downsides is selling rather than advising.
What We Have Handled
- Casino and resort show assets. Gaming equipment, signage and entertainment gear for properties including Wynn, Aria, Caesars, Hard Rock and Mandalay Bay, on install schedules where the date is fixed and the venue does not negotiate.
- The Leonardo Da Vinci exhibit. A traveling exhibition, which is the same problem as a touring booth: every crate had to survive repeated pack and unpack cycles rather than one trip. Read the Da Vinci exhibit project.
- A Formula 1 race car. Carbon fiber bodywork and almost no safe lift points, crated so the load never passed through the body.
- The Stargate movie prop. Irregular geometry with no flat faces, internally braced to its exact profile.
Different freight, same constraint. When the date is fixed and the item is not replaceable, the crate stops being packaging and becomes part of the schedule.
Get Your Show Freight Quoted
Send us the show name, your booth number, item dimensions and weights, whether anything is battery powered, and how many shows the crate needs to survive. We will come back with a build spec and a real quote. We fabricate in house minutes from the Convention Center, store crates between shows, apply ISPM 15 on site, and handle trade show exhibition moving end to end. Call 702-748-4973 or 1-833-801-9084 toll free, email contact@lasvegascrating.com, or request a quote online. See also our electronics shipping and moving service. If your booth includes a video wall, see our guide to packing, shipping and storing large LED displays.