As any G2E alum can confirm, the annual Tuesday-through-Thursday show is and always will be incredibly hectic. With 25,000+ attendees navigating hundreds of booths, it’s both exciting and stressful in equal measure. But hard as it may be to believe, the five-plus days before and the two days after can make the exhibition itself feel like the calm in the eye of a hurricane.
This year it all began last Wednesday. That was when the American Gaming Association (which sponsors the event), RX Global (which organizes and runs the show), and Freeman (the general contractor supplying the army of workers) took possession of the large empty space on the second floor of the Venetian Expo Center.
It might look like nothing much is happening in those first few hours, but that’s where RX’s months of advance planning pay off.
The work starts with tape marks on the bare concrete floor. Those marks don’t just define booth locations, they also outline critical aisles. However, these aren’t the same carpeted aisles you’ll stroll down once the show opens. Some paths are marked “Do Not Block” to allow the movement of freight. Others are simply impassable, buried under mountains of stacked wooden crates. And nothing better block any loading docks or doors.
Take a peek on Friday through Monday and you’d swear this Expo was selling forklifts, 18-wheelers, pallets, scissor lifts, and thousands of aluminum electrical boxes. (Remember that every slot machine, shuffler, massage chair, sign, and computer coming through those doors needs power.)
Korbi Carrison, RX’s G2E Event Vice President, is the conductor of this massive orchestra of electricians, drivers, laborers, heavy-equipment operators, and vendors. Working alongside Freeman, which supplies up to 2,000 non-vendor workers, she still marvels at what they pull off in such a short window. “You wouldn’t imagine it when you’re standing during the show in the middle of the Expo hall,” she says, “that just a few days before, exactly in that spot, a semi-truck inside the building was unloading freight.”
Managing those 18-wheelers is its own amazing ballet. If they all showed up at the Expo door at once, the Strip itself would seize up in a truck jam for the ages. Instead, they wait in marshaling yards, sometimes miles from the Venetian, until assigned specific delivery dates and times. It’s carefully synced with the booth locations and everything else moving through the building.
Carrison has been with RX for almost nine years, but she brought nearly 20 years on the gaming-vendor side with her before stepping into the G2E role.
Freeman isn’t new to this dance either. Since 2014, they’ve also run the massive January CES (Consumer Electronics Show). It is one of the world’s largest with 148,000 attendees and 4,100 booths across multiple Las Vegas venues.
Carrison says Freeman brings close to 100 forklifts to help with the G2E setup. If you’ve ever been on the floor during those days, you’d swear there were twice as many. You can’t escape their beeping horns and the lingering whiff of their propane exhaust from every corner of the hall.
Once the tape and electrical work are done, the hanging signs and displays go up, both the vendors’ and the show’s own. When a vendor’s oversized new sign collides with the show’s directional signage, it usually means a quick mini summit to sort things out before it becomes a bigger headache.
Starting Friday and running right up to showtime at 10 a.m. Tuesday, Freeman’s 2,000 workers are joined by equal or larger teams from the vendors themselves, each with its own group of trade show specialists. Slot machines get configured, computer networks get tested, bars and beverages get stocked, candy dishes get filled, brochures get unboxed, and office spaces get a final scrub.
Generally, on Monday or early Tuesday, the sales and executive-staff team members arrive to gather in their booths for last-minute previews. Most have already run pre-show drills, either in Vegas or back at home base. But their on-floor meetings at the Expo take place while a few stray forklifts are still rumbling through the aisles.
The last official act of setup is rolling out the aisle carpets. Carpet and forklifts don’t mix, so it can’t go down early. Once they’re in place, the lights come on, the music begins, and the doors open. The relative calm of the show itself finally begins.
Unfortunately, organizers, exhibitors, and attendees have to be prepared for Murphy’s Law and the unexpected. Tragically, on Sunday, October 1, 2017, a crazed gunman opened fire on the nearby Route 91 Harvest music festival. Hundreds were wounded and 59 died. G2E went ahead as scheduled on Tuesday, but it was overcast by an uncertain and somber mood. Security was also beefed up substantially just in case.
COVID completely shut down the 2020 show and halved normal attendance in 2021. Last year (and perhaps this year), attendance numbers might be down a bit more than normal due to international tariffs and the “war of words” with Canada. Both will surely have an impact on foreign visitors. Likewise, higher gas and airline-ticket prices domestically may have some minor impacts this year.
But other than the COVID shutdown, the show has always been a great success and by the close on Thursday, there are always rave reviews.
“But wait — there’s more!” Once the final bell rings and the sales teams head off to their cocktail-lounge debriefs, the real work begins again — this time in reverse and much more quickly.
The setup crew has 5½ days to build it all. They get just 43 hours to tear it down, re-box it, crate it, shrink wrap everything, and ship it out. The show closes at 3 p.m. Thursday and the Expo Center has to be back to a vacant space with a clean and bare concrete floor by 9 a.m. Saturday.
As Carrison puts it, “It’s very hectic. I mean, it’s one thing moving it in — that’s a massive effort. And then to dismantle is a different massive effort, in reverse.” With much less than half the time, they have to undo all their earlier work. She adds, “You might notice when the show closes at three o’clock on Thursday, people are waiting in the wings, ready to get to work on the dismantle. It takes a long time to get all those crates and pallets and everything back in the building. So there are late nights. It’s intense getting everything dismantled and shipped out.”
Most of you will never see them at work. So join me in a round of silent applause and sincere thank yous to the thousands of workers from RX, Freeman, and the vendors themselves who do the heavy lifting that makes this show such a magnificent “don’t miss” every single year.
