CHICAGO CONVENTION ADVERTISING

McCormick Place Is Huge. Your Campaign Should Not Disappear Inside It.

McCormick Place is the largest convention center in North America, with 2.6 million square feet of exhibit space and roughly 3 million visitors a year. That is great news if you are running the show. It is a little more complicated if you are one exhibitor trying not to become booth #4,782.

Kween Cab gives brands another place to compete: outside the exhibit hall. Branded pedicabs, sponsored rides, mobile OOH, sampling, and street teams can carry a campaign into the McCormick Square and South Loop environment where attendees are moving between the convention center, hotels, parking, transit, restaurants, meetings, and after-hours events.

The booth gets you onto the floor. The street gives you another chance to be remembered.

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THE BIG SHOWS AT MCCORMICK PLACE

This Is Why the Chicago Page Exists.

McCormick Place does not just host conventions. It hosts some of the biggest business gatherings in the country. These are shows where exhibitors spend heavily to get noticed, buyers flood the campus, and the audience keeps moving long after the exhibit hall closes.

That makes the calendar itself part of the media opportunity.

IMTS — INTERNATIONAL MANUFACTURING TECHNOLOGY SHOW

91,295 registrants in 2026 | 1,788 exhibiting companies | 1.17+ million sq. ft. of exhibits

IMTS is the largest manufacturing technology show in the Western Hemisphere and essentially takes over McCormick Place. The audience is packed with manufacturing executives, engineers, operations leaders, procurement teams, plant managers, and technical buyers. For an exhibitor, a branded pedicab fleet can extend the booth into the arrival and departure experience, carry buyers between the campus and nearby destinations, and keep the brand visible when attendees are no longer staring at machinery inside the hall.

PACK EXPO INTERNATIONAL

48,000+ packaging and processing professionals | 2,600 exhibitors | 1.3 million net sq. ft.

PACK EXPO is another monster. Food and beverage, pharma, personal care, household goods, e-commerce, chemicals, pet products, and industrial brands all collide at one show. That breadth creates a particularly strong mobile OOH opportunity because the audience is commercially valuable and the exhibitor competition is brutal. Sponsored rides can also give a brand a useful way to stand out after attendees have spent all day walking a show floor measured in acres.

RSNA — RADIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF NORTH AMERICA

21,000+ professional attendees annually | 700+ exhibiting companies in 2026 | 421,000+ sq. ft. of technical exhibits

RSNA brings a highly concentrated medical-imaging audience to McCormick Place: radiologists, healthcare leaders, researchers, technology buyers, and major equipment manufacturers. This is exactly the kind of show where exhibitors invest heavily in polished booth experiences. Mobile OOH and sponsored transportation give those campaigns a life outside the technical exhibits — around hotels, meetings, dinners, and the movement surrounding the campus.

NATIONAL RESTAURANT ASSOCIATION SHOW

55,000+ foodservice professionals in 2026 | approximately 2,300 exhibitors | 720,000 sq. ft. of exhibits

Few shows fit Kween Cab as naturally as the Restaurant Show. The audience is already thinking about food, hospitality, experiences, and what is happening around the city after show hours. A branded ride between McCormick Place and a nearby restaurant, hotel, or event does more than create an impression — it becomes part of the hospitality experience the brand is trying to sell.

ASCO ANNUAL MEETING

44,000+ attendees at a recent annual meeting | attendees from 160+ countries | returns to McCormick Place in 2027

ASCO is one of the world’s largest oncology meetings, bringing a global medical and life-sciences audience to Chicago. Pharma, biotech, diagnostics, healthcare technology, and research organizations spend heavily to be present. The opportunity outside the hall is not about shouting louder. It is about giving attendees something useful — visibility around the campus, branded rides, and a cleaner connection between the convention and the surrounding hotel and meeting environment.

CHICAGO AUTO SHOW

211,850 attendees in 2026 | 10 public show days | 102,000+ in-vehicle experiences

The Chicago Auto Show changes the equation because it is a giant consumer event, not just a trade show. That opens the door to broader sponsor campaigns, public-facing activations, sampling, entertainment partnerships, and branded transportation. A pedicab is not competing with a thousand booth sales pitches here. It is part of the day out — especially around arrival, parking, and the surrounding South Loop experience.

PROMAT

50,000+ manufacturing and supply-chain buyers | 1,200+ exhibits | 200 educational sessions

ProMat fills McCormick Place with logistics, automation, robotics, warehousing, retail, and supply-chain decision-makers. The show itself is about moving things efficiently, which makes a transportation-based brand activation almost suspiciously on-theme. Exhibitors can use sponsored rides and mobile media to stay visible before and after the floor, when buyers are moving between the campus, hotels, dinners, and networking events.

FABTECH

1,500+ exhibitors at the 2025 Chicago show | 850,000+ sq. ft. of show floor | tens of thousands of industry professionals

FABTECH brings metal forming, fabrication, welding, and finishing buyers together at enormous scale. Like IMTS, it is a high-value industrial audience where the buying cycle can justify serious exhibitor spend. Kween Cab gives those brands a way to get out of the aisle and into the attendee journey around the campus.

THE MCCORMICK PLACE PROBLEM

The Building Is Enormous. So Is the Walk.

McCormick Place spans four major convention buildings plus Wintrust Arena, with hotels, parking, transit, rideshare, and pedestrian movement spread across a huge lakefront campus. The venue itself lists 2.6 million square feet of exhibit halls, 173 meeting rooms, and millions of annual visitors.

For advertisers, that scale creates two very different realities. Inside the building, there is an extraordinary concentration of buyers. Outside the building, those same people are trying to figure out where they are going next.

That second part is where pedicabs get interesting.

Be the Brand That Makes the Next Half Mile Easier.

A sponsored ride program lets the advertiser cover the fare so attendees ride at no charge within the campaign footprint. The cab becomes a moving piece of branded media, but the interaction feels different because the passenger is getting something useful.

Around McCormick Place, sponsored rides can be designed around realistic pedestrian movements: convention entrances, nearby hotels, parking areas, South Loop restaurants, event venues, and approved pickup or staging areas. The exact operating footprint depends on the event and local conditions, but the strategic idea is simple: find the annoying walk and make the brand the solution.

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MOBILE OOH THAT DOES NOT GET STUCK IN ONE SPOT

Follow the Crowd Instead of Hoping It Walks Past You.

Branded pedicabs can circulate through high-traffic areas surrounding the convention environment, reposition as attendee movement changes, and stage where they remain useful and visible. The media can include passenger-area wraps or panels, wheel covers, driver apparel, QR codes, campaign messaging, and other custom elements depending on the vehicle and program.

At a show like IMTS or PACK EXPO, that means the campaign can work during the morning arrival, throughout show hours, during the evening exodus, and around the meetings and dinners that follow. The audience moves. The media can move with it.

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Kween Cab driver giving a convention attendee a ride

STREET TEAMS + SAMPLING

Because Sometimes You Need More Than a Moving Logo.

Pedicabs can also anchor street teams, sampling programs, promotional distribution, QR engagement, and other face-to-face activations. The branded fleet creates a visible focal point. The people give attendees a reason to stop, scan, taste, take something, or ask what the campaign is about.

For food, beverage, hospitality, consumer, and technology brands, that combination can turn the space outside the venue into an extension of the booth instead of dead air between the convention center and the hotel.

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PROOF OF PERFORMANCE

A Cool Cab Is Not the Report.

Depending on the campaign, proof-of-performance can include ride counts, route activity, operating notes, photography, video, QR engagement, and other reporting appropriate to the activation. A sponsored transportation program should be measured differently from a pure mobile OOH campaign, and a sampling team should not be judged by the same scorecard as either one.

The point is to leave the client with evidence of what happened — not just a folder of good-looking photos.

PLANNING A MCCORMICK PLACE CAMPAIGN?

Tell Us the Show. We’ll Start With the Crowd.

Send us the convention, dates, brand, audience, and what you are trying to accomplish. We can help shape the right mix of branded pedicabs, sponsored rides, mobile OOH, street teams, sampling, and on-the-ground execution around the event.

You do not need to arrive with a perfect route map. You need a reason to be there and an audience worth reaching. We can work from there.

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