How to check venue rules before adding an LED wall

An LED wall is heavy, draws a lot of power and is often hung from the roof, so the venue has a say before it goes on your stand. The screen itself is rarely the hard part. What catches people out is a weight nobody added up, a power order that was too small, or a rigging plan sent after the deadline.

Every venue and organiser sets their own rules, and your exhibitor manual is the final word. To show what to look for, we've pulled examples from the published guidelines and exhibitor pages of five Australian convention centres, each openly published on the venue's own site. Here are the seven checks to make before you commit to an LED wall. If you're still choosing between LED, projection and LCD panels, our format comparison covers that first.

Wide LED screen showing grey umbrellas and one orange-red umbrella, hung from a black truss under the ceiling lights of an exhibition hall

Our top 7 checks

#1 - Add up the weight

Our LED walls are usually made of 500mm x 500mm modules, and each module is typically 9 to 12kg. Multiply by the number of modules to get the screen weight. A 4m x 2.5m wall is 8 modules across and 5 high, 40 modules in all, so it weighs 40 x 9 = 360kg to 40 x 12 = 480kg.

That is the screen alone. The frame, base or rigging hardware adds more, so ask for the total weight in writing with the quote.

#2 - Check the floor loading

Exhibition halls take a lot of weight, but other rooms take less, and some venues want to know about heavy items in advance:

ICC Sydney: the exhibition halls have a floor loading capacity of 20 kPa (2,000kg per square metre). Other areas of the venue are 5 kPa (500kg per square metre).
Brisbane Convention & Exhibition Centre (BCEC): any item "weighing more than 500 kilograms must be assessed prior to the item or equipment being positioned". The organiser gives the venue the base dimensions, gross weight, a picture or diagram and the location on the floor plan.
Adelaide Convention Centre: live load allowances range from 5 kPa (500kg per square metre) to 20 kPa (2,000kg per square metre), depending on the hall or foyer.

The 4m x 2.5m wall in #1 is close to BCEC's 500kg mark before its frame is counted. If the wall is going into a foyer, ballroom or pre-function area rather than a hall, ask for that room's floor limit.

#3 - Decide: floor-standing or hung

A ground-stacked wall stands on its own frame on the stand. A flown wall hangs from the venue's roof, and venues control that work tightly:

ICC Sydney: primary rigging is installed by the venue. Secondary rigging in the exhibition halls "can be provided by ICC Sydney authorised rigging providers or contracted directly by clients". Here "clients" means whoever hires the space, usually the organiser, so check with your organiser and ICC Sydney before you book a rigger yourself.
Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre (MCEC): "All rigging services at MCEC are delivered by our in-house team." Requests go through its Rigging Request Form (exhibitor resources page).
BCEC: "All rigging within the centre will be performed or supervised by the centre's licensed riggers".
Adelaide Convention Centre: the venue "has exclusive rights to perform rigging", and items must be rigged within the exhibitor's site unless the organiser gives written approval.

Venue rigging is booked as a separate service, so get a rigging quote before you choose a flown wall over a floor-standing one.

#4 - Work out the power and order it early

Ask your supplier for the wall's maximum and average power draw. As an example, one manufacturer's data sheet for an indoor 3.91mm wall lists a maximum of 520 W per square metre and an average of 130 W per square metre, and plans about 5 square metres of wall per 16 A circuit. For a 4m x 2.5m wall (10 square metres) that works out at:

10 x 520 = 5,200 W at maximum brightness
10 x 130 = 1,300 W on average
10 ÷ 5 = 2 of that maker's 16 A circuits, with the controller on a separate circuit

That maker's figure is for European circuits, and at maximum this wall draws about 23 amps, more than two ordinary 10 amp power points can carry. Have the venue's or show's electrician work out how it connects.

Order power for the maximum figure, plus the media player, lighting and anything else on the stand, and plan how the wall will be connected. Adelaide Convention Centre, for example, allows four piggy-backed connections at a lead end only "so long as the total load connected through the plug adaptor does not exceed 1200W". This wall's 5,200 W maximum is more than four times that.

You order power through the venue or the show's contractor. At ICC Sydney, "Power quotations can be arranged through your dedicated ICC Sydney event manager". Check the order deadline in your exhibitor manual.

#5 - Test and tag everything

Every venue we checked requires electrical equipment to be tested and tagged. That includes the wall, the controller, media players and every lead:

BCEC: "Any electrical equipment found to be untagged must be tested & tagged or removed from BCEC site immediately." AV equipment that exhibitors source themselves must come with a current electrical test tag.
Perth Convention and Exhibition Centre: portable electrical equipment, appliances and leads must be tested and tagged before entering the centre.
Adelaide Convention Centre: detachable cords, such as IEC leads, extension leads and power boards, are tested separately from the equipment they come with. The venue offers on-site tagging at $11.50 per item.
MCEC: its exhibitor checklist says to test and tag every piece of electrical equipment before coming on site.

#6 - Check height and structural sign-off

A floor-standing LED wall on its frame can end up taller than you planned. Check two things:

The height limit. At ICC Sydney, structures in Exhibition Halls 1 to 4 may not exceed 5m in height. Custom stand plans need organiser approval and ICC Sydney review before they are built. Check your exhibitor manual for your show's requirements.
Engineering. At BCEC, all building or construction work over 2.4m high must have a plan of the structure designed by an engineer. Adelaide Convention Centre can ask at any time for a written engineer's report on the structural safety of any design or construction, at the contractor's cost.

Bring the wall's height, weight and frame drawings to the stand design review, not to bump-in.

#7 - Put every deadline in the calendar

In the guidelines we checked, the venue deadlines that affect an LED wall fall two to three weeks before the show, and your organiser may set an earlier date than the venue does:

ICC Sydney: rigging plans are due 21 days before move-in, and late plans may mean the item can't be rigged.
Adelaide Convention Centre: rigging requests with supporting documents are due no later than 14 days before the event, and changes within three days of the event may cost extra.
BCEC: the venue asks for at least 14 days' notice of any requirement that uses or connects to its infrastructure.

For the full run-up to a show, see our exhibition planning timeline.

What to send us

The exhibitor manual, or the show name and venue.
Your stand size, floor plan and the build height allowed.
Where the wall will go, its size, and whether it stands on the floor or hangs.
The show dates, including bump-in and bump-out.

Our LED walls are built to order and quoted individually. We confirm timing once the specification is set; most custom LED walls take around three weeks to produce. We supply and install digital displays for events Australia-wide, at venues including ICC Sydney, MCEC and BCEC, and our installation and pack-down team deals with the organiser for you.

Send us the venue manual, or call 1300 240 250, and we'll check your LED wall plan against it.