Booth strategy, venue coordination, freight control, and show-week delivery across the Tampa market.
ServicesLocationsVenuesEvent TypesBooth TypesIndustriesAboutTampa Trade Show CalendarStart The ProjectCall (813) 939-5242info@exhibithousetampa.comFlorida Restaurant & Lodging Show returns to Tampa Convention Center during September, drawing 10000+ attendees. Exhibit House of Tampa delivers custom booth fabrication purpose-built for Florida Restaurant & Lodging Show's exhibitor profile: Food service equipment manufacturers, restaurant technology vendors, food and beverage brands, POS system companies, uniform and supply vendors.
Tampa Trade Show Calendar
We work from your account team's brand book, but the build itself is engineered from the show's specific rules: ceiling height limits at Tampa Convention Center, hanging-sign weight allowances, and any sightline restrictions that apply to Florida Restaurant & Lodging Show's floor plan.
Florida Restaurant & Lodging Show is one of the Tampa shows where booth quality directly shapes attendee perception, so we don't cut corners on materials. Solid-core panels, commercial-grade hardware, and finishes that hold up under repeat installs are the baseline.
Florida Restaurant & Lodging Show runs at Tampa Convention Center during September. Attendance is typically 10000+, and the show targets Food service equipment manufacturers, restaurant technology vendors, food and beverage brands, POS system companies, uniform and supply vendors. Annual trade exposition for the Florida hospitality industry organized by the Florida Restaurant and Lodging Association. Largest hospitality trade show in the southeastern United States. September at Tampa Convention Center.
We don't pretend lead times don't matter. The realistic floor for a full custom build for Florida Restaurant & Lodging Show is 8 weeks from approved drawings; anything shorter means tradeoffs on finish quality or international-sourced materials. We say so up front.
Fabrication lead times for Florida Restaurant & Lodging Show run 8-12 weeks for full custom; rental-to-custom hybrid builds can compress to 4-6 weeks if material is in stock. Print and graphics are 2-3 weeks once you've signed off on final art.
Florida Restaurant & Lodging Show has been hosted by Florida Restaurant and Lodging Association (FRLA) since 1946. Tampa Bay's 5,000+ restaurants, hotels, and hospitality businesses create year-round demand for food service equipment, staffing, and technology
Tampa Convention Center's freight dock geometry and elevator dimensions dictate how we crate. We design the structure to break into legal-shippable sections without losing the design intent, so reload-and-redeploy at the next Florida Restaurant & Lodging Show cycle is straightforward.
Material specifications for Tampa Convention Center include sustainable hardwood frames, recyclable aluminum extrusions, and printed graphics on substrate that survives Tampa's humidity and the freight cycle. We don't use materials that fail at the second install.
Design-to-build for Florida Restaurant & Lodging Show is a 5-phase process: brand alignment, schematic design, design-development with material specs, fabrication drawings stamped for the venue, then production. Each phase has client signoff so no one ends up surprised at install.
Our workflow keeps fabrication and graphics on parallel tracks for Florida Restaurant & Lodging Show, which is the only way to hit aggressive show calendars. Structural cutting starts before final graphics art is locked, with a hold-back for late-stage brand decisions.
Buyer Questions
For a full custom build at Florida Restaurant & Lodging Show, plan on 8-12 weeks from approved drawings to crating, plus another 2-3 weeks for graphic print and apply. Hybrid rental-to-custom builds compress to 4-6 weeks, and pure rental can be 2-4 weeks depending on inventory and graphics complexity.
Tampa Convention Center has specific hanging-sign and rigging rules that we plan around — ceiling height limits, weight per anchor point, and required certified-rigger coordination. Our drawings reference those rules so the field install doesn't get held by the fire marshal.
A 20x20 custom fabrication at Florida Restaurant & Lodging Show typically runs $35K-$65K for the structure alone, depending on materials, hanging elements, and finish complexity. Add graphics, AV, freight, drayage, and labor for the all-in number — we quote those line by line.
Yes, and we design for it. Our standard custom fabrications use modular connectors, replaceable graphic panels, and documented service kits so the structure can install repeatedly without losing finish quality. We also store the crates between cycles if you want.
We fabricate in our Tampa shop. That means our crew can visit during production, mock-ups happen here, and the freight run to Tampa Convention Center is a short one. It's not a marketing claim — it's how we keep schedules honest.
