Convention center rates are kind of ridiculous, but they're sort of like airports in that they both charge ridiculous rates for common goods in their controlled

Convention center rates are kind of ridiculous, but they're sort of like airports in that they both charge ridiculous rates for common goods in their controlled areas. Also similar to airports, I doubt that the local monopoly is illegal since it's usually the city that sets it up. The problem here seems to be that they were messing with transmissions, which the FCC has control over. Although I agree, just because it's legal doesn't make it less of a pain. Back when I was an exhibitor at conferences, we used to get Ikea furniture delivered to the hotel, carry it in, assemble it ourselves, and just leave it at the end of the conference. It was about 1/8 the price of rental furniture. Different convention centers have different rules, but the ones I went to used to allow you to assemble anything you could bring in the front doors. If it came in the back doors you'd need to pay drayage and assembly fees. We had a collapsible booth that was very useful in this regard.