hether you're buying boats or booths, buyers' remorse is a common side effect. While both can certainly deliver their own kind of ROI - be it fun and sun or leads and sales - they're far from inexpensive. Plus, boaters and exhibitors assume that once they've made their initial investments, it's smooth sailing from there. But that's when unexpected ancillary costs, surprise expenditures, and ongoing maintenance and storage costs can capsize your budget.

With boats you've got everything from anchors and life jackets to bumper buoys and slip fees. With booths there's everything from furniture rental and lighting to pull-and-prep charges and storage. Before you know it, your yearly expenses are double or triple what you expected, and you're left wondering how all of these extra charges snuck up on you.

However, the good news, at least for exhibit buyers, is that buyers' remorse is easily avoided. All you need is a basic understanding of exhibiting costs. And that means all of the costs - not just those in your original purchase agreement - from I&D supervision to off-floor storage.

To help you get a handle on all of your exhibiting expenses, EXHIBITOR teamed up with Denver-based Condit Exhibits to create this cost analysis for a hypothetical 20-by-20-foot custom exhibit (below, click to enlarge). The detailed analysis provides a comprehensive list of potential expenses as well as cost estimates to assist you with your own budget.

The form below also serves as a worksheet that can be adapted to almost any program. Simply download this Excel spreadsheet and input your own budget estimates plus any additional expenses specific to your program.

Stocked with a bit of pre-purchase knowledge and cost estimates, you'll sail around hidden budget busters and bypass buyers' remorse.e