Expo Hire launched in 2014 as the UK's first fully online event equipment hire business. 11 regional depots, no deposit, live stock and pricing.
Before Expo Hire launched in 2014, booking event equipment meant calling a hire company, waiting for a manual stock check, getting a quote by email or fax and confirming by phone. Stock levels were hidden and you often didn't know your order was confirmed until a few days before the event.
We built Expo Hire to fix that. The website launched with live stock levels, instant pricing and online ordering — the first system of its kind in the UK event hire market. Customers could check what was available on their dates, see the exact price and book without a single phone call.
The business started from a single warehouse in Birmingham. Over the following years we opened depots in Bristol, Cardiff, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, London and further locations, building a hub network that now covers England and Wales from 11 locations — Bristol & Avon, Birmingham, London, Chiltern, Cotswold, East Midlands, North West, Solent, South Wales, Thames Valley and Yorkshire.
As the network grew, we developed the EventPro® range — furniture specified in-house for the logistics of hire. Standard retail furniture fails under repeated loading and unloading. EventPro chairs and tables are built to handle a full season of events without showing wear.
Expo Hire is an approved supplier at Glastonbury Festival (8 years), the British Grand Prix at Silverstone (8 years) and the Wimbledon Champions Ball (10 years). We supplied 12,000 folding chairs for the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham. Regular clients include the BBC, ITV, HSBC, Cambridge University, Jaguar Land Rover and the NHS.
University exam contracts run to 1,000 desks and chairs, set up and broken down 7 days a week. Corporate conference orders run to 1,000 padded chairs across multiple venues. Council election setups run to 300 tables and 500 chairs. The scale of the work shapes how the business is built — 11 hubs, live stock tracking, guaranteed orders, 7-day delivery.
Expo Hire handles more than 150 orders a week. Rated 4.9 out of 5 from over 4,000 verified hires. The live stock and instant pricing system that launched in 2014 remains the foundation — but it now runs across 11 hubs and integrates live vehicle tracking, morning or afternoon delivery windows and 7-day live chat support.
In 2018 we launched Expo Direct. Where Expo Hire rents equipment for events, Expo Direct sells the same commercial-grade furniture and catering equipment outright to businesses that want to own it permanently.