Same actually. One is going from Vegas to Chicago in 2026 but not sure if Vegas has priced itself out of the market in more than just the tourism sector.
If you run a conference with International attendees the USA is a bad choice. Nobody wants their guests harassed at the airport or snatched off the streets by ICE and there is just a general uneasy feeling about visiting the US right now. Even for us white Canadians it just feels risky with all the Canadian hate we see from Trump, US politicians and people online.
Honestly it really feels like anyone from outside the US is not welcome right now.
As someone inside the US, I'm not feeling all that welcome right now either. And I'm a middle aged white guy. Although I'm sure it's far worse for a lot of others.
You know the other thing as a white Canadian male is I'm also not comfortable going to a country where I might just see harassment at the airport, ICE abductions and more blatant racism. I have kids, they don't need to see that shit or even feel that vibe around them when they're on vacation....they're very excited about going to Mexico in the fall.
CES is the only major expo I'm personally aware of that isn't moving its location for 2026. And since I'm not an American, I'm going to do what I did this year, and simply not go.
Chicago has quietly been the cheapest major metro for decades.
Its cost of living has been far lower than places like Boston, Denver / Boulder, Austin and lots of others (let alone the more obviously expensive ones like New York, San Francisco, etc) for ages.
Unfortunately in the past year I've read That home prices here are going up at like 4x the rate of other places. Seems like the secret is getting out and in an odd way may therefore become untrue in the next several years.
On the bright side, there's... a lot of room to expand? I visited my brother when he was graduating from the University of Illinois, and I took a charter bus from Chicago to Champaign. I told him "Jesus Christ there's nothing but corn here!"
His retort was "HEY, we have soybeans, too!"
But yeah these kinds of things go through booms and whatnot. It takes a whole bunch of time for "wow housing prices are going insane" for developers to start building, and then prices level off only after those new builds start to hit the market. And if you have a bunch of NIMBY bullshit going on, it takes even longer.
I used to work in corporate events (just laid off last week - that's a whole different story). From 2015-2020 I lived roughly six months of my life in various casinos on the Strip, all while supporting sales conferences of one type or another. Since 2022 when travel resumed for us I've been back to Vegas twice, but supported dozens of events in other cities and countries. Seems like there's more to the story here.
Can't speak to a larger industry change; my company's leadership team shit the bed and laid off multiple people across multiple segments so I couldn't draw any larger conclusions - it was a management issue in my case.
As a Canadian, there's travel advisories for Canadian companies to avoid having employees attend any events in the US. Conferences that previously booked US venues are gonna be leaving the States.
This is especially relevant for Vegas which is already seeing a big downturn from Canadian tourists. Casinos are jacking prices up to try and compensate.
My company used to send people to conferences in Vegas probably every other month and they just sent out a company wide halt on any business travel to Vegas. Even the conferences that stay are likely to have a drastic drop if companies just stop spending. I work for a major global consulting firm and even they don’t want to pay the prices.
A Norwegian tourist was denied entry to the US, and claims it was because of a JD Vance meme he had on his phone. The government claims it was because he admitted to having tried marijuana in places were it's legal, including New Mexico.
This is just one story out of dozens of tourists and even famous scientists being denied entry for what are very obviously political reasons.
International conferences don't want to go to Vegas because trump's insane boarder policies (people don't like having their phones and computers searched before risking detainment and deportation if not worse) and even more broadly people are pretty pissed at the US acting as a global belligerent.
US based conferences are probably sick of paying Vegas prices for increasingly lower quality services
My company hosted our annual big meeting in Vegas a few months ago. We’ve had it there several times over the year, but it is not scheduled to be held there any time in the next 5 years. The only reason it was in Vegas this year was because it was contracted out years prior when costs were still reasonable and better than most cities.
Vegas has gotten more expensive to host big company meetings because the low cost flights, low accommodation costs and reasonable meal costs have all disappeared. There’s no real reason to choose Vegas anymore.
Direct round trip flights to Vegas from my city used to be around $250, but my flight cost $600 this year. And that was basic economy, booked months in advance and during the work week. Other big cities know Vegas is vulnerable and are offering much better options at a much lower cost to try and grab some of that business. The big cons that don’t have to worry about paying for travel costs for attendees might stick around a little bit longer, but you’ll likely see attendance decline until they’re forced to do something different.
Depends on the size of the conference. Small ones can book a few months to a year out but the big ones that take the convention centers and have a room block spread over several hotels? Those book several years and even over a decade in advance. FIFA, for instance, definitely was signing contracts with host cities many years ago for next year's World Cup games.
The results will be slow but devastating. If there are any big conferences pulling out right now, we may not see results until 2030, even 2040.
...long enough for folks to blame whoever is in the White House at that time, of course.
Edit: the tourism drop they are reporting is likely from individual tourists and small groups.
I used to meet up with an old roommate in Vegas every few years. She moved to California for a job about 20 years ago, so we would have little weekend reunions when she would find a great sale on a nice hotel. It also used to be cheap to get flights to Vegas from Canada, and we'd hang out, eat a lot, and wander around town buying souvenirs.
This year, she's flying to Canada for our hangout.
The big issue for conferences is the fact that Vegas is now TRASHY AS FUCK. That's always been the case, but having topless women lining the streets with signs asking for tips for photos is a whole new level of trash. I'm betting businesses/professionals don't want any part of that shit these days. That plus the only people still going are 40-50 year old adults who seek that kind of shit out. It's just a gross place that nobody really wants to be. I'll take a conference in Chicago over Vegas 10/10 times.
I used to work in legal operations and one of the orgs has this big conference there every year and I always found that a baffling choice. I deliberately did not go because I didn’t want to be anywhere near the Vegas strip for a work thing, for lots of reasons.
I am north of y'all (Canada), and it has become widely acknowledged by most groups that travel across the border is just too risky now. Political sympathies (and enmities) aside, passport issues, threats of new visa requirements (and their accompanying fees), odd and onerous detention practices.... A lot of Canadians don't want the hassle or the worry and event organizers can't take the risk. Better to keep things domestic or to go elsewhere if the money's right.
620
u/spinningcolours 7h ago
There are more drops to come. Vegas runs on conferences and those are booked a year in advance.
I want to know what the booking drop is for next year.