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A three-day pass to Pizza Expo 2027 costs $170 through Nov. 30 and $325 at the door. That’s $155 back for deciding by Nov. 30. The catch is on the same page: all ticket sales are final and non-refundable. So the cheapest badge belongs to the operator who already knows why they’re going. Here’s how to be that operator, and how to know when the honest answer is “not this year.”
The show moved three weeks later
The 2027 show floor runs April 13–15 at the Las Vegas Convention Center’s West Hall, with education starting April 11. This year’s ran March 24–26. If your spring schedule is built around a late-March absence, rebuild it now. Mid-April lands on a different week of your calendar, and possibly a different staffing problem.
The floor hours tell you how to plan the trip: 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on Tuesday and Wednesday, 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Thursday. That’s 18 hours of floor time across three days. Workshops and seminars run before and around them. Anyone under 16 isn’t allowed on the exhibit floor, so the family-trip version of this needs a plan B.
The workshop is the part with a price you can judge
Last year’s show had more than 40 seminars, 13 workshops and 12 live demos, per the organizer. The 2027 education schedule isn’t posted yet. The 2026 schedule still on the site shows what the paid workshops looked like: mostly four-hour sessions at $250 each, with titles like plugging profit leaks, kitchen efficiency, hiring and training, and food trucks and catering.
Now do the combo math. At the Insider rate, the combo costs $195 more than the plain pass. That’s one workshop for less than last year’s standalone price. But it’s only a deal if the workshop fixes something you’d otherwise pay to fix. A four-hour session on kitchen efficiency is cheap if your ticket times are the problem. It’s $195 of tourism if they aren’t.
Don’t buy the badge for the show. Buy it for the one number you want the show to move.
The best operator content from 2026 points the same way. Hengam and Matthew Stanfield, who bought a failing San Antonio pizzeria, presented their “Playbook” of maintenance calendars, labor and food cost guidelines, and training manuals. That’s a talk you take notes in and execute the next Monday. If a session’s description can’t tell you what you’ll do differently by the following week, skip it and spend the hour on the floor.
The floor is for one purchase decision, not window shopping
The organizer bills the floor at more than 500 exhibitors, and its own show director pitches discount pricing and show specials on the floor. Read that as the organizer’s sales pitch, not a guarantee. Still, a room with every oven maker in it is the best place to compare quotes for a big purchase. Go with your numbers already done. If the question is whether a second oven pays, run your peak-hour count before the flight. If it’s a POS switch, bring the five contract lines to price. A show special on the wrong equipment is still the wrong equipment.
Hotels and the competition: wait, but watch
Housing isn’t open for 2027. When it opens, the organizer says EvolveCon, powered by HotelMap, is the only official housing provider. It also warns that third parties may contact attendees posing as official, and that it can’t protect you from a non-refundable deposit or a missing reservation booked elsewhere. If someone emails you a Pizza Expo room deal before the official block opens, delete it.
If you plan to compete, register for the show first. The rules say you must register as an attendee before you can enter the International Pizza Challenge. The 2027 rules aren’t posted. In 2026, divisions were capped at 110 entries, with Pan capped at 70, and sold-out divisions went to a waitlist. First place in Traditional or Non-Traditional paid $7,500. Losing can pay too, if you work the entry as a story.
Keep every receipt. The IRS says travel expenses are deductible when they’re ordinary and necessary costs of traveling away from home for your business, with business meals generally limited to 50%. Your accountant decides what counts. Your job is the paper trail.
If Las Vegas is too far, the same organizer runs Pizza Expo Columbus on Oct. 10–11, 2027.
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The honest limitation: nobody publishes data on whether trade-show attendance pays back for an independent pizzeria. Not the organizer, not the trade press, not us. The attendance and exhibitor counts above are the organizer’s own. The 2027 sessions, competition rules and hotel rates don’t exist yet, and the organizer can change any of it. What we can tell you is the price of deciding late: $155 per badge, and no refunds either way.
