Running a Product Launch in a Canton Fair Meeting Room: the SI Room Is CNY 1,500 a Session, Interpreters Not Included

Checked on 6 October 2026. We are Guangzhou Guanri Translation Service Co., Ltd. (广州市贯日翻译服务有限公司), an interpreting company based in Guangzhou. We are not the Canton Fair organiser, not the Fair's designated venue-service contractor, and not a law firm. The conference interpreting this article recommends is what we sell, so read it as an article written by a seller. It is not legal advice and not compliance advice. Prices, conditions and deadlines come from official Canton Fair documents and are sourced; where a figure comes from our FAQ page, that sentence says so.

Today (6 October 2026) the Canton Fair posted its on-site service fee schedule for the 140th session, with thirteen attachments. Attachment 9 covers meeting-room and VIP-room hire; Attachment 13 covers interpreting. Read them together with the venue handbook attached to the Fair's 30 September notice on meeting-room and VIP-room applications and one thing stands out that exhibitors tend to miss: a meeting room can be booked with a simultaneous-interpretation room for CNY 1,500 per room per session, but that is equipment, not interpreters. The Fair's interpreting price list has two items only, booth interpreting and escort interpreting.

This is for exhibitors planning a product launch, a supplier–buyer matchmaking session or a round-table inside the Complex who need foreign buyers to follow it — and for the overseas partners and buyers they invite.

1. Which row is yours

All dates are for the 140th session: Phase 1 runs 15–19 October, Phase 2 23–27 October, Phase 3 31 October – 4 November. Venue matters are handled by the Fair's designated service partner, Guangzhou Canton Fair Exhibition Engineering Co., Ltd. (广州广交会展览工程有限公司; English name ours); the handbook lists two service contacts, Mr Deng 020-89138012 and Mr Lao 020-89139625.

Who you are	What the official documents say	What to do	Who decides
You are an exhibitor planning a launch or matchmaking session	Applicants are exhibitors, trading delegations, chambers of commerce and the like; as a rule only for your own phase, not across phases; one company may not use rooms for more than 1 consecutive day (two sessions). Applications are reviewed in order of submission and are final only once the contract is signed and paid	Apply in the exhibitor system (参展易捷通): Customer Service → meeting-room/VIP-room booking. If unsure, call 020-89138012 or 020-89139625 first	The Fair reviews; the designated service partner signs
You are a foreign buyer or partner who wants a room	The applicant list names exhibitors, trading delegations, chambers of commerce "and the like" and does not name buyers	If the event is your supplier's and you are invited, the supplier applies in its own name. The handbook prohibits transferring or subletting a room to a third party (Part 5, item (3)), so booking under someone else's name for you runs into that rule. Whether you can apply yourself, ask 020-89138012 or 020-89139625; if you do not speak Chinese, ask your supplier to make the call	The Fair
You need simultaneous interpretation	SI room CNY 1,500 per room per session, including the central unit, interpreter console, microphone, headphones and infrared transmitter; listener headsets and receivers CNY 30 per set per session, plus a deposit of CNY 3,500 per set — literally per set; ask how it is taken and returned and get it in writing (§3)	Book the equipment from the designated service partner (020-89138012, 020-89139625); source the interpreters separately. To ask us, WhatsApp +86 139 2416 6640 with the phase, the room, how many languages and how many listeners	Equipment: the designated service partner. Whether our interpreters are free: us
Yours is a round-table of a dozen people or a VIP reception	Rooms 15 and 16 seat 14 each; the VIP rooms seat 10–21 (§2)	At that size, consecutive interpreting without an SI room is an option; your call. Our consecutive starting rates are on our FAQ page (§5)	You
You want to bring your own SI equipment	The handbook says room set-up and supporting services are provided by the designated service partner and asks applicants not to bring signage "and other" set-up materials; it does not say whether SI equipment counts	Before you book any equipment, call 020-89138012 and get the answer in writing. We rent equipment too, but in these rooms follow their answer	The designated service partner
Your interpreter needs to get into the Complex	The handbook says room use does not include badge services; attendees apply for badges under the badge notice themselves. Annex 1 of the badge notice gives the exhibitor representative badge to "personnel assisting export-section exhibitors", CNY 200 a day plus CNY 50, and does not name interpreters	Call the Badge Service Centre enquiry line, 020-89074092, ask which badge this interpreter needs, and apply only once you have the answer (§6)	The Badge Service Centre
You are having invitations, backdrops or name cards translated	Promotion using names associated with the Canton Fair is strictly prohibited, e.g. "广交会同期会议活动" ("Canton Fair concurrent meeting event"), "广交会会议合作伙伴" ("Canton Fair meeting partner"), "广交会系列活动" ("Canton Fair series event") — English renderings ours	Describe the location as "Canton Fair Complex", "China Import and Export Fair Complex" or "Canton Fair Hall"; carry the same meaning into the foreign-language version (§7)	The Fair
You book and then cancel	Cancel 5 days before move-in: no penalty; from 5 days (5 days inclusive) to 2 days before: 30% of the venue fee to be refunded; from 2 days (2 days inclusive) before move-in until move-in: 50%; after move-in: 100%. Because the second band says "5 days inclusive", on our reading day 5 itself already falls in the 30% band, so a penalty-free cancellation has to come earlier; count back from the move-in day	Secure the room before you book interpreters. Ask how our own cancellation and rescheduling work when we quote	Room: the designated service partner. Interpreters: our quote

2. Seventeen rooms: size, capacity, price per session

The notice says 17 rooms; the handbook divides them into 10 meeting rooms and 7 VIP rooms, in Area B, Area C and the Canton Fair Hall. The table below is copied from Annex 2 of the handbook; the prices match Attachment 9 of today's fee schedule. A "session" (节) is 4 hours, including set-up, rehearsal, use and clear-out; under 4 hours counts as one session, over 4 hours as two. The three slots are 9:00–13:00, 14:00–18:00 and 19:00–23:00.

Room	Location	Layout	Area (m²)	Capacity	Fee (CNY per session)
Meeting Room 1	Area B, 4F	Classroom	272	Podium 9, audience 189	7,300
Meeting Room 2	Area B, 4F	Theatre	204	Podium 9, audience 127	5,800
Meeting Room 5	Area B, 4F	Theatre	89	Podium 4, audience 89	3,450
Meeting Room 8	Area B, 3F	Multi-function hall	1,002	Classroom 672, theatre 1,040	20,850
Meeting Room 15	Area B, 1F	Round table	40	14	1,350
Meeting Room 16	Area B, 1F	Round table	40	14	1,350
Room 101	Canton Fair Hall, 1F	Round table	115	28	5,560
Room 204	Canton Fair Hall, 2F	Theatre	141	Theatre 160, classroom 98, sofa 18	6,800
Meeting Room No. 1 (第一会议室)	Canton Fair Hall, 2F	Theatre; splits into Halls A and B	730 (365 each)	Theatre 660, classroom 414	36,700 (18,200 per hall)
Room 203	Canton Fair Hall, 2F	Theatre	268	225	13,200
Taohua VIP Room	Area B, 1F	Round table	67	16	2,100
Hongmian VIP Room	Area B, 1F	Sofa	89	12	1,800
Zijing VIP Room	Area B, 1F	Sofa	89	12	1,800
VIP Room 7	Area B, 4F	Sofa	56	10	500
Sihai VIP Room	Area C, 1F	Sofa	90	10	1,300
Yingbin VIP Room	Area C, 1F	Sofa	90	21	1,300
V3 VIP Room	Canton Fair Hall, 1F	Sofa	123	12	4,300

Two charges the table above leaves out: for each session hired, a further session's fee is taken as a prepayment and settled afterwards; network and power are charged separately under the Fair's exhibitor service guide. The handbook lists each room's standard kit (microphones, projector or LED screen); check it against what you need before you book. If your launch involves samples, note Part 5, item (2): the rooms are for meetings and VIP receptions, large concentrated displays of samples are not allowed, and a breach means the Fair cancels that meeting at once and removes your eligibility to apply for meeting rooms this session; the application form also asks what you are bringing (e.g. samples). Declare it truthfully and ask how much is acceptable. Item (10) adds that if a meeting is stopped for prohibited content, fees are not refunded.

Two sentences in the handbook need reading together. Part 3 says a session's 4 hours include "set-up, rehearsal, use and clear-out" (our translation). Part 5, item (1), says one company may use rooms for no more than 1 consecutive day (two sessions), "not including pre-meeting rehearsal, set-up, equipment testing and other preparation" (our translation). The handbook does not say how the two fit together. Simultaneous interpreting needs a sound check with the interpreters before the start, so ask 020-89138012 when you book whether rehearsal comes out of your session, and match the interpreters' call time to the answer. Part 5, item (13) says hired equipment is switched on half an hour before the meeting time, and earlier testing has to be arranged with the designated service partner.

3. The SI room: what the Fair's price list says, and what it doesn't

Remark 3 under Annex 2 of the handbook is one sentence in Chinese, quoted in full (our translation; we found no official English version):

Simultaneous interpretation room CNY 1,500 per room per session, including central unit, interpreter console, microphone, headphones and infrared transmitter; listener stereo headsets and receivers CNY 30 per set per session; a deposit of CNY 3,500 per set is required.

Three charges, then: the SI room by room and session; listener headsets and receivers by set and session; the deposit by set. Read literally, the deposit uses the same unit as the receivers, "set" (套), which means CNY 3,500 per receiver — CNY 140,000 for 40 listeners. The handbook says nothing more about how the deposit is taken or returned, so ask the designated service partner before you book and get the answer in writing; do not budget on our literal reading.

A worked example from the price list (the Fair's side only, excluding deposit and network): one session in Meeting Room 5, Area B, one foreign language, 40 listeners on receivers — room CNY 3,450, SI room CNY 1,500, receivers 40 × 30 = CNY 1,200, total CNY 6,150; plus one more session's room fee, CNY 3,450, as a prepayment settled afterwards. The interpreters' fees are not in this.

Now Attachment 13 of today's fee schedule (interpreting). It is a two-row table, English in the first row and nine other languages in the second, and each row has only booth interpreting and escort interpreting: English CNY 600 / 800 a day; Spanish, Italian, Russian, French, Arabic, Portuguese, Korean, Japanese and German CNY 800 / 1,000 a day. Conference simultaneous interpreting is not on this list. The Fair's interpreting service page also states its scope, in its own English:

We provide interpretation service inside the Canton Fair Complex during opening hours of the Fair.

One sentence, quoted in full. The Chinese version of the same page is narrower: it says the Buyer Service Centre provides only (仅) interpreting inside the Complex during opening hours. A meeting room is inside the Complex, so for a dozen-person round-table needing consecutive interpreting you can ask the Fair whether its escort interpreters work in meeting rooms — its page does not mention meeting rooms and we do not answer for it. Before opening, call (020)89138055 or write to ISC@cantonfair.org.cn; from 15 October booking moves to the Buyer Service Centre points inside the Complex, with the addresses and numbers on its interpretation service page.

4. How many interpreters for SI, and how far ahead

Every figure in this section comes from our FAQ page, not from an official document or an industry rule:

Standard staffing is 2 interpreters per booth per session per language; a half-day session (4 hours) typically still requires 2 per booth. So a launch with one foreign language means two interpreters on our staffing; two foreign languages means two booths and four interpreters — in which case ask the designated service partner whether one SI room can carry two language channels, which the handbook does not say.
Conference SI starts at ¥5,000 per interpreter per day, with no fixed upper bound, depending on language pair, subject and seniority. Our FAQ does not list a separate half-day rate; we quote each job.
Booking lead time (our FAQ gives this for interpreting in general, not only SI): for rare language pairs or large conferences, 4–8 weeks; common pairs (Chinese↔English/Japanese/Korean) can usually be scheduled 1–2 weeks ahead.

Counting from 6 October, Phase 1 opens in 9 days, already inside two weeks; Phase 2 in 17 days, Phase 3 in 25. If you are a Phase 1 exhibitor arranging SI only now, send us the phase and languages to check availability at the same time as you apply for the room (no payment yet), and confirm once the room is secured; put "Phase 1" in the first line of your message.

What SI interpreters need in advance: the script or slides, a bilingual list of product names and model numbers, and the speaker list. The earlier they have them, the steadier the session.

5. Meetings that do not need SI

Rooms 15 and 16 seat 14 each; the VIP rooms seat 10 to 21. At that size — a VIP reception, a business meeting, a pre-signing round-table — the common arrangement is consecutive interpreting: one interpreter at the table, rendering each passage after the speaker, with no SI room and no receivers. Whether to do it that way is your decision; you can still hire an SI room.

Our FAQ page lists consecutive interpreting from ¥200 per hour or ¥800 per full day, depending on language pair and subject, with half-day rates available. These are general starting rates, not a quote for any particular language.

6. The interpreter's badge: not included with the room

Part 5, item (9) of the handbook, one sentence in Chinese, quoted in full (our translation):

(9) Use of the meeting venue does not include badge services; the applicant's attending personnel may obtain Canton Fair personnel badges, vehicle badges, etc. themselves in accordance with the Notice on Badge Application Work for Exhibiting and Service Units of the 140th Canton Fair.

(The handbook's title for that notice differs slightly from the title on the Fair's website, 《第140届广交会参展、服务单位办证工作通告》; the quotation follows the handbook.)

So booking a room does not get your interpreter into the Complex. Annex 1 of the badge notice says the exhibitor representative badge (including domestic-sales staff) is for "personnel assisting export-section exhibitors" (our translation), at CNY 200 per person per day plus a CNY 50 badge fee, requires a written statement from the exhibiting company, and asks trading delegations to apply at least 24 hours before the representative enters. Attachment 11 of today's fee schedule (badge services) gives the same price, CNY 200 a day × days + CNY 50. Annex 1 does not name interpreters, so whether an outside interpreter goes on this badge is not stated; the fee schedule also lists a "meeting-event badge (audience)" (会议活动证（观众）), which the badge notice body only lists as a badge type and Annex 1 does not describe. Call the Badge Service Centre on 020-89074092 and ask which one applies rather than guessing.

A few more things that trip people up. An export-section representative files their own badge details through the Fair's supplier app (广交会供应商APP), with face-liveness verification at first registration; the 24 hours is the minimum for the trading delegation, so you need to submit earlier than that. Import-section representatives file through the exhibitor system (参展易捷通), under the import-section sentences of Annex 1. The badge notice sets "one person, one phase, one badge" and flags anyone with 5 or more cross-badge-type or cross-company badge records over the last 6 sessions; anyone flagged and then judged to fail the badge-eligibility review may not submit any further badge application this session. Someone who has interpreted for several exhibitors may be exactly the person this catches, so ask about the interpreter's badge history first. And anyone holding an exhibitor representative badge in a phase cannot get an overseas-buyer accompanying-personnel badge in that phase. An interpreter doing SI in your meeting room in the morning who also wants to accompany a foreign buyer round the halls in the afternoon needs to settle which badge to hold that phase. The detail is in our 4 October article, Canton Fair exhibitors hiring booth interpreters. The foreign buyers you invite need their own buyer badges; where to collect them is in Where to collect your 140th Canton Fair buyer badge.

7. Translating invitations and backdrops: do not call it an official Canton Fair event

Part 5, item (6) of the handbook, one sentence in Chinese, quoted in full (our translation):

(6) Please correctly use the words "Canton Fair Complex" (广交会展馆), "China Import and Export Fair Complex" (中国进出口商品交易会展馆) and "Canton Fair Hall" (广交会堂) to describe the venue location; promotion using names associated with the Canton Fair is strictly prohibited, such as "Canton Fair concurrent meeting event", "Canton Fair meeting partner", "Canton Fair series event" and the like; violators will be held legally liable.

The item gives Chinese examples only, but a foreign-language invitation is your promotional material just the same. On our reading, English such as "official Canton Fair side event", "Canton Fair partner" or "Canton Fair series event" means the same as the three prohibited examples. The safe wording states location only, for example "held at Meeting Room 5, Area B, Canton Fair Complex". Where the line falls is for the Fair to judge; if in doubt, ask 020-89138012 or 020-89139625 before you print.

Item (8) of the same part adds: under the Fair's rules on promotional materials in the Complex and related rules, do not display or exhibit in any form materials of other exhibitions or e-commerce websites in the Complex, and do not promote those exhibitions or websites in any form. On our reading, a launch slide showing an online-store page or link could fall under this; ask before you include one.

The application form (Annex 2 to the notice) carries the header "第139届" (139th session) as published, though it is attached to the 140th-session notice. It marks both the company-name and meeting-name fields "中文/英文" (Chinese/English); a "meeting promotion" field asks you to list your promotion channels, and an "items brought" field asks for samples, promotional material and the like; it states that the form must be submitted 2 days before the meeting, and must be signed and stamped — that is the form's last deadline, and rooms go in order of submission. Keep the three kinds of wording above out of the English meeting name too.

8. Order of booking

Book the room first. Apply in the exhibitor system; the Fair reviews in order of submission and holds the slot; it is final only once the contract is signed and paid.
Ask three things at the same time (020-89138012, 020-89139625): whether rehearsal comes out of your session; how the deposit is charged; whether you may bring your own equipment and how many languages one SI room carries.
Book interpreters once the room is secure. Send us the phase, day, session, room, number of languages and number of listeners, and we quote each job. Per our FAQ page: quotes are in RMB excluding tax, a VAT special invoice adds 6% and a general invoice 3%; new clients typically pay a 30-50% deposit. Phase 1 exhibitors should do step 1 and this step at the same time.
Badges. Call the Badge Service Centre on 020-89074092, ask which badge the interpreter needs and work to that badge's lead time.
Send the interpreters the material: script or slides, product-name list, speaker list.

9. Contact us

Message us on WhatsApp at +86 139 2416 6640, or on WeChat (ID Saralee93), or through the contact page. If you also need escort interpreting or factory visits around the Fair, pick by language in our interpreter directory and send us the card number. For choosing between SI and consecutive in general, see our earlier article Simultaneous & Conference Interpreting in China: SI, Consecutive, and When You Need Which.

Which room you get, how rehearsal is counted and how the deposit is charged are for the Fair and its designated service partner to decide; which badge the interpreter needs is for the Badge Service Centre. We decide only whether our interpreters are free.

10. Sources

Canton Fair website, 《第140届广交会现场服务费用标准》 (140th session on-site service fee schedule; English title ours), published 6 October 2026, contentNo 864681926794297344; we used the PDFs of Attachment 9 (meeting and VIP rooms), Attachment 11 (badge services) and Attachment 13 (interpreting), downloaded 6 October 2026.
Canton Fair website, 《关于第140届广交会会议室、贵宾室使用申请的通知》 (notice on applications to use meeting rooms and VIP rooms; English title ours), published 30 September 2026, contentNo 802356862971637760, with the handbook 《第140届中国进出口商品交易会会议室、贵宾室使用手册》 (PDF, 17 pages; Annex 2 is the price list) and the application form (.doc), downloaded 6 October 2026. Probing this notice and the fee schedule above under the same contentNo with the suffixes EN, AR, FR, ES, RU and PT returned no other-language version; the handbook PDF and the form are in Chinese.
Canton Fair website, Canton Fair Interpretation Service page, contentNo 802506534755274752 and 802506534755274752EN, no publication date, retrieved 4 October 2026.
Canton Fair website, 《第140届广交会参展、服务单位办证工作通告》 (140th session badge notice for exhibiting and service units; English title ours), contentNo 65d6b41c858a4c59a021512259cf3a03 (the enquiry line 020-89074092 and the alert rule are in the body), Annex 1 on badge procedures.
The three phase dates of the 140th session: the Canton Fair's 2026 Attendance Guide for Overseas Buyers, contentNo 598494791797825536.
Our FAQ page, checked 6 October 2026: SI staffing, SI and consecutive starting rates, booking lead times, tax and deposit.