If you've ever watched a move-in morning at the Las Vegas Convention Center, you know it's a special kind of controlled chaos. Forklifts, crate towers, I&D crews, and about 10,000 people who all need to be somewhere 30 minutes ago.

The good news: shipping your booth to Vegas doesn't have to be stressful. With a little planning and the right freight partner, your crates can arrive on target and your team can walk in Sunday morning to a booth that's already where it's supposed to be.

Here's the step-by-step playbook we walk our clients through when they're shipping to CES, NAB, SEMA, World of Concrete, MAGIC, or any other Las Vegas show.

Step 1: Get your show's shipping packet — and actually read it

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Every major Las Vegas show publishes an exhibitor kit (Freeman, GES, and other general contractors each have their own format). Buried in there are the details that make or break your move-in:

• Advance warehouse address and cut-off dates
• Show-site direct delivery window (usually a tight 2–4 day window)
• Target move-in dates if the show is "targeted" (common at LVCC and Mandalay Bay)
• Material handling / drayage rates per 100 lbs (CWT)
• Marshalling yard check-in procedures

If any of that sounds like a foreign language, don't worry — we translate exhibitor kits for our clients every week. The important thing is knowing which dates apply to your booth so you can work backwards from there.

Step 2: Choose advance warehouse vs. direct-to-show

This is the single biggest decision you'll make, and it changes everything downstream.

Advance warehouse means your freight arrives at the show contractor's warehouse up to 30 days before the show. The contractor stores it, then delivers it to your booth space before you even land in Vegas. You'll pay a bit more per CWT, but your crates are on the floor when you arrive — no stress, no marshalling yard hold-ups.

Direct-to-show means your freight arrives at the convention center during a narrow window (often just 2–3 days). It's cheaper per CWT, but if your truck misses the window or gets stuck in the marshalling yard, you're paying overtime I&D labor while you wait.

Our rule of thumb for Vegas: if your booth is larger than 10x20, has any custom fabrication, or you're shipping from more than two states away, use the advance warehouse. The extra $0.50–$1.00 per pound is cheap insurance.

Step 3: Pick the right freight mode

For a Vegas trade show booth, you've really got three options:

Shared truckload (STL) — Your booth rides with other exhibitors' freight heading to the same city and show. You get FTL-style handling (no terminal transfers, fewer touches, less damage risk) at a fraction of the cost of a dedicated truck. This is almost always the smartest option for booths between 500 and 10,000 pounds.

Full truckload (FTL) — You buy the whole trailer. Best for very large booths, multi-crate builds with heavy equipment, or when you need a specific arrival time down to the hour.

Expedited / white-glove — Dedicated team driver, real-time tracking, and a guaranteed delivery window. This is the move when you're replacing a damaged crate, shipping a last-minute graphic, or your original freight didn't make it.

Quick tip: if you've been quoted "LTL" for a trade show booth, ask about STL instead. LTL means your crates get offloaded, sorted, and reloaded at multiple terminals on the way to Vegas — which is exactly how fabric graphics get wrinkled and monitors crack. STL avoids those terminal transfers.

Step 4: Build your timeline backwards

Here's the timeline we give our Vegas-bound clients. Adjust based on origin city.

• 30 days out: Book your freight. Confirm crate counts, dimensions, and weights.
• 14–21 days out: Advance warehouse pickup window opens. Get your freight on the road.
• 7–10 days out: Freight arrives at the advance warehouse and is logged in.
• 2–3 days before move-in: Show contractor moves your crates from warehouse to your booth space.
• Move-in morning: Crates are waiting at your booth. You show up, your I&D crew builds, you breathe.

If you're going direct-to-show, compress that timeline and pray for clean I-15 traffic.

Step 5: Label everything like your job depends on it (because it kinda does)

Every crate needs a show-specific shipping label that includes:

• Show name and booth number
• Target move-in date (if applicable)
• Your company name
• Advance warehouse address or show-site address
• Piece count (1 of 4, 2 of 4, etc.)

We provide pre-printed labels to every client for every show. It sounds small, but a mislabeled crate in Vegas can easily cost you a half-day of standby labor.

Step 6: Plan for move-out before you even build

Move-out is the part nobody thinks about until it's 11 PM Thursday night and your forklift hasn't shown up. Before the show even starts, confirm:

• Your outbound carrier and BOL are set up with the show contractor
• Empty crate return is ordered (those crates have to come back from the empty storage yard)
• Your driver knows the marshalling yard process for outbound

A good shipping partner handles all of this for you. A great one calls you Thursday morning to confirm it's all locked in.

Common Las Vegas shipping mistakes to avoid

After moving thousands of booths in and out of Vegas, these are the mistakes we see most often:

1. Missing the advance warehouse cut-off by a day or two. The penalty fees are steep, and you'll get pushed to direct-to-show whether you wanted to or not.
2. Assuming "Las Vegas" means one venue. LVCC, Mandalay Bay, Venetian Expo, Caesars Forum, and Wynn all have different loading docks, different contractors, and different rules.
3. Underestimating weight. Exhibit houses' packing lists are notorious for being optimistic. A 1,200-pound "estimate" that weighs in at 1,800 pounds means a surprise invoice.
4. Not sharing tracking with the team. When your booth manager, I&D lead, and agency PM can all see where the truck is, nobody's making 6 AM phone calls.

What to look for in a Las Vegas trade show shipping partner

When you're vetting freight companies for a Vegas show, ask:

• Do you handle trade show freight specifically, or just general LTL/FTL? (Trade show freight is a specialty — the rules are different.)
• Do you offer STL to Las Vegas on a regular schedule?
• Can I get real-time tracking and direct communication with my driver?
• Is your dispatch team available 24/7 during show weeks?
• Can you guarantee on-time show-site delivery?

If the answer to any of those is "um..." keep looking.

Ready to ship your next Las Vegas show?

Exhibitway moves trade show freight in and out of Las Vegas every week of the year. Our 24/7 dispatch team handles the exhibitor kit, the advance warehouse paperwork, the marshalling yard check-in, and the outbound BOL — so your team can focus on the show, not the shipping.

Request a quote → Tell us your show, booth number, and origin city, and we'll come back with a real number (and a friendly human) within the hour.