The NACS Show is the convenience and fuel retailing industry's largest trade show, with 1,200+ exhibitors packed into 435,000 square feet at the Las Vegas Convention Center. The booths that win attention share a few things: branding bold enough to read from across the aisle, an experience that gives people an actual reason to stop walking, sampling strategy, and a layout built around how convenience retail buyers move through a show floor this size. Below, we walk through what's working at NACS right now using real exhibits Skyline built for the show, including a Godzilla-themed energy drink activation and a putting green built for a petroleum equipment brand.
If you've exhibited at other retail or CPG shows, NACS still tends to catch people off guard. It brings the entire convenience and fuel retail industry under one roof: beverage and snack brands, foodservice programs, fuel dispensers and petroleum equipment, POS and payment technology, tobacco and nicotine alternatives, car wash systems, and store design companies, all working the same aisle for the same buyers' attention on the same three days.
Your booth is competing with the other companies in your category, but also with whatever's happening three aisles over, which at NACS 2025 happened to include a Godzilla cosplayer. As Skyline's NACS Show 2026 page notes, the Expo is organized into five focused areas: in-store merchandise, food equipment and foodservice programs, fuel equipment and services, facility development and store operations, and technology. That organization helps buyers navigate the floor, but it also means every one of those zones is its own crowded fight for visibility.
The people walking that floor are purchase-ready. They're category managers, chain operators, and retail decision-makers deciding what goes on their shelves and forecourts for the coming year. A booth that blends in makes it easy for one of those buyers to walk past without ever starting a conversation, and that's a bigger loss than a missed photo.
That's what this competitive floor looks like in practice. Here's how a few different exhibitors handled it at NACS 2025.
At a show this size, your booth has to say who you are before anyone reads a word of copy. That means oversized signage, a strong color story, and a shape that reads differently than the 10x20 and 20x20 spaces surrounding it.
RDM Industrial Electronics built a hanging cube structure with a circuit-board motif, lit from four sides and visible the moment attendees turn down the aisle, well before anyone is close enough to read the “Shop Online” messaging on the monitors below.
Graffco took a similar approach with a suspended sign that reinforces 40 years in the petroleum equipment business, paired with green-and-white graphics that carry the brand color through every panel of the exhibit, from the “Elevate Your Brand” backwall to the reconditioned dispenser display.
The exhibits that generate real buzz at NACS give attendees a reason to physically stop moving. That's the difference between a booth people glance at and one they photograph.
Nutrabolt's C4 Energy exhibit is the clearest example from NACS 2025. Built around a licensing partnership with Toho, the studio behind Godzilla, the booth featured a 3D LED wall with forced perspective: two angled 6x8-foot LED panels built with Gen City Labs that made Godzilla appear to leap off the screen, plus a life-size Godzilla character roaming the floor and an interactive kiosk tied to the “Be the Last One Standing” campaign.
That C4 Energy activation and the Bloom Energy space described below actually shared the same 30x40 island booth. Both brands belong to Nutrabolt, and the design challenge was to give each one a completely distinct identity within a single footprint rather than one shared look. Walk from the C4 side to the Bloom side, and the color palette, materials, and energy all change, even though it's technically one booth.
Pulling off two vastly different brand experiences within a single floor plan was a big part of why the project ended up winning two industry awards. Watch the full video to see this booth in action.
For beverage, snack, and foodservice brands, NACS buyers are scanning for what's new and what will actually sell. Booths that organize products into a clear visual story, rather than just shelves of SKUs, tend to perform better.
Bloom Nutrition made its NACS debut in 2025, entering the Better-for-You soda and energy category for the first time. The booth used full-height shelving to display the entire Bloom Pop and Bloom Energy lineup by flavor, with a soft, feminine color palette (custom rug included) that signaled who the brand is and who it's for. It's a sharp contrast to the darker, higher-intensity look used just a few feet away on the C4 side of the same island. Read more in the Bloom Nutrition case study.
Johnsonville used large-format food photography to do a different job: make attendees hungry before they'd even reached the sampling station. “This Is How We Roll” and “America's #1 Sausage Brand” messaging, paired with oversized pizza and breakfast burrito imagery, gave the booth an immediate, appetite-driven pull. That matters for a foodservice program that depends on retail buyers actually tasting the product.
Cash Simple by Integrated Cash Logistics (ICL) took a more process-driven approach, using simple icons and a step-by-step visual (customer pays in cash, ICL buys the cash, money is in your account the next day) to explain a service product that's harder to show off physically. Clear, simple messaging did most of the work here; no mascot or big activation required.
Part of a NACS booth's square footage should be set aside for the meetings that actually close deals. NCCO built dedicated vignette panels around specific product moments (a kiosk, a laptop workstation, a food safety training screen) so buyers could see their digital foodservice tools in a realistic in-store context instead of as an abstract feature list.
The NACS Show pulls together an unusually wide range of exhibitors, and each category tends to solve the “stand out on the floor” problem a little differently.
Beverage and energy brands (C4 Energy, Bloom Nutrition) lean on bold color systems, licensed IP or influencer tie-ins, and shelving that turns product variety into a visual asset.
Foodservice and CPG brands (Johnsonville) lean on large-format food photography and live sampling to get an immediate sensory response.
Fuel and petroleum equipment companies (Graffco, RDM Industrial Electronics) lean on tall structural elements and interactive add-ons, like a putting green, to earn dwell time in a category that isn't naturally as flashy.
Technology and services companies (NCCO, and other technology companies lean on demo stations, seating for real conversations, and process visuals that explain a less tangible product.
Whatever category you're in, the NACS Show 2026 landing page is a good starting point for benchmarking your booth strategy against what's worked in your specific zone of the Expo.
Making an impact at NACS comes down to picking the right format for your goals, budget, and timeline, which could be a 30x40 island with a forced-perspective LED wall, or something considerably smaller. Skyline generally frames the options this way:
Custom modular exhibit booths: built around your brand, product category, and show goals. Best for product launches, category debuts (like Bloom's first NACS appearance), and brands with a strong, award-worthy story to tell.
Premium rental booths: high-end craftsmanship without the long-term ownership commitment. A solid option if your NACS footprint or strategy is still evolving year to year.
ExhibitNow kits: ship in as little as five business days, a good fit for smaller spaces or exhibitors working on a tighter timeline.
For a deeper look at space planning at a common booth size, see Skyline's guide to optimizing a 20x20 trade show booth. The same logic (pick two or three goals, don't try to do everything) applies directly to a NACS floor plan.
The Nutrabolt dual-brand exhibit, housing both C4 Energy and Bloom Nutrition in a single 30x40 island at NACS 2025, generated plenty of floor traffic and also picked up outside recognition. It won a Platinum honor in the Experiential & Immersive category at the 2026 MUSE Creative Awards, judged by 94 professionals across 22 countries, and a Bronze Stevie® Award in the Brand & Experiences – Exhibition
Experience category at the 2026 American Business Awards, selected from more than 3,700 nominations. It's a useful data point that the strategies above (bold brand identity, an activation people stop for, and product storytelling tailored to two very different audiences sharing one floor plan) hold up when a jury is judging the work.
“NACS remains one of our most important industry events of the year, and we are continually looking for ways to elevate our presence. This year's booth reflects our most impactful presence to date.”
— Ashley Alfaro, Trade Marketing Manager, C4 Energy
“Bloom is feminine forward, bold, and fun, and Skyline made sure that came through in every element of our booth.”
— Kim Trieu, Senior Experiential Manager, Bloom Nutrition
The NACS Show 2026 runs October 7th to 9th at the Las Vegas Convention Center. If you're starting to plan your booth, a few things are worth locking down early:
Confirm your booth space and size as soon as possible. This determines which exhibit formats and design options are realistically available to you.
Pick two or three goals, not ten. Product sampling, buyer meetings, and category-launch storytelling each pull the floor plan in a different direction. Trying to do all of it in one space usually means doing none of it well.
Plan your interactive element early. Whether it's an LED activation, a sampling station, or something as simple as a putting green, the details (licensing, fabrication, staffing) take lead time.
Line up logistics. Shipping, installation, and dismantle at a venue the size of the Las Vegas Convention Center is its own project. See Skyline's exhibit services page for how end-to-end program management works.
For more inspiration beyond these examples, browse Skyline's full idea gallery or explore additional case studies from other industries and shows.