If you rent a mobile LED screen a handful of times a year, keep renting. If you are renting monthly, or you are the company other people rent from, the arithmetic changes. Here is the actual math, built on rental rates that named operators publish on their own websites rather than on numbers we made up.
What renting costs
Most of what you find searching for jumbotron rental prices is content marketing published by LED panel manufacturers with no rental operation and no disclosed methodology. We ignored all of it. The table below contains only rates that an actual US operator publishes on its own website, with a link to the page and the date we reviewed it. Where an operator publishes a range or a formula, we reproduce the range or the formula rather than collapsing it into a single number.
| Operator type | Screen | Published rate | Basis | Stated as included |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| National event-rental franchise Texas market |
17' x 10' | $6,500 | Flat rate, all-day rental; additional days at half price | Delivery, setup, trained operator, generator power, speakers, mics |
| National event-rental franchise Texas market |
23' x 13' | $9,500 | Flat rate, all-day rental; additional days at half price | Delivery, setup, trained operator, generator power, speakers, mics |
| Regional party and event rental company Midwest |
17' x 10' | $3,200 / $3,600 / $4,000 | Published tiers: 8 hours / 12 hours / 16-24 hours | Attendant, onboard generator, concert sound speakers, delivery |
| Independent AV production company Northern California |
17' x 10' | $3,000 - $5,000 | First day; each additional day listed at $1,500 - $2,500 | Operator on site throughout, generator or client 50-amp service |
| National event-rental franchise Mountain West |
17' x 10' | Starting at $2,999 | Starting price; page notes travel costs may be added | Self-contained unit, onboard power, technician setup |
| Regional AV rental company Nevada |
17' x 10' | $3,000 - $5,000 | Stated per-day range for this trailer size in that market | Setup, technician support, operation |
| Regional AV production company South Central US |
Not specified (12 ft and 17 ft fleet) | From $1,750 | Stated starting price for a single-day event | Self-contained trailer, onboard generator, professional operator |
| National mobile LED provider Nationwide |
Priced per square foot | $50 - $70 / sq ft | Stated day-one rate; following days at 20% of the day-one rate | Travel, setup, teardown and basic operation described as typically included |
| Municipal parks department Pacific Northwest |
17' x 10' | $750 - $875 / hour | Public rate card, 4-hour minimum ($3,000 resident / $3,500 non-resident) | City staff transport, set up and operate the screen |
These are other companies' published asking prices, not ours, not an offer, and not a prediction of what any screen will rent for in your market. Published pricing in this category is set territory by territory and changes without notice. Bundling varies enormously: some of these figures include an operator, a generator and a sound system, others do not say. Before you build a business case on any figure here, open the linked source and confirm it yourself.
The cleanest comparison is the 17 by 10 foot screen, because it is the most common trailer size in the US market and five separate operators publish something for it. Those published figures land between roughly $2,999 and $6,500 for a day, a spread of better than two to one for the same screen dimensions. The spread is not noise. It reflects market (San Antonio is not Denver), what is bundled (operator, generator, audio, travel), and how each operator positions itself.
The second pattern is that additional days get cheap fast. Half price for day two is common and one operator publishes 20% of the day-one rate. Renting is therefore far more competitive for a three-day festival than a single-day rate makes it look, and far less competitive for twenty scattered single-day events.
The third pattern is the most useful and the least discussed: the majority of operators publish nothing. We confirmed no published trailer rate at all on the sites of six further operators, including several of the largest national providers, all of which route every enquiry to a quote form. If you are weighing becoming a rental operator yourself, the fact that your competitors will not publish a price is worth noting.
The arithmetic
Take the MB-15, our 17 by 10 foot trailer, at its $75,000 starting price, and divide by the published day rates for that same screen size. This is deliberately the simplest possible calculation, and its limitations are the point.
| Published day rate (17' x 10') | Source operator | Days to equal $75,000 |
|---|---|---|
| $6,500 | National franchise, Texas market | About 12 days |
| $5,000 | Independent AV company, top of published first-day range | 15 days |
| $4,000 | Regional rental company, 16-24 hr tier | About 19 days |
| $3,200 | Regional rental company, 8 hr tier | About 23 days |
| $2,999 | National franchise, Mountain West territory | 25 days |
Twelve to twenty-five days is the answer to the wrong question. A rental invoice buys you a screen, a delivery, a setup, an operator, a generator, insurance, and somebody else's maintenance and depreciation, all on a day you already have revenue for. Ownership means you provide all of that on every day, including the days nobody books. Before you treat any figure in that table as a break-even, subtract your tow vehicle, insurance, storage, fuel, maintenance, content production, and the value of the hours you will personally spend setting up and operating a screen.
Not “how many days pay for the trailer,” but “do I want to own equipment?” Owning means fixed cost against variable revenue, which is leverage in both directions. A trailer that works 60 days a year at healthy rates is an excellent business. The same trailer at 15 days a year is an expensive asset with a payment attached. Nobody can tell you which one you will have except your own booking history.
Straight answer
We sell trailers. We would still rather you rent than buy the wrong thing, because a customer who bought a trailer they could not keep busy does not come back.
Keep renting
Under roughly a dozen screen days annually, a rental is cheaper, simpler, and carries none of the ownership overhead. You pay only on days you are already being paid.
Keep renting
Towing a trailer across three states to a one-day event costs more in fuel, hours and wear than a local rental in that market. Ownership rewards density, not distance.
Keep renting
If one job needs 100 square feet and the next needs 600, renting the right size each time beats owning one compromise. Buy when your bookings have converged on a size.
Buy
When rental invoices arrive monthly, the payment on a financed trailer starts looking like a line item rather than a leap, and every day after break-even is margin instead of cost of goods.
Buy
The operators in the table above own their fleets. If your plan is to sell screen days rather than buy them, you need the asset. Talk to your insurer and your tax advisor about lessor rules first.
Buy
If you have lost bookings because nothing was available on a peak weekend, or you need a screen on your own schedule with your own branding on the wrap, renting cannot fix that. Owning can.
Not sure which side you fall on? Send us last year's event calendar and what you paid in rentals. We will run it honestly, and we will tell you if the answer is to keep renting.
If you are buying
The 13 to 20 foot screens are where the rental market lives, which is why they are the models most often bought as revenue equipment.
MB-10From $55,00013.12' x 8.2' · The workhorse. 100+ sq ft, 18 ft lift, onboard audio.
MB-15From $75,00017' x 10' · 160+ sq ft for festivals and broadcasts, still bumper-pull.
MB-15EFrom $90,00017' x 10' · The 17' x 10' screen inside a weather-sealed enclosed body.
MB-22From $110,00020' x 11.5' · 230 sq ft flatbed screen for festival fields and stadium lots.
All 15 MOBO modelsFull lineupEvery trailer, golf cart, and solar unit with specs, downloads, and pricing.
Frequently asked
If your question is not here, call or use the quote form and we will answer it straight.
Rates operators published on their own websites for a 17 by 10 foot mobile LED trailer ranged from about $2,999 to $6,500 for a day when we recorded them on September 21, 2026, with most including delivery, setup and an operator. A national event-rental franchise listed $6,500 flat rate in the Texas market; an independent AV production company in Northern California listed $3,000 to $5,000 for the first day; the same franchise's Mountain West territory listed starting at $2,999; and a Midwest party-rental company listed tiers from $3,200 for 8 hours up to $4,000 for 16 to 24 hours. Rates vary by market, size and what is bundled in, and many operators publish no prices at all. These figures are informational only and change without notice.
Purely on rental spend, a $75,000 MB-15 equals roughly 12 to 25 days of renting a comparable 17 by 10 foot screen at the published day rates above. That calculation ignores everything ownership adds: tow vehicle, insurance, storage, fuel, maintenance, staffing and the hours you spend operating the screen yourself. Include those and the real crossover moves out considerably. The honest version of the question is not how many days pay for the trailer, it is whether you want to be in the equipment business.
For a handful of events a year, renting is almost always cheaper and always simpler: somebody else owns the depreciation, the maintenance and the risk, and you pay only on the days you earn. Buying starts to make sense when you are renting frequently enough that the payments look small next to the invoices, when you want to rent to others rather than from them, or when you need the screen on short notice in a market where rentals are booked out.
Every published multi-day structure we reviewed discounted subsequent days steeply. One national franchise listed additional days at half price. An independent AV production company listed $1,500 to $2,500 for each additional day against a $3,000 to $5,000 first day. A nationwide mobile LED provider published a formula of $50 to $70 per square foot for day one and 20% of that rate for following days. If your events are multi-day, renting is more competitive than a single-day rate suggests.
Most do not. Of the operators we checked, the majority, including several of the largest national players, publish no rate at all and route everything to a quote form. One national franchise is instructive: its corporate pricing page explains that pricing varies by territory, one of its territory pages publishes a starting figure, and three others say call for pricing. Treat any single published number as one operator in one market, not as a market rate.
Many owners do, and it is the most common way buyers justify the purchase. Two cautions. Renting equipment out has its own insurance, contract and damage-liability profile, so talk to your agent before the first booking. And there are Section 179 restrictions on noncorporate lessors that buy equipment primarily to lease to others, so if rental is your main plan rather than a side use, raise it with your tax advisor before year end.
Run your own numbers
Send us how many screen days you booked last year and what you paid for them. We will put it against a purchase and tell you honestly which way it comes out, including the cases where the answer is keep renting.
info@fullblastsound.com · San Antonio, TX
Important notice
The information on this page is provided for general educational and informational purposes only. It is not legal, tax, accounting, financial, insurance or other professional advice, and it is not an offer of credit or a solicitation. Fullblast Sound & Lights is an equipment dealer; we are not attorneys, accountants, tax advisors or lenders, and nothing here creates a professional or advisory relationship.
Laws, tax figures, regulations, local ordinances, licensing requirements, lender terms and third-party prices change and vary by jurisdiction and by individual circumstances. You should independently verify anything on this page and consult your own attorney, accountant, tax advisor, insurance agent and lender before acting on it. Figures attributed to our financing partner are theirs, and approval is never guaranteed. Prices and specifications are subject to change and are not an offer.
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