Case Study · On-site coverage 2026
A show that comes back every three years gets one take.
CONEXPO-CON/AGG is North America’s largest construction trade show, and it opens for five days every third year. For 2026, AEM put its on-site social coverage in our hands: fifteen people, eleven of them on the show floor. The show went out while it was still happening, with a short film and a recap for every show day and 20 product demos shot and cut during the week.
Footage from the Day 1 recap
Miss a shot in 2026 and the next chance is 2029.
For five days in March, CONEXPO-CON/AGG takes over the Las Vegas Convention Center and the lots around it. In 2026 it drew more than 140,000 registered attendees and exhibitors. Then the halls empty, and the industry waits three years for the next one.
When AEM made us its social agency of record in 2019, the show’s on-site social coverage was weak. The biggest week in North American construction was happening on the floor, and very little of it was being captured in a form the account could use once the doors closed.
Most agencies price a trade show like a shoot. A shoot can be redone. A show that comes back in three years can’t.
The tape, March 2023 to March 2029
Each orange line is a five-day show. Everything else on the tape is the wait between them, and the footage from those five days is what the account works from in the year after.
AEM brought the show. We brought the crew that filmed it.
Most of the risk in sending a crew into a live trade show isn’t creative. It’s people, travel, gear and liability on show grounds full of running equipment. Any one of those can sink the week before anyone shoots a frame.
AEM’s side of the contract
3 items- The hotel block
- Media passes
- A secure press-room office
Our side of the contract
Signed 2026 scope- Fifteen people, staffed and scheduled
- Flights and travel
- The camera and edit gear
- Insurance and liability for the crew
- A capture plan for the halls, lots and stage
- The delivery schedule
The crew was booked for a walk-through with AEM’s team the afternoon before doors opened.
Every show day ran on two deadlines: 10AM and 6PM.
The schedule was built backwards from two moments. A short film had to be up by 10AM Pacific for everyone who wasn’t in the building, and the day’s recap had to be finished by 6PM Pacific so the show was on social the same night. Everything in between was shot on the floor and finished by the crew and the editors at home base.
Run of show · every show day
Tuesday March 3 to Saturday March 7, 2026Community management ran Sunday March 1 to Sunday March 8, either side of the show.
The call sheet
The signed scope listed nine deliverables for the main show and five more for the Ground Breakers Stage. Most of them were video. Here is each one, with what came back.
Beyond the booths and the stage, the crew filmed press conferences, the EmpowerHER workshop, education sessions and a small-business workshop.
Where the crew worked
Nine zones across the halls, lots and stageThe note that came back
Melissa, our day-to-day contact at AEM, wrote to our two leads once she’d caught up on sleep. Our account lead posted it to the team channel the same day.
Just received this message from Melissa, GREAT WORK EVERYONE!!!
Hi hi! Now that I’ve finally caught up on sleep, I just wanted to send a big THANK YOU to both of you & the entire team for all the incredible work last week.
You came in extremely organized, & it showed. Everything felt thoughtful, coordinated, & well prepared – & it was clear the team was aligned & ready to execute. The crew you assembled for content capture was one of the strongest I’ve seen, & I know that doesn’t happen by accident.
Please also pass along a huge thank you to the rest of the team. Everyone who was out there capturing content, moving quickly between locations, & helping bring the week to life did an amazing job. It was a massive effort, & it definitely didn’t go unnoticed.
Also wanted to share that from everyone I’ve talked to so far, I’ve only heard great things about the team & the videos and photos that were posted throughout the week. The content really resonated & people have been incredibly impressed.
Twenty demos, cut while the show was still running.
Each product demo put an exhibitor’s own people in front of the product, on camera, at the booth. The crew filmed them on the floor and the editors at home base cut them while the show was running. All 20 were shot and cut between Tuesday and Saturday, rather than weeks after it.
The 20 exhibitors in the demo series
Every one filmed at their own booth or lot.
The last show week we measured on its own was 2023.
Our 2026 report to AEM covers the whole show cycle, so it can’t separate the five show days from the rest. The 2023 show can. Our review for AEM counted March 14 to 18, 2023, by itself, and it shows what one show week produces.
What 149 posts in five days looked like
The show lasts five days. The footage keeps working after it.
The week doesn’t end when the doors close. Every demo, interview and hour of raw footage goes to AEM, into the library the account works from in the year after the show.
“Real show footage and in-field content consistently outperformed static or overly produced assets.”
Our 2026 show report to AEM, on 31 months of paid campaignsThe demo format wasn’t new to this show. We had run it for AEM at World of Asphalt and The Utility Expo in 2025. And in our first year on the account, the show won Best Social Media in the Construction Media Alliance’s 2019 Marketing Awards.
A trade show is five days of access and a year of content after it. Most people only buy the five days.
Got one take at a show that won’t come back for years?
We bring the crew, the gear, the insurance and the schedule. You get the show posted while it’s happening, and a library that keeps working long after the floor is swept.
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