Quick answer
McCormick Place work is coordinated across its house unions with steward sign-off, though Illinois' right-to-work framework lets exhibitors perform limited work within certain size and hand-carry limits. Rigging, electrical, and larger structures run through the appropriate crews. A turnkey provider manages that coordination for you.
Chicago is one of the most rewarding trade show markets in the country and one of the most rule-bound. McCormick Place is the largest convention center in North America, and the same scale that puts thousands of buyers in front of you also comes with a labor, freight, and paperwork framework that catches first-time exhibitors off guard. The rules aren't obstacles so much as a system — and exhibitors who understand the system in advance install cleanly and avoid the surprise invoices that hit teams who don't. Here's what actually governs an exhibit rental in Chicago.
The Labor Environment at McCormick Place
McCormick Place work is coordinated across the venue's house unions , each with jurisdiction over specific tasks and steward sign-off at each phase of install and dismantle. Illinois' Trade Show Workers Right-to-Work framework gives exhibitors some flexibility to perform limited work themselves — typically within a booth-size threshold and hand-carry limits — but anything involving rigging, electrical, or larger structures runs through the appropriate crew.
The practical rule: know before you ship who is allowed to touch what. A rental provider that works the venue regularly coordinates the steward sign-offs and schedules the right crews, so the exhibitor isn't negotiating jurisdiction on the show floor under deadline pressure.
Drayage and Material Handling
Drayage — the handling of your freight from the dock to your booth space and back — is where Chicago budgets most often blow up. Material handling is billed in tiers based on package weight and category, and the rate structure changes periodically. Freight typically routes through a marshaling process, and there's a meaningful cost difference between advance-warehouse shipments and direct-to-show-site deliveries. The single most useful rule here: confirm your drayage tier and total estimated material-handling weight before you crate, not after the show when the invoice arrives.
Required Paperwork
A Chicago booth carries a paperwork trail that has to be filed on the organizer's timeline:
- EAC notification. If you use an Exhibitor-Appointed Contractor (an outside install crew), the show usually requires advance EAC paperwork and a certificate of insurance naming the correct parties.
- Certificate of Insurance (COI). Venues and shows specify minimum coverage limits and additional-insured language . Missing or incorrect COIs are a common cause of I&D access delays.
- Electrical and rigging orders. Power drops and hanging-sign rigging are ordered in advance through official channels; ordering on-site costs more and risks availability.
Rosemont Is Not McCormick Place
Chicago exhibiting isn't only McCormick Place. The Donald E. Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont hosts a large share of mid-size shows, and its labor and drayage rules differ from McCormick's . Don't assume a plan built for one venue transfers to the other — verify the exhibitor kit for the specific building your show uses.
Deadlines Are Part of the Rules
The rules at a Chicago show aren't only about who does the work — they're about when everything has to be ordered and filed. Advance-warehouse freight has a cutoff; electrical, rigging, and lead-retrieval orders carry early-bird deadlines that save real money; and EAC and COI paperwork must land on the organizer's schedule to clear I&D access. Missing a deadline isn't a paperwork nuisance, it's a cost — you pay show-site rates instead of advance rates, or you lose the discounted labor window. Build a countdown from your show date backward through every order deadline, or work with a provider whose project manager already runs that calendar for you.
How a Turnkey Rental Handles the Rules for You
The reason turnkey rental dominates in high-rule markets like Chicago is simple: every item above — union coordination, drayage tier confirmation, EAC and COI filing, electrical and rigging orders — is folded into one managed process and one invoice. Instead of the exhibitor tracking a dozen deadlines across the venue, the organizer, and multiple crews, a dedicated project manager runs the compliance and the exhibitor approves a design and shows up to a finished booth. For the full pricing and logistics picture by footprint, see our Chicago booth rental hub, and for large-island planning specifically, the Chicago 30x30 booth rentals page walks through the McCormick-specific considerations.