Exhibiting at NeoCon 2027
NeoCon is the most important annual event for commercial interiors — contract furniture, textiles, lighting, flooring and materials — held every June at theMART in Chicago. The 2027 edition runs June 13–16 (Preview Day on the 13th, exhibits the 14th–16th). The show is unusual: much of it lives in theMART’s permanent multi-floor showrooms, but the temporary exhibit program on the 7th and 8th floors is where booth rentals come in — emerging brands and companies without a standing Chicago showroom take stand space there.
NeoCon’s audience is architects and designers (A&D), so the bar on finish and material honesty is higher than almost any other show. A booth that looks like a trade-show booth reads as a red flag to a specifier. The winning stands feel like a designed interior — real materials, considered lighting, and product shown the way it would live in a project.
Building for an A&D audience
At NeoCon the booth is a material sample at full scale. Designers touch surfaces, judge edges and read the lighting, so the construction quality has to survive that scrutiny. A 10x10 carries a focused product story for a single line; a 20x20 island lets a brand stage two or three vignettes; a 30x30 supports a full mini-showroom with seating and a meeting corner.
Lighting is the highest-impact spend — contract furniture and textiles are judged on color and texture, both of which live or die on the lighting design. We treat the lighting plan as a first-class part of the build, not an add-on.
theMART logistics
theMART runs on a defined union and loading-dock structure, and move-in for the temporary floors is tightly scheduled around the building’s freight elevators — there is no drive-on floor like a convention center. That makes crate sizing and a labeled load-in sequence genuinely important; an oversized crate that won’t fit the freight elevator is a real risk here. We pre-build and inspect in Las Vegas, ship 5–7 days, and crate to theMART’s elevator and dock constraints so the install goes cleanly.
The pre-build matters more at theMART than at a typical hall: the install window is short and the building’s logistics leave no room to solve a build problem on the floor.
Pricing for a NeoCon booth
Chicago is an 85% city on our cost model. A turnkey NeoCon stand runs from about $11,400 for a 10x10 to roughly $101,200 for a premium 30x30 island, all-inclusive. For an A&D show, expect the value to skew toward finish and lighting rather than raw size — a beautifully built 20x20 outperforms a plain 30x30 with this audience.
Every quote is one number: design, build, graphics, freight, install, dismantle and theMART paperwork.
