The numbers on the Orlando-to-Las Vegas move have gotten plenty of attention — hanging signs, electrical overtime, material handling, internet. Budget people love a spreadsheet, and the 2025 Annual Survey of Exhibition Rates gave them plenty to work with. But anyone who has spent real time exhibiting at Design & Construction Week knows that the financial analysis, useful as it is, tells maybe half the story. The other half is operational, strategic, and in a few cases psychol

Walk the floor at IBS and KBIS, and you're not just looking at building products — you're looking at a live laboratory for trade show exhibit design. With more than 2,250 exhibiting brands spread across 1.2 million net square feet, the combined shows are big enough and competitive enough to surface the strategies that actually move the needle and expose the ones that don't. Here are nine trends worth paying attention to, both at IBS and across the broader Design & Constructio

Design & Construction Week moves permanently to the Las Vegas Convention Center in February 2027. Here's a category-by-category cost comparison between Orlando and Las Vegas — based on audited data from 224 trade shows across 23 U.S. cities — so IBS and KBIS exhibitors can plan accordingly. By Travis Stanton Las Vegas has a reputation. Among trade show exhibitors, it's become shorthand for expensive — where per diems feel punitive, labor rates feel personal, and the exhibitor