265 Booths in Ontario, and a New Dallas Show Behind It
The California Trucking Show opens October 3 with 265 booths listed. Counted by name, insurance, permits and tax help outnumber the parts vendors — and the same organizer has a first-ever national show booked for Dallas in August 2027.
A trade show tells you what the industry is selling, and this one is not mostly selling parts. The California Trucking Show published its exhibitor list for 2026, and counting it by name turns up something worth noticing before you plan the trip.
The show runs Saturday, October 3 and Sunday, October 4, 2026, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. both days, at the Ontario Convention Center in Ontario, California. Admission is free and registration opens an hour before the doors.
265 booths, and what is in them
As of this week the organizer lists 265 booths. Sorted by what the company names say they do:
- 20 parts and diesel
- 18 taxes, permits and compliance
- 17 insurance
- 9 financing, factoring and leasing
- 9 tires and wheels
Add the first three columns and you get the point: the paperwork side of this business now takes up more floor than the parts side. Insurance, permits, tax help and compliance consultants outnumber the parts vendors on the published list. That is not a criticism of the show. It is a fair picture of where an owner-operator's money and time actually go in 2026.
One more name on the list is worth a note if you run into California: the California Air Resources Board has a booth. Whatever you think of the agency, a free conversation with the people who write the rules is cheaper than the alternative.
Who runs it, and the Dallas piece
The show is produced by ProExpos LLC, which runs four events. Three are regional and one is national:
- Texas Trucking Show — Houston, July 25-26, 2026
- California Trucking Show — Ontario, October 3-4, 2026
- Florida Trucking Show — Palm Beach, February 20-21, 2027
- National Trucking Show — Dallas, August 14-15, 2027
That last one is the line Texas readers should file away. The National Trucking Show is set for the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center in Dallas, and the organizer's own site calls it the first edition ever. A new national trucking show in Dallas is a real event on a real calendar, a year out, with exhibit space already being sold.
We do not know the founding year of the California show — the organizer does not publish an edition number, and we are not going to guess at one. What we can verify is the current schedule and the current floor, and both are above.
Going is cheap. Going unprepared is not
Free admission and a weekend date make this an easy trip for a small fleet or an owner-operator within driving distance. The thing that wastes the day is walking in without a question.
A short list that works at any show of this kind:
- Bring your numbers. Cost per mile, current insurance premium, what you paid for your last set of steers. Every quote on that floor is meaningless without them.
- Ask the insurance booths the same question. Same truck, same radius, same loss history. Different answers tell you more than any brochure.
- Ask the parts vendors what fails first. A vendor who says "nothing" is selling. A vendor who tells you which component comes back under warranty is worth the walk.
- Write down what you are told about lead times. A part that ships in six weeks is a part you cannot count on when a truck is down.
And the boring one: check the exhibitor list before you go, not while you are standing in the aisle. It is published, it is free, and it turns a wandering Saturday into two hours of appointments.
Why a regional show still matters
It is fair to ask why anyone drives to a convention center in an era when every vendor is a phone call away. The honest answer is that a floor lets you compare things that do not compare well over the phone.
Two vendors quoting the same brake shoe will both sound right. Standing between their booths with the same truck and the same route in your head, one of them will start asking about your trailer and the other will keep talking about price. That difference does not show up in an email.
The other reason is the one nobody puts in a brochure. A small fleet owner spends most of the year being the only person who knows what the operation costs. Two days among people running the same numbers is not entertainment — it is the cheapest benchmarking available, and it is the part of the trip that tends to change a decision.
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Original source
Dates, venue, hours and the booth count were taken from the organizer's own pages: California Trucking Show, exhibitor list and show information.