SEMA Show 2026: dinner, clients and the night after
November 3-6, 2026 · Las Vegas Convention Center and Venetian Expo · 160,000 attendees · Specialty automotive aftermarket
SEMA Show 2026 runs November 3 to 6 across the Las Vegas Convention Center and Venetian Expo, with roughly 160,000 attendees, and it shares the week with AAPEX at the Venetian. It is the largest show on the Las Vegas calendar by attendance. Our Las Vegas team books the group dinners, the private dining rooms and the tables after your client dinners, and handles the cars between the halls and the restaurants.
The week you are actually walking into
SEMA is the biggest show Las Vegas hosts, and it does not have the convention center to itself. AAPEX runs November 3 to 5 at the Venetian Expo in the same week, adding another fifty thousand people to the same few blocks, and a large share of the SEMA floor walks between both. Halloween weekend runs out the door directly into the Monday. The practical consequence is that the restaurants closest to the convention center and the Venetian are committed early, mostly to exhibitors who booked in the summer, and the week trades like a holiday rather than a normal November.
Where to eat, by which hall you are actually in
SEMA spans both the Las Vegas Convention Center at the north end of the Strip and the Venetian Expo mid-north, and the two lead to different dinners. From the convention center, Resorts World and Wynn are the nearest properties worth booking - Carversteak at Resorts World for a steak dinner that seats a group properly, SW Steakhouse and Delilah at Wynn for a room with more theatre to it. From the Venetian Expo you are already inside the property, so Wakuda is a short walk, and Golden Steer off-Strip is the old-Vegas steakhouse that automotive groups tend to actually want. Book the room that matches the hall you are leaving, not the one nearest your hotel.
After the client dinners
SEMA is a trade show with a genuine nightlife tail. Dinners end and groups of eight to twenty go looking for somewhere that is not the hotel bar. Tao Nightclub sits inside the Venetian, which makes it the shortest walk from the Expo hall of anything worth being in. XS at Encore and Omnia at Caesars are the bigger rooms if the group wants a proper night. If the group has a booth to open at nine the next morning, a table at Pinky Ring at Bellagio is a different and better answer than a nightclub, and we will say so.
Groups and buyouts
The bookings we make most during SEMA week are private dining rooms for twenty to forty and reserved sections for larger teams, plus the dealer and distributor dinners that need a room to themselves. Full venue buyouts and brand activations we will place with the right room. The useful way to start that conversation is the budget and the headcount rather than a venue name, because what is available during the largest week of the Las Vegas year is a different list than what is available in February.
Where we would book dinner
After the dinner meetings
Frequently asked questions
When and where is the SEMA Show 2026?
SEMA Show 2026 runs November 3 to 6, 2026, across the Las Vegas Convention Center and Venetian Expo, with roughly 160,000 attendees. AAPEX runs November 3 to 5 at the Venetian Expo in the same week.
Where should we take clients to dinner during SEMA?
It depends which hall you are leaving. From the convention center, Carversteak at Resorts World and SW Steakhouse at Wynn are the nearest rooms that seat a group properly. From the Venetian Expo, Wakuda is inside the property and Golden Steer is the off-Strip steakhouse automotive groups tend to ask for.
How far ahead should we book for SEMA week?
As early as you can. SEMA and AAPEX put more than two hundred thousand people in overlapping halls in the same week, Halloween weekend runs straight into it, and the restaurants nearest both halls are largely contracted by exhibitors over the summer.
Can you book a private dining room for a dealer dinner during SEMA?
Yes, and that is one of the most common bookings we make that week. Tell us the headcount, the night and roughly the budget and we come back with rooms that are genuinely available rather than a list of everything in town.
Also that week
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