Exhibiting is expensive enough without your stand kit living in the office corridor between shows. Pop-up stands, shell-scheme walls, pull-up banners, AV equipment and boxes of brochures all need somewhere secure, dry and easy to reach when the next show lands. That’s what our exhibition storage in Manchester is for: one container on our Salford yard, ready for load-in and load-out whenever your show calendar says so. Film and TV productions with props and sets between shoots have their own dedicated storage option.
What is exhibition storage?
Exhibition storage is secure off-site space where companies keep their trade-show kit — stands, displays, graphics, AV equipment, product samples and printed materials — between events. Rather than paying warehouse rates year-round or clogging the office, your kit sits in a dedicated steel container that you open, load, and lock with your own padlock.
Swift Secure Self Storage Containers in Salford offers exhibition storage in Manchester from £25 a week for a 10ft container. The yard is open 7 days a week, 9am to 9pm, with 24/7 CCTV monitoring — so a pre-show pull-out on a Sunday morning or a late load-in on a Friday night is never a problem.
Who uses exhibition storage around Manchester?
The UK exhibitions industry is bigger than most people realise: 1,145 exhibitions ran in 2024, drawing 7.2 million visitors and 132,000 exhibiting companies, and generating £11.5 billion in economic output with 126,000 jobs (Exhibition News, citing EIA/Oxford Economics 2025 research). The 2025 figures are stronger still — £11.7 billion of output and over 127,000 jobs (EIA research, August 2026, via Event Technology Portal).
Manchester carries its share of that. Manchester Central — the old Central Station turned convention complex — marked its 40th anniversary having hosted more than 4,100 exhibitions and events for around 12 million visitors, contributing roughly £150 million a year to the local economy and welcoming about 500,000 visitors a year (Prolific North). Behind every one of those exhibitors is a pile of kit that needs a home between shows. Our business storage customers include exactly these kinds of firms — companies that exhibit three, four, five times a year and need their stand ready to roll, not buried in a stockroom.
What kit can you store?
More than you’d expect. A full exhibition kit typically includes: pop-up or shell-scheme stand walls, pull-up and roller banners, counter units, AV equipment (screens, projectors, speakers, lighting), product samples and demonstration stock, printed materials (brochures, flyers, business cards), branded tablecloths and point-of-sale displays, and palletised backup stock for big shows.
What can’t go in: anything perishable or temperature-sensitive (food samples, cosmetics needing cool storage), and anything you need daily access to — a container is between-shows storage, not a dispatch warehouse. It’s also distinct from our market-trader storage, which is built around outdoor stalls and gazebos, and our retail-shop storage, which holds year-round shop stock — exhibition kit has a specific rhythm: show, store, show. And unlike our artist-studio storage, which is about portfolios and small work, exhibition stands are big, rigid, and awkward — which is exactly why a ground-level container with full-width doors suits them so well.
How does it work between shows?
The rhythm is simple: after a show, your team brings the kit back to the yard, unloads into your container, and locks up. Before the next show, you drive in during opening hours, load the van, and go. Because the yard is open 7 days from 9am to 9pm, you’re not bound to a warehouse’s Monday-to-Friday loading bay — Sunday-morning show prep is normal for us.
A few practical tips from exhibitors who do this well: keep an inventory list taped inside the container door (after show three, nobody remembers which banner tube is which); stack heavier stand walls at the back and lighter banners and brochures at the front; and leave the AV kit in its flight cases rather than loose. One exhibitor’s rule of thumb: if setup takes more than two people to find, it needs labelling.
What size unit does an exhibition kit need?
A 10ft container (from £25/week) comfortably holds a standard pop-up kit: one 3x3m pop-up stand, two or three roller banners, a counter, a flight-cased screen, and several boxes of brochures. A 20ft container (from £40/week) takes a full shell-scheme setup — wall panels, counters, AV, lighting rigs and palletised stock — with room to spare.
The honest way to size it: lay out your kit once, measure the footprint, and compare it against our container size guide. Shell-scheme wall panels are the surprise space-eater — they’re bulky rather than heavy, so volume matters more than weight. If you’re between sizes, go up: an extra few pounds a week is nothing compared to a stand wall warped because it was wedged in sideways.
Is it secure enough for expensive stands and AV kit?
This is the question every exhibitor asks, and the answer is yes — a steel container with the right setup is as secure as most small warehouses. At Swift Secure Self Storage Containers in Salford, every unit is secured with your own padlock (nobody else holds a key), the yard is covered by 24/7 CCTV monitoring, and the site is staffed during opening hours 7 days a week.
AV kit and high-value stands deserve one extra step: check your business insurance covers equipment in storage, or read our storage insurance guide before your first show. Photograph the kit on load-in — exhibitors who do this once never skip it again, because the one time a screen arrives at a show with a crack, the dated photo settles the argument instantly. Our security setup is explained in full on our container security page.
How much does exhibition storage cost?
Exhibition storage at our Salford yard starts from £25 a week for a 10ft container and £40 a week for a 20ft container. Compare that with what exhibitors usually do: a corner of a rented office (£hundreds a month), a pallet-racking slot in a 3PL warehouse (monthly minimums, handling charges), or a garage that eats the graphics every winter.
The show-calendar math is what sells it. Five shows a year means roughly forty weeks of dead storage between them — on a weekly rate you pay for the weeks you actually use. Extend when a show is added, stop when your calendar clears. Our published costs page sets out pricing openly. No long contract, no handling fees, no surprises — just your stand, waiting for the next show.
Ready when your next show is
If your exhibition kit is currently spread across the office, a garage and the back of a van, one container on our Salford yard fixes it. Call 07375 063637 — we’re open 7 days, 9am–9pm, with 24/7 CCTV monitoring across the site. Tell us what you’re storing and we’ll tell you which size fits.