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How to do CES like FUNN: a street guide to CES 2027

How to do CES like FUNN. No booth, no budget, a media pass and comfortable shoes. We have been doing it for years. Here is the street guide: where things are, how the week is shaped, and the stuff nobody tells you until you have wasted a day on a shuttle.

The week, in order

  • Media days (the two days before the show). Press-only. The big brands hold their keynote-style product announcements here, back to back, at the Mandalay Bay in 2026. CES Unveiled, the preview party where startups hand out business cards and shrimp, is listed for Monday, January 4, 2027. You need a media badge for all of it, and the shuttles check.
  • Show days: January 6 to 9. Day one is the crush. Day four is when the booth staff are tired, honest and willing to let you touch things. If you want a real demo, go late.
  • Keynotes. Lenovo is doing its keynote inside the Sphere on Wednesday, January 6 at 5 pm. Waymo and Stellantis are also on the 2027 list. Keynote lines are long; the broadcast is the same keynote.

Where things are

  • Las Vegas Convention Center. The big halls. The West Hall is cars and mobility: the automakers, autonomous systems, the big chip company’s mobility stage. The Central and North halls are the TV walls, the appliances and the giant consumer brands; one 2026 guide put micromobility in North.
  • Venetian Expo. This is where the weird is. Eureka Park, the startup zone, lives on the lower level, around 1,200 to 1,400 startups depending on who is counting. The national pavilions sit above it. Health, smart home and wearables were on Venetian Level 2 in 2026.
  • Everywhere else. Hotel suites. Half the best products at CES are shown in a suite at the Wynn by appointment, not on a floor. If a company you care about has no booth, email them before you fly.

The FUNN method

  1. Walk Eureka Park first. Everything there is new, the founders are at the table, and the demos are not scripted by a PR agency.
  2. Film the thing, not the booth. Thirty seconds of a product doing its job beats three minutes of a backdrop.
  3. Carry hand-outs. FUNN carries holographic coasters. People take a coaster home when they would never take a flyer, and when they scan it a week later you are still in their hand. Last time we did this we got calls from a telecom in another hemisphere and a branch of the US military. Bring more than you think.
  4. Shuttles are slower than walking between the Venetian and the LVCC. Usually. The monorail is the cheat code when it is running.
  5. Eat before 11 and after 2. The convention-center lunch line is a CES exhibit of its own.
  6. Charge everything, carry a bank, and assume the Wi-Fi is a rumor.

Getting a press pass

CES media credentials are applied for through ces.tech, with a review of your outlet, and the lineup for 2027 media days gets posted in the fall. Working press has gotten these for years by showing real, recent coverage. Which is what this series is. If you run a small outlet: start your coverage before you apply, not after.

Sources (checked October 2026): ces.tech · CES media days · CTA: Lenovo at Sphere · CES Venetian campus map · trade.gov CES 2026 webinar (layout)

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