Events·October 24, 2026

CES 2027 Side Events and Parties for Founders

The CES 2027 side events, startup mixers, and after-hours parties where founders actually meet investors and partners — and how to get on the lists.

CES 2027 runs January 6–9, 2027 in Las Vegas — but anyone who has been will tell you the same thing: the show floor is where you exhibit, and the side events are where business actually gets done. The CES 2027 side events calendar already has anchor dates confirmed, including CES Unveiled on January 4, Pepcom’s Digital Experience on January 5, and ShowStoppers at the Bellagio on January 6. Around those anchors, the startup mixers, investor dinners, and after-hours parties that founders care about will fill every ballroom, rooftop, and steakhouse on the Strip by the time December rolls around.

This guide covers the confirmed CES 2027 side events so far, how the party economy actually works, and exactly how founders get on the lists — including the ones that claim to be invite-only. For the full show-floor strategy, pair it with our CES 2027 startup founder’s guide.

What are CES side events — and why do founders care?

CES side events are everything that happens around the official conference: media showcases, startup mixers, brand activations, investor breakfasts, rooftop parties, and late-night suites. They run from January 4 (the evening of CES Unveiled) through the final Saturday of the show, and the best ones are concentrated in a handful of hotels — the Venetian, Bellagio, Aria, Paris, and the Cosmopolitan.

For founders, the math is simple. Eureka Park alone packed roughly 1,200 startups into 40+ global pavilions at the last show. You cannot out-shout 1,200 booths with a 10×10 exhibit space. But at a Tuesday-evening mixer, you can have four real conversations with people who can fund, distribute, or write about your product. Side events compress a week of cold outreach into two hours of warm room. If you want the deeper argument, read how to measure whether a startup event was worth it.

Which CES 2027 side events are already confirmed?

Four anchor events have firm dates and venues for CES 2027. Everything else — the founder mixers and after-parties — gets announced between mid-November and early January. Here is what is locked in so far:

CES Unveiled Las Vegas — January 4, 2027

The official media preview night, held the evening of January 4 before the show floors open. It is press-heavy by design, but if you are launching at CES, it is the first room where your story can meet journalists. Startups typically get access by exhibiting or through a PR agency’s press list — so if this is your target, brief your agency in November, not on January 3.

Digital Experience! by Pepcom — January 5, 2027

Pepcom’s Digital Experience runs 7:00–10:30 pm on January 5 at the Paris Las Vegas, the evening before the show opens. It is a demo showcase where reporters get hands-on time with new products from major brands and selected startups. Exhibiting packages are not cheap, but for a hardware or consumer-tech startup, a single strong press conversation here can pay for the booth — media attendees walk in actively looking for stories to write that week.

ShowStoppers @ CES 2027 — January 6, 2027

ShowStoppers returns Wednesday, January 6, 6–9 pm, in the Grand Ballroom at the Bellagio. Like Pepcom, it is a media showcase rather than a party — but it is one of the highest-density rooms of tech journalists anywhere during CES week. Startups exhibit alongside major brands, and the format is built for back-to-back 10-minute demos. If press is your CES goal, ShowStoppers and Pepcom are the two events to budget for.

Eureka Park and the Startup Stage — January 6–9, 2027

Not technically a “side event,” but Eureka Park at the Venetian Expo is the startup side of CES — the show’s flagship startup marketplace, with its own Startup Stage covering AI, health, and funding topics all week. It is also where founder-to-founder networking happens naturally: the aisles are dense, the booths are small, and everyone walking them is either a founder, an investor, or a buyer scouting startups. CTA’s Innovation For All program is awarding up to ten US and Canadian startups a complimentary Eureka Park booth plus a $2,500 travel stipend for CES 2027 — worth applying for if you qualify. The surrounding programming (community pavilions, country delegations, and stage talks) makes Eureka Park feel like a startup conference embedded inside the world’s biggest tech show.

One caveat: most founder mixers, investor dinners, and brand after-parties for CES 2027 are not announced yet. That is normal — the party calendar solidifies in November and December. Book your hotel and anchor schedule now, and treat the rest as a rolling list you update weekly. We track everything in the Las Vegas startup events guide as dates land.

How do you get invited to CES parties and mixers?

Here is the open secret: almost nobody at a CES party was personally invited. The “invite-only” label mostly means “RSVP list with a capacity limit.” Getting on those lists is a process, and it starts before you fly to Vegas:

Get on host lists in December. Sponsors, VC firms, and media brands publish RSVP links 2–6 weeks out. Sign up the day links appear — capacity caps are real and they close.
Work the exhibiting brands. If you know a company with a booth — a partner, customer, or investor portco — ask which evening events they are hosting or can get you into. Founders with booths get list priority.
Use the platforms. Most CES-week mixers are listed on Eventbrite, Luma, and LinkedIn Events. Search “CES 2027” weekly from mid-November. If you are deciding between platforms for your own event, our event platform and discovery tool comparison breaks down which crowd each one actually reaches.
Ask the people you already know. A warm ask (“are you hosting anything that week?”) to investors, accelerator staff, or portfolio founders surfaces more invitations than any cold list. We cover the mechanics in how to get into invite-only founder events.
Warm up press contacts now. If Pepcom or ShowStoppers is the target, email the journalists you want to meet in November with your story — then the January 5–6 events become confirmations, not cold pitches. Our guide to getting press at startup events has the exact template.

Where do founders actually hang out at CES?

Geography does most of the work. The Venetian is the startup center of gravity because Eureka Park is there. The Bellagio hosts ShowStoppers and half the investor-set restaurant meetings. Aria and the Cosmopolitan rooftop bars are where after-parties converge when official programming ends, and hotel lobbies become networking floors in their own right — some of the best CES conversations happen in the coffee line at 8 am, not at a midnight party.

If you are staying off-Strip to save money, budget for the ride-share time. CES week traffic can make a two-mile trip take 40 minutes, which quietly kills evening plans. Our conference travel hacks for founders covers hotel strategy and logistics in more depth.

How should a founder plan their CES side-event schedule?

The mistake first-timers make is treating CES week like a conference to attend rather than a campaign to run. You are there to leave with 10–15 real relationships, not 300 badge scans. Plan backwards from that:

Arrive by January 4. The Unveiled-and-Pepcom window (Jan 4–5) is where media attention is least diluted. Founders who arrive on the 6th have already missed the two best press nights.
Anchor two evening commitments per night, max. One anchor event (a showcase or big mixer) plus one dinner or suite meeting. Any more and you spend your week in ride-share lines.
Protect mornings for 1:1s. Coffee meetings at your hotel are the highest-converting slots of CES week — see how to ask a founder for a coffee chat for the exact ask that works.
Bring a wingman. A conference buddy system doubles your room coverage — one of you works the anchor event while the other works the overflow list.
Rehearse the 30-second intro. Rooms are loud and attention is short. Our 30-second founder intro template is built exactly for party-volume conversations.

And pack for the format: CES side events run the gamut from startup-casual to investor-dinner formal. The what to wear to a startup event guide keeps you from being the founder in a suit at the rooftop mixer.

How do you turn CES party conversations into actual pipeline?

A Las Vegas bar conversation is worth nothing unless it survives the flight home. The founders who get value out of CES week run a simple system: capture the commitment in the room, follow up within 48 hours, and attach a next step. “Great meeting you” is not a next step; “sending you our deck intro per our chat about your retail partners” is. The full playbook is in how to follow up after a tech event.

If your CES goal is capital, be upfront about which conversations belong at a party and which belong in a scheduled meeting. Investors at CES are in event mode — the right move is a short, sharp intro and a request for a real slot later that week or after the show. We break down the approach in how to approach investors at startup events.

Are CES side events worth it for early-stage founders?

Yes — with a caveat. The combination of 1,200 Eureka Park startups, a compressed week, and the densest investor-and-media concentration on the calendar makes CES week one of the highest-leverage networking windows of the year, even for pre-revenue teams. The caveat is fatigue: five nights of parties is a burnout machine, and a founder who is dragging on Thursday is not a founder who closes. Read how many events is too many and schedule the rest like you schedule the work.

The play, in short: book the anchors that are confirmed now, work the RSVP lists as they open in November and December, sleep more than you think you need to, and treat every room at CES as a room full of future customers, investors, and co-conspirators. See you in Vegas.

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