Newtopia Now 2027Exhibitor guide: booth costs, dates and deadlines

Inline space came as a package booth in the 2026 kit, so the spend goes on filling it: a printed graphic for the fabric wall, shelving and a tasting counter, with a custom 10×10 build at $8,000 to $25,000 or a rental kit from $3,500. A custom 20×20 island runs $50,000 to $120,000. Carpentry on every island face and refrigeration move the number; New Hope bills the space.

In the 2026 kit the date that mattered was New Hope's mandatory Booth Approval Form: every exhibitor filed a drawing showing all heights by August 4, fifteen days before the floor opened. Sign off the design with us by early July 2027 and the drawing, production and freight are ready well before any approval date the 2027 kit sets.

We rent everything that fills a Newtopia Now space: a fabric graphic sized to the backwall, lit shelving that stays under the height lines, a refrigerated sample counter and the cases to ship it all. For a 20×20 or 20×30 island we rent the full structure, finished on every face, and take it back afterward.

The 2026 kit allowed it only inside the package: the walls and side returns stayed up, the back half stopped at 8 feet 3 inches, and nothing over 4 feet stood in the front 5 feet so sight lines down the aisle stayed open. We build freestanding walls to those lines and check them again when the 2027 kit opens.

Building work at the Stephens center goes through the show's contractor, since Illinois has no right-to-work statute, and the exhibitor kit sets what your own staff may handle. In the 2026 kit the package walls and counter came with the space, so exhibitors mostly stocked product. For islands, our project manager runs the install with vetted local labor.

New Hope's show policies keep all sampling and promotion inside your contracted booth, bar selling product to attendees and let each attendee leave the floor with one sample bag a day. The 2026 kit added a hand-washing kit for open sampling and compostable service ware with no single-use plastic. We bring sneeze guards, gloves and fiber cups, and file every sampling form in the 2027 kit.

Purple's 2026 Rosemont planning figure for this building is $145.00 per hundredweight on crated freight through the advance warehouse, below McCormick Place levels. You pay drayage to the contractor New Hope appoints, at its own tariff. Cases of sample product add weight fast, so we consolidate them with the booth crates and put the estimate on your proposal.

Only after New Hope's Standards team approves each product. Anything with cannabinoids, apart from hemp seed and hemp seed oil, needs pre-approval; full-spectrum hemp stays at or under 0.3% THC, and edible THC-containing hemp must meet Illinois requirements under SB3222 for Newtopia Now 2027. THC isolate and vapes are banned, and we flag every cannabinoid product on your booth paperwork.

We build Newtopia Now booths to travel. The backwall graphic and shelving pack into cases for a 10×10 at the Summer Fancy Food Show or PLMA's private label show in Rosemont, and an island steps up to Natural Products Expo West, where one New Hope Standards application covers both shows. Between shows we store everything and reprint graphics for each audience.

Newtopia Now 2027 runs Tuesday, September 14 to Thursday, September 16, 2027, at the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center. Tuesday is set aside for Community Experiences, and the show floor, education and exhibits fill Wednesday and Thursday, September 15–16. For a custom booth built in Fishkill, we need your design signed off in early July 2027.

In Rosemont, Illinois, at the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center, 5555 N River Rd, after three editions in Denver from 2024 to 2026. The center sits 20 minutes from downtown Chicago and right by O'Hare, a skybridge links it to nearby hotels, and the free Pace Route 811 circulator stops at the building.

The first Newtopia Now, in Denver in 2024, drew more than 7,000 attendees, 4,000 of them registered buyers, and 560 exhibiting companies, by New Hope's count. The 2025 edition gathered more than 480 brands, and the August 2026 show had 435+ brands, over 60% exhibiting for the first time, with 1,500 curated meetings.

No. Newtopia Now is a trade show, and New Hope admits only people with a direct professional link to the trade. Anyone 16 or older registers as an attendee or exhibitor and shows business proof, younger children need a Children's Badge and an adult beside them, and booth staff under 18 stay off the floor during move-in and move-out.

Through New Hope Network, part of Informa Markets, which assigns Newtopia Now booths first come, first served. First-time brands file the New Exhibitor Application and pass a Standards Review of ingredients, labeling and marketing claims, then a sales account manager books the space. Tell us your footprint and we prepare the booth drawing for show approval.