TL; DR:To maximize your traction at CES 2026, you need to start planning. Booth location, media outreach, messaging alignment and post-show ROI all hinge on decisions made months in advance.
If your startup wants to exhibit at CES 2026 but hasn’t started to prepare, we have bad news: You are already behind schedule. The good news? You are not out of time as long as you get moving now.
Every January, thousands of companies converge on Las Vegas to showcase their products — more than 1,200 of them are in Eureka Park alone. Only a fraction leave with new partnerships and positive press. The difference is often the planning, not the product.
Your physical location affects everything: visibility, traffic, who you’re surrounded by and how you are perceived. High-traffic areas and curated zones like Eureka Park are competitive and booked months in advance. If you wait until November, you may still get a space, but you will not get the one that supports your goals.
Reporters and investors CES are not wandering around hoping to discover you. Their schedules are locked by November (sometimes even earlier). If you want to be on their radar, you need to start outreach in the fall and secure those meetings before the floor gets crowded.
Reporters, partners and investors want to know:
Clear, confident messaging is not developed overnight and alignment can take time, especially across teams that are moving fast. CES forces focus. Teams that rush (or skip) messaging development tend to spend the week stumbling through inconsistent or vague explanations.
Your booth should invite people in. Interactive demos and live storytelling help visitors engage directly with your product. Capture content through photos, live interviews or short videos. These assets extend your visibility well beyond the show floor and fuel post-event campaigns.
If you are using CES as a U.S. market entry point, or you are in a regulated space like healthtech or fintech, preparation is even more involved. Localization, compliance narratives, stakeholder alignment, travel arrangements and legal review all lengthen the runway.
Press hits are not the end goal. Strategic CES planning includes post-show engagement: lead nurture, investor updates, international amplification and content that extends your visibility well beyond Vegas. If that system is not in place ahead of time, you will lose momentum post-show.
Understanding the landscape around you is part of CES preparation. Review the exhibitor list early to identify nearby companies and refine how you stand apart. Track upcoming launches in your category so you are ready for comparisons or questions. This awareness sharpens your positioning and prepares you for tougher conversations.
When you plan early, you create space to:
We get it — prepping for a trade show can be overwhelming, but it’s essential you get started now. Here are the first few steps you should take:
Before locking in a booth or building a demo, get aligned on why you are going. Are you focused on launching a new product, raising capital, attracting media attention, hiring talent or closing deals? Each of these goals requires a different approach, timeline and messaging strategy. Without a clear objective, you risk spreading your resources too thin.
Once your goal is set, identify who you need to reach to make it successful. Investors, reporters, potential partners, buyers and talent all engage differently at CES. Know where they spend time, what they are looking for and how to engage them on the floor, at events or in follow-up conversations.
CES planning cuts across departments. Designate a small, cross-functional team to lead the charge. Often, this is someone from marketing, product, operations and leadership. Assign clear areas of ownership early (e.g. media outreach, booth logistics, lead capture) so decisions get made quickly and nothing falls through the cracks.
We have worked with early-stage startups and growth-stage leaders alike to support CES and other high-visibility moments. Our role varies; sometimes we are brought in to refine messaging and shape media strategy, other times to lead the full go-to-market rollout.
But in every case, the difference is the same: teams that plan early move more confidently. They leave CES with traction, not just foot traffic. And those that don’t tend to see very little ROI.
Whether you need full strategic support or a second opinion on your booth design, our experts can help you make the most of your time at CES 2026. Let’s talk — contact us to set up a free strategic consultation.
One of the leading reasons is a weak launch strategy, including unclear value messaging, missing proof points and starting market entry work too late.
Ideally, during product development, so you can build relationships, gather the right data and tailor communications before clearance.
It ensures you identify all decision-makers and influencers, from clinicians to procurement teams to payers, each of whom needs a distinct value story.
Targeted communications help each audience quickly understand your product’s relevance and benefits, reducing decision time and increasing purchase likelihood.
Targeted communications help each audience quickly understand your product’s relevance and benefits, reducing decision time and increasing purchase likelihood.
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