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SEMA · F1 · AND A 1990 CASTLE

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I just got back from Vegas. And by “got back” I mean I was there for about 35 hours: there from 7 a.m. Monday to 6:30 p.m. Tuesday. I was out there for work at SEMA, commissioning an LED wall for XPEL‘s booth: getting it powered up, mapped, color-matched and looking right before the doors opened. Nobody notices an LED wall when it works. Everybody notices when it doesn’t.

It had been a while since I’d spent any real time in Vegas, and man, it’s a different town.

SEMA is enormous

If you’ve never been, SEMA is the giant aftermarket car show: custom builds, wraps, wheels, lifts, paint protection, every kind of shiny thing you can bolt onto a vehicle. This year it ran November 3-6 and filled the whole Las Vegas Convention Center, with over a million square feet of exhibits and more than 2,000 brands. Last year it pulled in well over 130,000 people.

[ SEMA ]

Four days of show takes five days to build

Here’s the part nobody sees. Exhibitor move-in started on Thursday, October 29, and from then until the doors opened Tuesday morning, the Convention Center was a construction site: freight arriving on assigned time slots, booths going up two stories tall, show cars getting rolled in and detailed, and miles of power and data cable being run under carpet.

I flew in for the last day of setup on Monday, which is the day everything has to actually work. That’s when the LED walls get powered up, mapped and tuned, so that on Tuesday morning they just look like part of the booth. I stayed into opening day on Tuesday, and I was out of there by 6:30 that evening.

SEMA setup day: an aisle at the Las Vegas Convention Center with XPEL booth pallets in the foreground — Monday, the last day of setup. XPEL’s booth freight is still shrink-wrapped, and a RAUH-Welt Porsche is rolling down the aisle.

Road cases lined up in a back hallway of the Las Vegas Convention Center during SEMA setup — Monday evening, backstage: road cases parked in the back hall behind the pipe and drape.

Mazda 787 race car parked in the XPEL booth during SEMA setup — A Mazda 787 parked in the XPEL booth before the show. It’s a rotary-powered Group C prototype, the same family as the 787B that won Le Mans in 1991. Plastic still on the floor.

The XPEL booth at SEMA 2026 with a large LED wall showing a boat on the water — The XPEL booth’s LED wall on opening morning, showing a boat ripping across the water. This is what I was there for. (Faces blurred.)

Here’s what a booth build looks like, sped way up:

And here’s XPEL’s own recap from the show floor:

Half the Strip is a construction site

The Vegas I remember is getting torn down and rebuilt one casino at a time:

The Mirage (volcano and all) closed and is being turned into the Hard Rock, with a giant guitar-shaped hotel tower. It’s aiming for late 2027.
The Tropicana got imploded, and the A’s are building a domed ballpark on the corner where it stood, due in 2028.
The Cromwell is now the Vanderpump Hotel. Yes, that Vanderpump.
Fontainebleau finally opened at the north end of the Strip after sitting half-built for more than a decade.

Meanwhile, I stayed in a castle from 1990

I stayed at the Excalibur. It opened in June 1990, and when it opened it was the largest hotel in the world. It’s still a big medieval castle with the pointy colored turrets, it still has Tournament of Kings (the jousting dinner show, still the longest-running dinner show on the Strip), and it has absolutely not been updated to match the Vegas going up around it. It was perfect for a 35-hour trip where all I needed was a bed and a shower.

Stew giving a thumbs up in front of the Excalibur castle at night — Me, extremely excited to be staying in a castle from 1990.

Night view of Excalibur castle turrets from a hotel room window — The view from my room: turrets, towers and a little rain on the window.

The airport has a new name

McCarran is gone. Since December 2021 it’s been Harry Reid International, after the longtime Nevada senator. The old namesake, Pat McCarran, had a pretty ugly record. The code is still LAS, and some of the old McCarran signs are still hanging around, because the rename was supposed to be paid for with private money and that money ran out.

[ One Mile at a Time ]

And the whole town is gearing up for F1

The Las Vegas Grand Prix is November 19-21, and they run it right down the Strip at night. So while SEMA was going on, crews were already building grandstands and laying track in front of the Bellagio, with lanes closed and barriers everywhere. Tourists are not thrilled:

What I ate (all of it was good)

Nine Fine Irishmen, inside New York-New York: an Irish pub that was literally built in Ireland and shipped over in pieces. Proper pub food, a Guinness, and a live band most nights.
Tacos El Gordo, on the Strip up by the Convention Center: Tijuana-style street tacos. It’s cheap, there’s always a line, and it’s worth the line.
Bagelmania, off the Strip: an old-school Vegas deli and bagel shop. A good bagel is the only correct way to start a SEMA day.

A tray of Tijuana-style tacos at Tacos El Gordo — Tacos El Gordo. Worth the line.

Interior of Nine Fine Irishmen pub at New York-New York — Nine Fine Irishmen. The whole pub was built in Ireland and shipped over.

So that was my Vegas: a car show the size of a small city, a town rebuilding itself on top of itself, a racetrack going down Las Vegas Boulevard, some really good tacos, and me in a 1990 castle with a day and a half to get an LED wall dialed in. Wouldn’t trade it.

-Stew