Your team is considering a Digital Dealer Conference & Expo 2026 booth to demonstrate customer communication software to car dealerships. Before reserving space, you need to know whether the show targets the managers who handle inquiries and the people who approve software purchases—and how the conference and expo give you opportunities to meet them.
Digital Dealer moves to Detroit in 2026
Digital Dealer Conference & Expo is scheduled for September 22–23, 2026, at Huntington Place in Detroit, Michigan. It combines education about running a dealership with an expo where technology and service providers demonstrate their products. As of September 7, the event is still upcoming. The organizer has announced the move to Detroit, so an older Las Vegas listing is not the basis for this year’s travel or booth plans. Official Detroit announcement.
The move does not turn Digital Dealer into an automotive manufacturing exhibition. Its focus remains the retail business: finding customers, managing sales, improving service operations, and using technology inside dealerships. If your product helps a dealer handle customer inquiries, that is a much closer match than a product sold mainly to vehicle assembly plants. You can explore the dealer audience and demo format in the organizer’s show overview.
Who you can expect to meet
The intended audience includes dealership owners and general managers, alongside people responsible for marketing, online sales, customer relationships, and service operations. That gives a customer communication platform more than one possible route into a dealership: a manager may recognize a daily problem, while a senior leader may decide whether solving it deserves budget. These are the roles the organizer targets, not a guarantee that a particular dealership will attend. Official attendee information.
For your marketing team, the distinction matters. Someone trying to improve responses to online inquiries will want to see how your software hands a conversation to a salesperson. A group executive may instead need to understand whether different stores can use it consistently. The same demo can start the discussion, but it should leave room for both questions.
Before committing to space, ask the organizer for the latest available breakdown of dealership attendees by role and store count. Separate dealers from other solution providers in that breakdown. The published exhibitor sales page discusses both single-store and multi-store businesses, but its figures do not establish who will actually walk past your booth in 2026. Organizer’s exhibitor information.
What the 2026 conference schedule covers
The conference is organized around four tracks:
- Dealer Ops & Leadership: managing the business and its people.
- Sales & Variable Ops: the work of handling inquiries and selling vehicles.
- Marketing & Advertising: reaching customers and improving campaigns.
- Fixed Ops: the service side of a dealership.
For a customer communication platform, the sales and marketing tracks are the most direct fit. The service track also matters if your product handles service appointments or customer follow-up. It is a reason to bring a relevant example, rather than stretching a vehicle-sales demo to cover every department. 2026 agenda overview.
The live schedule makes those themes more concrete. It includes a session about bringing disconnected dealership customer data together, plus a CDK and Covideo session on improving engagement through practical changes to messages and follow-up. These topics suggest that your audience will be comparing how tools work within existing dealership routines. A demonstration that shows who responds next, and what information that person sees, gives them something more useful to assess than a screen full of features. Current conference schedule.
Car Dealership Guy is a new content partner for 2026, with Sam D’Arc and Glenn Lundy listed for the keynote. The program also includes a Women in Dealerships session. These sessions give your team a chance to hear from people running dealerships as well as technology vendors. 2026 program details.
There is also an AI Hackathon on September 23, where teams build automotive marketing solutions. The organizer says coding experience is not required; participation requires a Full Conference Pass and separate registration, with limited places. For your team, this is an optional way to hear how dealership people approach a problem before choosing a tool. Do not assume that an expo badge or exhibitor package includes access. Official AI Hackathon information.
What the Digital Dealer expo adds to the conference
The 2026 Digital Dealer exhibitor list includes Cox Automotive, CDK Global, Podium, and Covideo, among other companies. Dealers can use the show to speak with existing providers and assess alternatives. Review the list for competing products and potential integration partners before deciding what your own team will demonstrate. 2026 exhibitor directory.
Your product needs a clear place in that conversation. If you complement a dealer’s customer relationship management (CRM) system—the software used to track prospects and customer contact—show where the connection happens. If you replace part of it, explain which task moves into your product and what the dealership still needs to keep. Claims about integrations should match what your product can demonstrate today.
The organizer sets aside dedicated expo periods on both days: 10:00 a.m.–1:30 p.m. on September 22 and 9:00 a.m.–1:30 p.m. on September 23. These are narrower than the general opening hours, so they are useful anchors for keeping your demonstration team together. Check the final schedule before fixing shifts or customer appointments. Official agenda and show hours.
For a software booth, start with a demonstration that two or three people can comfortably follow. Let visitors see a dealership task move from start to finish, then step aside for a longer discussion. That is the basis for deciding screen positions and meeting space; a larger structure alone will not make a difficult workflow easier to understand.
The 2026 exhibitor manual describes complimentary Wi-Fi in the lobby and meeting rooms as suitable for light use and recommends an additional connection for critical applications or streaming. If your demonstration needs a live connection, confirm the booth service with Huntington Place and prepare an offline version. Electricity is ordered through Freeman. These arrangements should be settled before the demo layout is approved. 2026 exhibitor manual, utilities.
Digital Dealer and DealerPoint serve different meeting needs
DealerPoint is a separate event in the Digital Dealer family. Its current site lists April 5–7, 2027, in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, and describes a program built around selected dealership attendees, presentations, and arranged meetings. Solution providers purchase meeting or presentation packages. Official DealerPoint website.
For an open expo presence where dealers can discover and try your software, assess the Detroit Conference & Expo. If your priority is a structured schedule of conversations with selected executives, compare DealerPoint’s package and attendee criteria separately. A Digital Dealer booth should not be treated as a purchase of the meeting program described for DealerPoint.
The decision to make before booking a booth
Put Digital Dealer on your shortlist if you already sell to dealerships and can show how your software gets a customer inquiry to the right employee. If you are still establishing whether dealers need the product, attending to learn is a smaller first commitment.
For a late 2026 booking, availability is only part of the decision. The current manual gives August 24, 2026, as the deadline for designating an exhibitor-appointed contractor—the outside company you hire for services such as booth installation. That date has passed as of this guide’s update. Ask show management whether a late designation can be accepted before committing to an outside builder. A booth reservation does not by itself resolve contractor access. 2026 exhibitor manual, contractor process.
FAQs
Final Thoughts
When you need a booth that lets dealers see your software in use, KingExhibits can help you design space for demonstrations and sales conversations. Tell us which dealership task you will demonstrate, along with your confirmed booth size and schedule, so we can discuss a layout that supports your team’s presentation.
