Everything You Need to Know About Equip Expo 2026

Paul Jamison shares his insights about the largest trade show in the lawn and landscaping industry, the world famous Equip Expo! 🎟️ LCR Summit: https://www.lcrmedianetwork.com/ 🎟️ Equip Expo 👉 Save 50% off Equip Expo Ticket w/ Promo Code PAUL: Register Here https://go.equipexposition.com/promocode-paul 📚 Level Up Your Money (New Release) 👉 Get Your Paperback Copy! https://pauljamison.org/book 🎧 Level Up Your Money (Audiobook) 👉 Listen on Audible https://pauljamison.org/audiobook 📲 Connect with Paul - Visit Official Website https://www.thepauljamison.com/ 🛠️ Paul's Recommended Tools & Professionals Try the CRM Jobber - Click Here https://pauljamison.org/Jobber 📞 CallRail – Track where your leads are coming from: callrail.com https://partners.callrail.com/cc4gs529efdp 📚 The Landscaping Bookkeeper – Know your numbers, stress less: thelandscapingbookkeeper.com https://thelandscapingbookkeeper.com/ The Lawn Care Bootcamp - Click Here https://pauljamison.org/bootcamp 📈 Lawn Care Launch: Click Here https://thelandscapingbookkeeper.com/lawn-care-launch (new program for business owners) 🌐 Footbridge Media – Get a pro lawn care website: footbridgemedia.com https://www.footbridgemedia.com/paul-jamison?ref=pauljamison 📦 Business-Building Resources by Paul Price Increase Letter Template https://www.thepauljamison.com/resource_redirect/landing_pages/2150230978 Contract Templates https://www.thepauljamison.com/resource_redirect/landing_pages/2150230978 📚 Paul's Most Popular Business Books How to Build a Thriving Lawn Care Business: Buy on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D4K835L4 Cut That Grass and Make That Cash: Buy on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08SP7MQ13

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:31Speaker 01

  Hello and welcome to the Green Industry Podcast, your go-to guide for building a more profitable and thriving lawn care and landscaping business. Your host, Paul Jameson, is the author of five bestselling books, including Cut That Grass and Make That Cash and his latest, Level Up Your Money, all available on Amazon and Audible. Now get ready for more expert insights and practical strategies to boost your business and level up your life. Here's Paul Jamison.

• 1:08Speaker 00

  Welcome back to the show. I'm Paul Jamison down here in beautiful sunny Florida. Today, we're going to talk about everything you need to know about the Equip Expo, just the largest trade show in the lawn care and landscaping industry. Over 30,000 landscape professionals gather this year in Louisville, Kentucky. And I want to let you know everything you need to know about attending this show. I've been a regular annual attendee since 2017, and I've made a lot of mistakes on my journey to and from Louisville each year. And I kind of learned from those mistakes. And so I'm not the biggest fan of traveling. I like sleeping in my own bed, which is not the bed back here.

• 1:53Speaker 00

  If you're watching on my video, I'm in my guest bedroom here where I film my podcast. I got another bedroom. I got really nice, anyways, a nice setup. I like life down here. I don't like traveling as much as some people. But when I do go, I want to make sure everything is smooth and orderly, organized and lined up. So let's talk about the Equip Expo. The date for this year's show is October 19th, no, October 20th, pardon me. I'm looking at my calendar here, October 20th through 23rd, year 2026. Now, that's a Tuesday night, a Wednesday, a Thursday and a Friday. And a lot of my friends, they'll go for the whole week.

• 2:38Speaker 00

  But there's other people I know that they may only be able to go for a couple of days. So out of October 20th through 23rd, Tuesday night through Friday, when's the best time to go if you can only go for a couple of days? So that's what I want to talk about first, and then we'll talk about what hotels to stay at, where to park, all the nooks and crannies of going to this wonderful event. Before we get into that, when you register for Equip Expo, don't pay the full price, which this year is $120. You can get your tickets for half off with the promo code PAUL. So if you type in PAUL when you're registering, your ticket price will go down by half and you'll save yourself on your ticket. So that's, that's tip number one.

• 3:22Speaker 00

  And right now, by the way, tickets are only, they're on like the early, early bird special up until Labor Day. So only 30 bucks and use promo code PAUL, you get tickets for 15 bucks. How about that? I think that's the right math. Anyway, when you register, type in my name, Paul, that'll save you half off your tickets. So the main day at Equip Expo is always the Thursday, which this year happens to be October 22nd. And what I mean by the main day is Tuesday night is a awesome welcome reception, sponsored by Caterpillar. It's at the, it's at the Kentucky Derby venue, which is called Churchill Downs. So if you ever watched the Kentucky Derby,

• 4:05Speaker 00

  I believe that it's usually in the spring around May. And all the rich and famous people are there with the, the women all have, not all, but the stylish ones have these big hats and they're wearing like spring colors, blues and oranges and white, you know, peach and white. And they're all rich and they're all famous and they're all standing there at Churchill Downs, watching the horses live in the life. That's us. Except we're a bunch of rednecks hanging out on Tuesday night at the Churchill Downs, wearing hoodies and flannels and coats and hanging out. But we're at the same venue that, you know, the rich, famous people are.

• 4:49Speaker 00

  Now, a lot of y'all are rich. And anyway, that's a whole nother story for another day. There's, there's an amazing book, by the way, I ain't going to get on this side tangent, but I do want to mention this really good book from the 1990s. It's aged well. It's called The Millionaire Next Door. And it's facts about who the real millionaires are. There's a lot of millionaires in America, but you wouldn't even know they're millionaires because they're not all flashy. They don't drive fancy cars and they don't, they don't be ostentatious with their wealth. They just, you know, pay off their home. Now they got all this equity in their home. They invest in the stock market wisely. Over time, that grows and their net worth's well over a million dollars.

• 5:34Speaker 00

  But if you just looked at them, you would just think, oh, you know, I have a friend, he's, his net worth over $100 million. And if you saw him at Chipotle or just out at a restaurant, you would never know it, never know it, never know.

• 5:50Speaker 00

  So anyway, back to Equip Expo, Tuesday night is the Churchill Downs event. If you can make it great, the, my, going back to my original point, the main day is Thursday. So the highest traffic at the trade show is Thursday. Wednesday, the event opens up at a different venue called the Kentucky Exposition Center. So the opening reception night, Tuesday night, that's at Churchill Downs, the horse track place, which is close to Louisville. What are they, Mr. Producer? The Cardinal, where Lamar Jackson played?

• 6:35Speaker 00

  The Louisville Cardinal Football Team campus there. It's a, it's a Division One college. So the campus is there, the Kentucky Exposition Center is there, the airport's there, Churchill Downs is there. It's all about a mile or two away, very, very close there. Well, Wednesday, the, the, the, the trade show goes over to the big Kentucky Exposition Center. And at 11:00 AM, they have their opening keynote speech. And then at noon, the trade room show floor opens on Wednesday. Let me look at my calendar here. That would be October 21st, year 2026. So the, the show will open up at noon and there's, there's strong traffic

• 7:18Speaker 00

  on the first opening day, Wednesday from noon to five, strong traffic. So if you can only come for two days, you would want to be there by noon on Wednesday. And that'll give you four or five hours to walk around the trade room, show floor, indoors, outdoors. If it's good weather, there's 30 acres plus outside where you have all your main manufacturers and they have their latest and greatest equipment. It's awesome. And then there's a big traffic jam in the parking lot on Wednesday afternoon, around four o'clock, five o'clock, everyone's leaving.

• 8:00Speaker 00

  And they all park in the south wing and they all, not all, but they almost all drive pickup trucks, which I love, the, the site of, of, you go there and it's just like, what is going on? My friend drove by one time and he, he's a over the road truck driver. He drives all across America and he called me one year. His name's Bobby. Like, Paul, you'll never believe what I just saw. And he's like, I'm just driving through Kentucky in the parking lot. You got all these pickup trucks in the parking lot. There's all these people out mowing, there's lawn mowers. And I was like, I'm, I'm there. And he thought of me when he saw this scene of, of pickup trucks and lawn mowers. And he was like, that's your element. Like, it just made him think of me

• 8:43Speaker 00

  and he made him call me. And I missed the call because I was there. And anyway, I got back to him. I was like, Bobby, I was like that, you know,

• 8:52Speaker 00

  this is the event of the year for us. It's the, our Super Bowl. I was like, I'm here, baby. You should have honked and waved. I'm, I'm, I'm here. And so anyway, he's driving by in his big semi truck and he, he thought about me. But anyway, in the evening on Wednesday, October 21st, there'll be a lot of, of people leaving at the same time. And the parking exit, entrance, exit, but you're exiting at this time, there's not that many exit places. So you're kind of waiting in a single file line with a whole bunch of pickup trucks to get out of there at five. Now, there's a workaround. Because you're still listening, you're still watching at this point, you're,

• 9:34Speaker 00

  I'm going to consider you a friend of the show, then I'll tell you a little secret.

• 9:41Speaker 00

  Don't park in the south wing. There's another wing.

• 9:46Speaker 00

  What's the opposite of south, Mr. Producer? Why I get a sip of my coffee before it gets cold? What's the opposite of south?

• 9:55Speaker 00

  It's like football, right? You got your, you got your SCC people down there. And then what you got up north? You got, you got the big table. Yeah, you got north. All right, north. So the north wing, when you park over there, you can get out a little bit faster. It's still, there's still traffic over there. I've been, I'm not taking credit for it, but more and more people are parking over there because this microphone right here, uh, people listen and they're like, oh, Paul told me to park in the north wing, but because there's a lot of people that listen, a lot of people go park in the north wing now, but still less by far than the people that park at the south wing. So that's, anyway,

• 10:36Speaker 00

  that's a pro tip of all pro tips. You can park over at the north wing. Now, when you park the north wing, you gotta walk a long way to get to the south wing when you get there in the morning. But you want to get rid of some of your belly fat anyway, and you're gonna, just walk. And then you'll walk back, but then you're not in your truck as long when, um, oh, man. Wait, sorry. I thought I put my phone on do not disturb, but people are texting me. But my point is, you want to park, if you park in the north wing, when you go to leave, although there will be traffic leaving, it will be less traffic. So let's set up the main day. What's happening?

• 11:20Speaker 00

  Thursday, October 22nd, because that's the main day. You want to be at the Equip Expo. We'll talk about that coming right up after we hear a quick word from today's show sponsor.

• 11:32Speaker 01

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• 12:19Speaker 00

  Are you serious about leveling up your lawn care business this year? You need to be in Louisville, Kentucky from October 20th through 23rd for the Equip Expo. This is the Super Bowl of our industry, featuring 30 acres of outdoor demos where you can test the latest gear from every major manufacturer. Don't be the pro who pays $120 at the gate. Go to the link in the show notes right now. Use promo code PAUL at checkout and you'll save 50% off. That's half off your registration, locking in your pass for as low as $12.50. Don't wait. Register today at the link in the show notes. Use promo code PAUL. You'll save half off. And I hope to see you soon in

• 13:00Speaker 00

  good old Louisville, Kentucky. All right. So we're talking about the Equip Expo. It kicks off October 20th, year 2026, Tuesday evening, Churchill Downs with the welcome reception. Wednesday at 11:00 AM, they have their opening reception, followed by the showroom floor actually opening up to the public at noon, from noon to five. They do have on that Wednesday, October 21st, what they call dealer hours from nine to noon. So like, there's a special group of dealers that have, you know, dealerships across America and the world that get access to the, to the showroom floor a little bit early. But it opens up to the general admission tickets at noon to five on

• 13:43Speaker 00

  Wednesday. We've already established to park in the north wing. So you're not in the crazy traffic jam when everyone's trying to leave at four or 5:00 PM. Wednesday evening, there is an off-site event my friend Cornell Mack puts on. It's called Win It Life Event. It's at a bowling alley and it's a fun time off campus for the community to get together. Then on Thursday, that's the main day, October 22nd, year 2026, baby. Um, the, uh, day gets kicked off at the morning show, which is from 8:00 AM to 9:30 AM. That's where we do live podcasting from the

• 14:23Speaker 00

  main stage, um, at the Equip Expo. It starts at 8:00 AM and it goes to 9:30 AM. And then, um, after that, the trade room show floor opens up for the entire day, uh, nine to five on Thursday. You have the 30 acres outdoors, which is always very well attended out there. And then you have about 1,000 exhibitors indoors where you can walk around inside. You see John Deere's booth and you can check out all their latest and greatest. And then there's Toro's booth, and then there's Vermeer's booth, and then there's Relco's booth, and then there's Kubota's booth, and then there's X-Marks booth, and then there's Jobber's booth. And you can just walk around. I just named,

• 15:05Speaker 00

  what, five, six, seven, eight companies? I don't have time to name 1,000, but they're all there, right? Crest Commercial, they're there, indoors, outdoors. They got their new 60-inch Crest Voyager, which I'm really excited to, uh, take a look at. Last year, I was on the, um, 40-inch Voyager that they had out there. Um, I say I was on it because there's a manual mode where you can get on it, but it's a fully autonomous mower, the Crest Voyager. It's incredible. But my one gripe with it, I was like, why can't you get a 60-incher? I mean, that's going to be even more efficient. And I ain't saying they listen to me. I'm sure they had it well, well planned out before I was,

• 15:47Speaker 00

  you know, throwing around my little opinion about can we get this in a 60-inch? But lo and behold, they got it in a 60-inch this year. It's going to be their Crest Voyager 60-inch. So this autonomous mower, just imagine you get to your customer's property and the Crest Voyager, you just get it off the trailer, you set it on your customer's property, and then you, you've already mapped out. I mean, one time you have to map out the, the area you want it to mow and not mow on your customer's property. But then you get there and then it just starts mowing. So while the Crest Voyager is mowing, now you can be, um, doing the detail work, right? The string trimming along the, the driveway and the sidewalk. And I call it soft edges along the garden beds. I like

• 16:32Speaker 00

  to take my string trimmer and, and get a nice crisp edge along the, the soft edges. And then if you have bushes to trim, you can trim your bushes and you can do some finishing touch blowing. And then around that time, your Crest Voyager is going to be done mowing, load it back up in the truck, go off to the next customer's property. So anyway, I'm really excited to see a Crest Voyager at Equip Expo. Now in a 60-inch, let's go. It's pretty exciting. And then at Equip, they have all kind of, um, different, um, product releases. A lot of these companies wisely say, well, we're going to release our new, whatever it is, whether it's power equipment, lawn

• 17:17Speaker 00

  equipment, um, anything really. They usually release it, they debut it. That's the word I was looking for. I knew there was a fancy word. They debut it at the Equip Expo. So anyway, October 22nd, year 2026, um, that's the main day to be at the Equip Expo. You have the morning show in the morning, and then you have the trade room show floor all day long, um, there. And then Friday, October 23rd, um, it, it's open until 2:00 PM, the, the, the, the show floor indoors. And I think they close up a little bit early outdoors, maybe 1:00 PM outdoors. And then, um, I actually stayed there one Friday because my flight wasn't until like, I think it was like 8:30 PM on a Friday

• 18:01Speaker 00

  night. So I was like, well, I ain't got nothing. I already checked out of my hotel. I got nothing to do. So I was all nosey and I just stayed around all Friday afternoon as, like when it was closed. Um, no one kicked me out. I just acted like I worked for the companies. Um, and, and everyone was tearing down the booths. And it was really fascinating because like I watched the Kentucky, you know, I'm used to this trade room show floor looking one way. And then after like two hours, everyone's has their booth down. They had, they hire these like really efficient, a lot of the companies like outsource, I would guess, like really efficient, like packers and they like take it all down, they pack it all up, they throw it out, you know, all these trucks and trailers are there where they load it all up and haul it off. And I like watched the whole thing.

• 18:44Speaker 00

  I was completely fascinated. And then I, you know, then I went over to the airport at like eight o'clock, or probably a little before then. But I just remember like hanging out there all afternoon, watching the, the cleanup. And it was really crazy because by the time I went to the airport, like the Kentucky acquisition, I guess it was like empty. I mean, not empty, but it was like, they tore it down literally within a few hours. It was, it was wild. But I say all that to say Friday, the traffic's a lot lighter. A lot of people, you know, they, they go home on Friday. So if you only got two days, is my point. I would, I would be there Wednesday at noon when the trade room show floor opens, spend Wednesday afternoon there, park on the north wing. So you're not stuck in the traffic jam. And then I would, um, I would be there

• 19:29Speaker 00

  Thursday, October 22nd. We have a podcast we'll be doing from the live trade room show floor there, room B103 at 8:00 AM to 9:30 AM. You can attend that for free. We'll have coffee donuts for you on Thursday, October 22nd, 8:00 AM to 9:30 AM. And then for your lodging, there's, it's full by now, I'm sure, but like the Hilton Garden Inn, that's right next to the Kentucky Exposition Center. I think that's the best hotel to stay at because it's a, you know, it's a known brand reputable hotel. It's right on the parking lot edge. That's a good one. Um, if you look at a map, you see the Kentucky Exposition Center, really any hotel that is right in there is pretty good, um, because

• 20:12Speaker 00

  that's, um, where a lot of people stay. So you're going to be surrounded by a bunch of other landscaping folk. Um, there's a Cracker Barrel right there. Um, don't stay at the Red Roof Inn. My friend, Dr. Frank, stayed there and I didn't realize he had stayed there because he had booked at the last minute. And, um, he ended up staying there. I stayed there in 2017 and we both, we just both laugh about it. Like you don't want to stay there. And I was just talking to him last week, uh, because we're going to get him on the podcast to teach us more about health and how to lose our belly fat, how to get stronger and healthier and all of that fun stuff. But anyway, he was, he was talking about coming maybe this year. Um, and, uh, I ain't going to stay at the

• 20:55Speaker 00

  Red Roof Inn this year though. I was like, you stay at the Red Roof Inn? He's like, yeah, I didn't tell you that. And then we just started having all these laughing sessions. There's other hotels downtown Louisville, um, the Gold House, the Marriott, the Omni, um, a bunch of them are downtown, which is like six or seven miles away. It's about a 15, 20 minute drive with traffic. So if you want to be, uh, you know, in the city, the big city Louisville, you know, a lot of people stay down there as well. So, um, anyway, I hope that helps. Um, the promo code PAUL, again, will save you half off your ticket. So when you're checking out, just ask for promotional code, type in my name there, PAUL, and you'll get half off your ticket. And, uh, I hope you'll join us

• 21:40Speaker 00

  in Louisville, October 20th, 23rd, for the largest trade show in the lawn care landscaping industry, the Equip Expo. Thanks for watching.

• 22:10Speaker 01

  Hey, it's Marty, producer of the Green Industry Podcast. This episode is over, but check the episode notes for links to products and services that you heard about during the episode. And thanks for listening.