Entrance to the Las Vegas Convention Center's new Center Hall Grand Lobby. Photo Credit: LVCVA
A ribbon-cutting yesterday marked the opening of the Consumer Technology Association's massive annual CES trade show, as well as the debut of the Las Vegas Convention Center's $600 million, multiyear renovation. Officials from both the CTA and the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority were on hand to mark the occasion and signal a positive outlook for the city's 2026 convention business.
This phase of the convention center project began in 2023, incorporating design elements from the $1 billion West Hall, which opened in 2021, and applying them across the existing convention center buildings.
Key updates include a new Central Hall Grand Lobby, naturally lit through its glass curtain wall, and featuring an enormous 75-by-42-foot digital screen that, along with two smaller screens, allow for prominent branding opportunities. A climate-controlled interior concourse now connects the North and South Halls, and a redesigned South Hall offers a new entrance on the building's east side, as well as a new boardroom and administrative office complex. The West Hall's signature ribbon design is now reflected across the entire campus.
Attracting attendees from around the world
CES 2026 seeks to maintain its reputation as one of the world's largest and most influential technology exhibitions, covering more than 2.6 million net square feet of exhibit space across 13 official show venues. Even given recent concerns around international visitation numbers in Las Vegas, airlines have added more than 360 flights from nine countries for this week's event.
CES 2025 drew more than 142,000 attendees to Las Vegas, with international participants accounting for more than 40 percent of that total. While the show has not rebounded to its 2017 peak of nearly 185,000 attendees, the numbers have crawled steadily upward since the pandemic. Organizers have not yet shared projections for overall or international attendance for this year's event.
Vegas anticipates strong '26 convention attendance
Following last year's local tourism industry concerns about reduced visitation to the gaming capital, the outlook for 2026 convention business is strong, according to the LVCVA. That's consistent with claims officials made last fall at IMEX America, that the visitation shortfalls were having a much greater impact on leisure travel than on convention business.
The LVCVA is anticipating a record level of post-pandemic convention attendance this year, with the convention center on pace to host more than 48 trade shows and 1.23 million trade show attendees, a 16 percent year-over-year increase.
Total 2025 convention attendance in the city was 5,994,800. That figure has been rising gradually since the pandemic low in 2020, following a record 6,649,100 convention attendees in 2019.