Licensing Expo brings roughly 25,000 brand licensing professionals to the Mandalay Bay Convention Center, and Las Vegas Exhibit House rents and builds the exhibits that go into it. We are a Las Vegas trade show exhibit house with our own facility here, a mile from the convention center, and we work typically May.
Licensing Expo is organized by Informa Markets and runs typically May at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center. Dates follow the show's recurring schedule — confirm against the organizer before you commit freight. We are an exhibit house, not a broker: our own facility is here in Las Vegas, so the exhibit you rent for Licensing Expo ships across town instead of across the country, and the crew that installs it works this building all year.
What actually wins on the Licensing Expo floor
Licensing booths are brand showcases with locked meeting rooms behind them. The front is the property, the back is where the deal happens, and the ratio between the two is the design decision.
There is a real difference between an exhibit designed for Licensing Expo and a generic exhibit shipped to Licensing Expo. We see the second kind on this floor every year. We would rather build you the first.
Mandalay Bay Convention Center logistics for Licensing Expo exhibitors
The Mandalay Bay Convention Center holds 2,100,000 square feet, opened in 2003 at 1.5 million square feet and expanded in 2015 with another 350,000 square feet of exhibit space, plus the 70,000-square-foot Oceanside Ballroom added on the second floor in 2016.
Confidential property reveals mean enclosed, lockable meeting rooms — which triggers ceiling, egress and fire-safety review, and at Mandalay Bay has to be tied to the specific room assignment among 75 possible spaces.
Ceiling heights differ between the original halls, the 2015 expansion and the ballroom levels, so confirm the rigging height and hang points for your assigned room before a hanging sign is fabricated. The building divides into 75 separate rooms across three floors with three catering kitchens, so a Mandalay Bay footprint is often split between a hall floor and a ballroom level, and each level has its own freight path and its own delivery deadline.
Teamsters jurisdiction over material handling and prefabricated exhibit install and dismantle applies at Mandalay Bay as it does across Las Vegas, with the show's general contractor publishing the specific rules per event. South-end Strip location means freight routing comes in off Russell Road rather than fighting mid-Strip traffic.
Exhibit rental sizes for your Licensing Expo space
We rent every standard footprint for Licensing Expo, and every one of them can carry your graphics, your product, your LED content and your meeting space:
10x10 exhibit rental — 100 square feet. An inline space where the backwall is the entire brand statement and the counter has to do double duty as demo surface and storage.
10x20 exhibit rental — 200 square feet. The most common inline upgrade, with room for a demo station on one side and a seated conversation on the other.
10x30 exhibit rental — 300 square feet. A long inline run that lets you sequence the visit — attract, demonstrate, then close — along the aisle.
20x20 exhibit rental — 400 square feet. The first true island, open on four sides, where the center structure carries the brand and the corners carry the conversations.
20x30 exhibit rental — 600 square feet. An island with enough depth for an enclosed meeting room without giving up the open corners.
20x40 exhibit rental — 800 square feet. Room for a full demonstration theater plus private meeting space on the same footprint.
30x30 exhibit rental — 900 square feet. A square island that reads from every aisle, typically built around a central tower and a hanging sign.
30x40 exhibit rental — 1,200 square feet. A major presence with separate zones for demonstration, hospitality and closed-door meetings.
40x40 exhibit rental — 1,600 square feet. A headline footprint where structure, rigging and labor planning become as important as the design.
Custom builds, double-deck structures and LED-led designs are all available for Licensing Expo as well. If your space is an odd shape or an odd size, we build to it rather than forcing a stock kit into it.
Who is walking your aisle at Licensing Expo
Licensees and retail partners are evaluating properties for their own product lines. Show the style guide, show the art, and have the category availability list ready.
Frequently asked questions about exhibiting at Licensing Expo
Can I rent a trade show exhibit for Licensing Expo instead of buying one?
Yes, and for most Licensing Expo exhibitors renting is the better decision. A rental exhibit gives you the same finished appearance as a purchased booth without the capital outlay, the storage cost between shows or the refurbishment bill when the design ages. You get new graphics every time, you can change footprint from one year to the next, and the crate never sits in a warehouse you are paying for. We rent everything from a 10x10 inline to a 40x40 island for Licensing Expo, and the rental includes the structure, the graphics, the delivery to Mandalay Bay Convention Center, the installation, the dismantle and the return.
How much does a trade show booth cost at Licensing Expo?
The honest answer is that the exhibit is one line of five. Budget for the space you bought from Informa Markets, the exhibit itself, the graphics, the material handling and drayage, and the labor to install and dismantle it at Mandalay Bay Convention Center. A 10x10 rental with graphics lands in a very different range than a 20x20 island with LED and a hanging sign, and Las Vegas labor rates and drayage move the total more than most exhibitors expect. We quote all five lines together so you see the real number before you commit, not after the show services invoice arrives.
How far in advance do I need to book an exhibit for Licensing Expo?
Book as early as you can, and at minimum work backward from the deadlines rather than forward from today. Graphics need artwork approval before output, freight needs a targeted move-in window, rigging and electrical orders carry discount deadlines that close weeks ahead, and hanging signs at Mandalay Bay Convention Center need approved drawings. Exhibitors who come to us three or four months out get the best result and the best price. We take projects much later than that and still deliver, but late work costs more because everything moves to expedited rates.
Do you handle installation and dismantle at Mandalay Bay Convention Center?
Yes. Teamsters jurisdiction over material handling and prefabricated exhibit install and dismantle applies at Mandalay Bay as it does across Las Vegas, with the show's general contractor publishing the specific rules per event. We coordinate the labor call, supervise the install, stay reachable through show days and handle the dismantle and return freight. You do not need to be in the hall at 6 a.m. watching a crate get opened.
We are shipping from out of state. How does freight to Licensing Expo work?
Most exhibitors ship either to the advance warehouse or direct to show site, and the right choice depends on your move-in date and your tolerance for risk. Advance warehouse shipping gets the crate into Las Vegas early and delivered to your space by the general contractor; direct-to-show requires hitting a targeted window at Mandalay Bay Convention Center, and missing it is expensive. Either way, material handling is charged by weight and it is one of the largest and least-predicted lines on a show budget. We plan the route, the packaging and the weight with that in mind, and if you rent from us the freight originates here in Las Vegas and a lot of that cost disappears.
Get your Licensing Expo exhibit quoted
Tell us the show, the booth number, the square footage and what you need the exhibit to do. We will come back with a design direction and a quote that covers the exhibit, the graphics, the freight, the labor and the show services — one number, not six invoices from six vendors.
Call (702) 760-4036 or start a quote. Las Vegas Exhibit House — trade show exhibit rentals, custom exhibits, graphics, LED, freight, installation and dismantle, from a Las Vegas facility, since 2014.