LDI 2026 Freight Deadline Is November 23: Pack the Booth Truck Before Thanksgiving

If your booth is going to LDI 2026 by advance freight, it has to be at the GES warehouse by 4:30 PM on Monday, November 23, three days before Thanksgiving. That date decides when your booth truck gets packed, and for most lighting shops that means the week of November 16, not the week of the show.

LDI's expo runs December 6 to 8 in the West Hall of the Las Vegas Convention Center, with Pro Training starting December 2. Here's every freight date that matters, plus an example pack of a 20x20 lighting booth in a 26-foot box truck so you can see what one actually looks like.

The LDI advance warehouse takes freight October 26 to November 23

Source: GES, Live Design International Quick Facts

GES runs the advance warehouse at 7000 Lindell Road in Las Vegas, and it receives Monday to Friday, 8:00 AM to 4:30 PM, closed for lunch from noon to 12:30. Freight that shows up before October 26 gets a storage fee, and freight that shows up after November 23 may get an additional charge. The bigger trap is the dock: GES says every inbound carrier has to check in by 2:00 PM to be guaranteed same-day unloading, and trucks signing in after 2:00 PM may be charged at the overtime rate. So the real deadline is 2:00 PM on the 23rd, and with the holiday that week, carriers will be busy. Back that up through transit time and your truck is loaded around November 16 to 18.

Direct delivery to the West Hall runs December 2 to 5, 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM

Source: GES, Live Design International Quick Facts

If you're driving your own truck in, you go direct to show site, 300 Convention Center Drive, during move-in, December 2 to 5 from 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM. Trucks check in at the marshaling yard at 2982 West Post Road first, then get called to the dock. GES also flags that this event moves in on overtime and all applicable surcharges apply, which is worth knowing before you plan a 4:00 PM arrival. Saturday, December 5 has a lights-out window from 1:00 PM to 6:00 PM for fog and haze testing, per the LDI exhibitor console, so plan focus around it and don't count on that afternoon for load-in.

GES orders get best pricing until November 6

Source: GES, Live Design International Quick Facts

The discount deadline for GES orders with payment is Friday, November 6, and that covers material handling along with carpet, electrical and furniture. Material handling is priced by weight, so your pack plan is also your drayage estimate. We broke down how that math works in our trade show drayage guide. Know your case weights before the 6th and you can price the order before the discount goes away.

A 20x20 lighting booth fits in a 26-foot box truck at 8,081 lb

Source: Truck Packer load plan, 28 cases at typical sizes and weights for each case type

To see what a typical LDI booth truck looks like, we built one: a booth flooring crate, two 8-foot box truss cases, eight moving head 2-packs, four 6-panel LED wall cases, two chain motor 4-packs, a power distro rack, two cable trunks, the console, a counter crate, a graphics crate, a hanging sign tube and four demo fixture totes. All 28 cases fit in a 26-foot box truck, using 25 of the 26 feet of deck and 8,081 lb of the truck's 9,998 lb capacity. Here's the pack if you want to open it and swap in your own cases.

Top view: flooring and truss on the nose wall, fixtures and LED wall through the middle, distro and cable at the tail.

Side view: the graphics crate and sign tube ride on top, the console sits near the doors.

The order matters more at a trade show than on most tour loads. Flooring goes down first in the booth, so it needs to come off the truck first. In this pack it sits on the nose wall, which means it comes off last, so either flip the order or pull it out of the truck before you start building. Truss and motors come next because rigging goes up before anything lands on the floor. Fixtures, LED wall and the console come after that, and the counter and graphics go in last.

Move-out ends December 10 at 10:00 AM

Source: LDI exhibitor console

Move-out starts when the show closes at 3:00 PM on Tuesday, December 8, and runs until 11:00 PM that night, then all day Wednesday the 9th. On Thursday, December 10, carriers have to be checked in by 8:00 AM, and all exhibitor materials have to be off the floor by 10:00 AM. Book the return leg when you book the inbound so a carrier is actually there Thursday morning. Keep the same pack plan for the load-out, because it's the fastest way to get a tired crew to put 28 cases back where they fit.

The short version

Book freight now, get your case weights into one place before November 6, and have the truck packed by November 18 if you're going advance warehouse. If you're going direct, check in at West Post Road early in the day and stay out of Saturday afternoon.

Packing a booth for LDI? Log in to Truck Packer and build the load plan before the freight deadline.