Overview

Robot Dragon Studios blog covering my first experience diving into the crazy world of licensing at the 2026 Licensing Expo in Las Vegas, NV. I reflect on how unprepared I really was, what I learned and what I plan to do if I ever return.

Applications, Payments & Planning

So initially I started the whole process of considering and looking into Licensing Expo sometime in 2025. The problem for me is that it often falls on Momocon week, so it creates a conflict of interest as I love Momocon. I had to make the decision to skip Momocon for 2026 and do this instead.

So the way Licensing Expo works, is you can attend as a visitor, retailer or exhibitor. I was warned in advance not to just jump in and get a booth. You can see from my email that they try and guide you based on some quick questions to figure out where you should be. Since I wasn't super sure, I just wanted to do a standard pass. I know it says do you want to learn and to get Explorer, but you also have to like.. budget a lot to attend an event you're not making a dime at (in my case).



We registered at the lowest tier (Standard Pass) which was $30 per person if you signed up early. I started registering some time in 2025 but actually paid for the tickets January 29, 2026. We have to figure out housesitting, childcare, dogs, etc. When I started writing this, I went to see what the site had up for tickets and the Standard Pass is $90. You really want the early bird pricing if you plan to go. So yeah, don't dilly dally. I didn't really even use the full 20 exhibitor meeting requests.

Anyways, once the tickets were reserved I had other things to figure out before we could reserve hotel, flights, etc. There was a lot going on with my parents, so we ended up having to find someone else who could watch our kid and pets. My FIL was available thankfully. I booked the hotel and flights much later than I wanted to, but oddly the prices really hadn't changed much so it didn't end up being that bad. Flights were expensive regardless. Seems like certain days and times are cheaper/more expensive than others. We usually drive so I am not the best at flying.

I did a very poor job of planning for this. Despite having a ton of advanced notice, everything that happened in 2025 with family, events, falling behind on projects just kinda had me not as prepared as I should have been. I never made my look book like I should have. I don't think I fully understood what I needed to include. Friday before the event, I decided to try for a third time to write a story for my Frankencorgi and finally managed to come up with something I felt worked. I designed a postcard the Monday before we flew out. UPS in Coon Rapids saved the day printing these so last minute at 7pm. Cutting it close! I already had business cards, so I didn't have to think too hard about those.

Before the Event

We didn't have to pack much. It was basically one night and then we headed back home, but I did make the mistake of not paying attention to the time I was having us leave and reserved the hotel for a day longer than needed. I also still overpacked for the single backpack we did bring with us.

Minneapolis parking was like $95 or something crazy since I input the days incorrectly, but it was nice to just scan something and park. Getting through TSA was quick and we had a lot of time before we were going to board our flight. I do not fly a lot and I had recently been watching a lot of disaster videos, which for some reason included trains and planes. Great thing to watch before having to take trams and airplanes. Do not recommend.

I read Careless People on the flight which made time fly. Before I knew it, we were in Las Vegas. I haven't been out West since I was a kid and I sure do not remember ANYTHING about it anyways. My husband had been out West to California for work earlier this year. I am really that person who kinda just.. jumps on a plane and shows up somewhere and then figures out what I should do. I actually didn't expect to see so many gambling machines. I mean it's an airport but I guess it's also Vegas.

I didn't rent a vehicle for Vegas. I did actually assume we could just.. take an Uber or something. I saw they had something called Zoox but it was busy and couldn't do anything with that. We did see them zipping around later Tuesday night, but we never got to get in one. They are so silly.



Anyways, we opted to rent from Hertz since my husband had points we could use towards the rental. I have never taken a shuttle to get to a rental car area before. That was pretty interesting. I guess they may not have had space at the airport. The area smelled like cigarettes and piss, so that was less exciting. We got to the location and I picked a random car that turned out to be broken or something, so we had to go back and pick something else. Ended up in some Buick thing that was very small. I will say that the airport and rental area are very close to the city itself. I almost felt like we could have just walked from the airport to where we needed to go. It was definitely not that close, but with how flat everything is, it seemed that way!

Eventually we were on the road to the convention center. Check-in at the hotel was a very late 4pm with no way to check-in digitally or even schedule a time to show up on the app. Not used to that so I guess I am spoiled. We went to Mandalay Bay only to see the parking lot was full and told we had to go to the other parking lot. It was pretty easy to get to and that ended up working out rather nicely either way.

The Event Itself

Day One
We arrived at the event Tuesday around 1:14pm PST, so much later than we probably would have liked. I didn't book us an early enough flight to begin with. I think we would have had to fly in Monday night to be ready for what we needed Tuesday morning. The Mandalay Bay Convention Center wasn't like anything I'd been to before. It was like a shopping mall, stinky casino, entertainment center, food court and convention center all rolled into one. It felt like it was intended to look fancy.

Check-in was digital or if you had a printed sheet, you could just use that to scan in. The badges were printed right then and there and we were given Angry Birds sponsored lanyards. They were pretty cool if you ask me. I guess there were several entrances which I didn't really pay much mind to until later when we were just exiting in random places.



We started off by just wandering around aimlessly. The show floor was massive. In a way, it was overwhelming to take in. Since we arrived after lunch time, the place was rather packed. I know that walking in, we'd seen restaurants and the coffee places with many people in lines as well or eating at tables. It was just a very busy event compared to some of the other business focused events I'd attended before.

Many of the people there were obviously corporate. My husband noted all the expensive clothing, bags and flashy jewelry that people had on. Felt like there was a lot of wealth all in one room. We were just there in normal clothes while everyone else was dressed up very professionally. I guess if we ever return, we'll have to keep that in mind.

We ran into Ashley Benson, who many of you may know as AsherBee online! She's got that amazing Rudicorn line, fruit animals, and the really creative mermaid pins. I recognized her from her tiger backpack. We had a great chat about her experience at the licensing expo before, what she was doing there this round. I do wish I had gotten to meet with her for dinner but I was just overwhelmed and ended up forgetting to make any concrete plans in the end.

I was starving, so we went to lunch. I saw a place called Border Grill on the way in that looked like it had decent ratings. I guess it had also won some awards. It was not as good as either of us were hoping. The meat was also very spicy so I couldn't finish all my tacos. I guess I am a bit of a pansy. My husband swears my tacos were not that spicy and that his birria taquitos were flavorless and dry. We both enjoyed the chips and salsas though. I still have a preference for chunky style salsas but ended up eating the green one (salsa verde maybe?) while he ate the ones that looked like a dark ketchup. They all tasted different either way, the green one being very sweet. Either way, we wouldn't eat there again. It wasn't bad, it just wasn't for us.

We went back into the event and I was determined to talk to people. I opted to try and talk to the Critical Role people first. I told them I had tried to get a meeting with them since I was interested in making a plush of Omar if that was an option. It was then that I found out that they had sooo many people trying to reach out to them. They basically had way too many requests and were not able to get through them. That made sense. The person talking to us was really nice about it. They were there trying to connect with people who wanted to make merchandise either way. They told us to take some merch, so I grabbed some items to send to my mods in my WoW discord since I knew they were fans of the series. We exchanged cards and thanked her before heading off to think about what we'd just learned so far.

After that, I wanted to find where the Wings of Fire people were not remembering who was actually in charge of them. I had to go to my discord and find the screenshot I had of it. It was the Joester Loria Group. I decided to ask them about how it works to license to produce some plush. They told me that they were not at that point currently, but when they are they would want distribution that works with Amazon, Target and Walmart. So yeah. It wasn't super clear if I could email the author and discuss it with her directly, so I may do that at some point when I have some sketches prepared.

I wanted to stop by and see Meg's Mashables since she was at Licensing Expo this year. She's such a big inspiration to me. She's amazing at socials, she can sing, she can draw, she has huge ideas for a world and cartoons and.. you get it! I stopped by to talk to her since I backed her project for the Cork in 2021. I feel a little bad I didn't back anything since but I back a LOT of artists on Kickstarter and Backerkit. Look, it's expensive supporting other creators. Anyways, it was great to talk with her about what she was there trying to do. We talked about my manufacturer as well since I also make plush and also had originally used Squishable to make my Panic Puffs. My project failed at the time though, so I had to source other manufacturers til I found something that worked for me. Since she was interested in trying some other manufacturers, I assume we'll be in contact. I hope she also learned a lot from being there and if she does reach out, I will be asking questions I'm sure. She did take that big step and put herself out there.

I wasn't sure how the panels worked at the time since people were being scanned in and I got the cheap pass. Seemed like anyone could just attend the panels I wanted to see at The Networking Hub. We stood outside the barrier they had setup and just watched for a little bit during the Creative That Counts: From Idea to Impact panel. I decided since we'd missed most of it, we'd grab one of the books and just plan more for tomorrow.

I was pretty discouraged by the time things were starting to close anyway. It was a rough start and I had started to feel like I was wasting my time. We ended up heading out to go check into our hotel and find something to eat.

The hotel was nicer than I expected given the price, however, the line was ridiculous to check-in. They also yelled at me not to park there and check in so I had to have my husband take the car elsewhere while I stood in line. My phone actually died since I stood there so long. Staff was nice. I will say I never checked what parking would be like prior, so the valet costing as much as regular parking was interesting. Since they only offered valet and I was ready to charge my phone and just collapse on the bed while we figured out dinner, we just went with that.

I picked a very lazy Panda Express for dinner, but it was delicious and I have no regrets. I really considered getting some ice cream at the place that was located nearby since it looked so good. I fought with myself over it, but I am trying so hard NOT to each sugar as I would like to be under 200 lbs. Alas, I took photos and decided if we come back, I will treat myself then.

We decided to walk down to the Formula 1 Las Vegas Grand Prix to see if we could find something to bring back for our daughter. Both her and my husband are very into Formula 1. I keep hoping my business magically takes off so I can treat them to things instead of my business always being in debt haha. One day I would love to bring them to a race so they can experience the real deal. How amazing would that be??

We did end up picking up a hoodie for her since she's currently into Kimi Antonelli. We spent a long time looking at all the neat things. They even had a collaboration with Hello Kitty and another with Mickey Mouse. I really wanted to get myself something as well, but I couldn't find anything zip-up so my husband could wear it as well. The Hello Kitty plush were so tempting, but we only brought a single bag with us for the two days and it was quite full already. We purchased the hoodie, walked around a little more and then walked back to the hotel.



Day Two
Wednesday morning started off with me waking up at 4am to check on and text my daughter to wish her a good day at school. Being two hours behind our normal time zone was pretty awful. It was easy for me to forget how late it actually was back home. We decided to prepare for our day around 6:30, check out around 7am and then go find something to eat. We found a donut shop called Ronald's Donuts. It was nothing special outside or inside. The people ahead of us took ALL THE FILLED DONUTS! I asked if there were more lemon donuts at all and she went and made me one! It was soo goood! 10/10 would return there again. My husband just got some gigantic cinnamon twist looking donut. I was so hungry we just ate and I didn't get around to taking pics of our food.



After that, we went searching for coffee since the expo didn't start until 9am. We found a Starbucks close to the donut place and picked up our order. When we arrived it was empty but when I came back out with my drink, there was a line wrapped around the whole place. I am so used to events happening on the weekend I guess I just forgot that it was actually a weekday morning.

We decided to park at the same parking lot we did on Tuesday since we knew how much it cost and it was actually quite close to the entrance of Licensing Expo. We wandered around the casino area before finally making our way into the event around 9am. I snapped some photos then spent about 15 minutes putting together a LEGO rose. They had so many booths where they wanted you to participate or interact with what they had.

So the thing I was interested in attending started at 10am. They have two stage areas: Licensing Global Main Stage and The Networking Hub. They are both pretty close to one another at the back furthest point of the event. I think it's a good way to force people to walk around before finally getting to where the panels are. Since I had missed everything of interest on Tuesday, I wanted to make sure to absorb everything I could on Wednesday. There was a Coffee Cup Networking thing from 10am-10:45am. I will say I am not good at talking about my business to strangers. I didn't take photos of this at all. You get scanned in and then there were a bunch of tables you could stand around set up. Each table had a sign that explained what the table was for. I walked over to the retailer one initially but it was full and busy, then went over to the first time/new to licensing table. I met a person who did website and 3d modeling, a woman who wrote her own children's book but also made a game and a plush that was based on tattling and two different people who mostly represented someone else's brands that they were working on licensing.

After that, we walked off for a little bit then returned for Meet the Experts. We got lost trying to find a bathroom and then arrived late for it. I have trademarks and copyrights but you need to spend so much money to protect all the things, but they really hit the nail on the head that you need to make sure you are protected before you license anything because what exactly protects you or the people you're licensing to from people stealing things. It was also very interesting how they said you need to make lots of friends, meet lots of people and keep your expectations very low early on.

You need to ask a LOT of questions with contracts. They highly recommended working with agents as doing this by yourself is difficult and you'll get better results with agents. Also they mentioned people make these beautiful products but people don't spend enough time with marketing and distribution. If you're sharing ideas, you should use an NDA so they can't use your idea without compensating you for it. I actually didn't know that was an option. I knew ideas couldn't be protected the same way you'd think. One of the presenters told the story about someone who did an event similar to this and had found someone to license it. Well, someone had overheard them and filed the trademark before they did. They didn't know what happened with it but you need to be using it in commerce before you file so you have stronger rights to it when you go to file. I actually couldn't even get my trademark for my plush until I had already been selling it so guess times have changed since that was fairly recent and I am not sure how old this story is.

They also talked about licensing agents which I will just sort of understood but not fully. They explained that licensing agents represent brands on behalf of a brand owner. People use them because they don't want a consumer products division or when they didn't have teams or anyone located in other countries. They also mentioned that you need to ask yourself questions. They gave some examples, but really pushed the idea that you need to really dig deep and figure out what you're doing. What are you trying to achieve? Where is the space that you sit? What experience do the agents have that support your mission and what you are trying to do? Sometimes there are big fantastic agencies but they are not always the best choice for you. Smaller agencies will spend more time with you. You'll want to pay them a retainer since agents earn commissions and it's a lot of work on before they ever start making any revenue if you're a new smaller brand.

There was also a guy who showed up randomly with too long of a story at the end and he had some crazy thing where people wouldn't work with him after he created a product in the glasses space. I do know that with patents, you want to file before you do anything else and in his case he was an inventor who needed a patent. They told him this was not the right place for him as this was for brands not inventors. So that was interesting but I am pretty curious why they wouldn't touch him or if that whole glasses mafia/monopoly thing is more real than I think.

The next thing I thought I wanted to see was around noon, but we were also hungry. Apparently there was a mascot parade scheduled around the time we were walking towards the food court. I took the time to take some photos on the way out. It was quite amusing.



They had a food court. We decided to split a pepperoni stromboli from Bonanno's New York Pizzeria. Ordering it was so odd because they just picked the largest one so we could share and tossed it into the oven to reheat it. You know how mall style food places can be. Anyways, someone else ordered a stromboli too. While I was waiting after paying, someone came by for a stromboli but they never finished talking before the guy grabbed it and scooted off. I was like okay well mine should be next. My husband came by right after then they mentioned a broccoli stromboli. I noticed there were no other ones in the oven and was like well I better say something. I think he took ours. They put another in and barely cooked it compared to how long we had been waiting for the other. It was not very good, mostly bread and I didn't even eat the full half of it. I wish I had just gotten pizza slices and risked being sicker instead. There was not a lot of anything I wanted in the food court but we didn't have a lot of time.



We showed up late, once again, to the other talk, China's IP Revolution: Taking Trendy Toys to the World Stage. It seemed more like they were advertising their toys but I was pretty fascinated how they started off licensing products but were slowly developing their own product lines. I sat through the end of one of them and by the time 52Toys started talking, I was getting a little bored. They had some really amazing looking products that they had developed but also of the IP they licensed to produce. It was not really the kind of talk I was looking for I guess. I am not sure what I expected but I thought it would be more about China companies who are rising up. It just felt very much like advertising I guess. I get it but we ended up leaving before it was over. I will say, their slides were very good and I really enjoyed how they were laid out. I took some photos for inspiration.



The next panel I was interest in was around 2pm and it was called The Power of Art & Design: Trends Driving Brand Growth. This was listed as a sponsored panel by Art Brand Studios. I was browsing threads before this started and saw Lenaria Design was also attending the event and we chose to meet up after this panel. She's extremely talented and I suggest you follow her. So this particular panel was more about sourcing artists for what felt like fine art and products for home. I am not very fancy, so I mostly sat through this feeling like I was out of place. I didn't take as much away from it as I should have I'm sure. Seems like figuring out what trends are coming matters a lot though, and that could be related to any field. A great example is Formula 1 being very popular and both Hello Kitty and Mickey Mouse did collaborative product lines with that brand due to that current popularity. My phone was dying so I didn't get any useful photos or videos from this panel.


Lena had a meeting after the panel but we decided to meet up later and exchanged information. I had plans to attend the Women in Toys, Licensing & Entertainment panel at 3pm. The speaker was Julien Sharp who was working with asmodee. I had literally never heard of that company but apparently they are pretty big. I learned that Asmodee was actually based out of France but they apparently have a locations in Lino Lakes & Roseville, MN. They work with a lot of different brands. The person who was speaking initially started off running their own business. She sold it later on and then worked for people instead. She mentioned she didn't really understand manufacturing or all the laws, etc at the time. I assume she does now, but this is also something I've noticed with many businesses. They jump directly into it without much of a plan, understanding what their goals are and laws surrounding what they are doing. This is especially important to understand if you make anything children can or will potentially be using.

She mentioned an experience with Toy Fair, which of course is within my realm of interest so I asked if she attended first or jumped right in for a booth. It is a toy focused event that is also very, very expensive to vend at. She never did answer my question, but it sounds like her partner initially went and then convinced her to go. I do not know if she ever had a booth. The value in these events absolutely seems to be in networking and timing. She had mentioned she didn't start off with fancy banners or anything, and it didn't stop people from talking to and wanting to work with her. That was at an event that was not Toy Fair, but some event she mentioned used to be big and no longer happens. I can't recall what the name of the event was unfortunately. Maybe it will come to me at 3am and I can revise this part of my post.

I enjoyed all the questions people asked. There is a lot of knowledge in the people at this event, networking was emphasized during this talk as well as noting success can be both luck and who you know. From what I could tell, there was a nice variety of businesses among us listening as well. One woman had her own clothing brand that she had recently launched on Amazon. I obviously make plush and pins. Another woman in front of me was asking a lot of questions regarding getting her game picked up. The lady next to me never disclosed what she did as a business but said she was an attorney. A lady next to her had a trademark for something that seemed more ornamental than brand related. I wish I could remember it since it felt frivolous. I never got a chance to check since my phone was dead. The lady seated near her had a patent since 2013 for something related to golf. She was really curious about my venture into manufacturing plush. I found it interesting she was doing something with golf, personally.

The WIT group had free chats but there is a network that costs $99/year. As of this blog, I have only looked up their site to see who is part of it. They do seem to have some big names but it's difficult to say if it's worthwhile to join. I clearly have no money right now, but I will try and figure it out and update later if I do learn more.

After this, we met back up with Lena and wandered around talking about what we were after from the event. I hope that she manages to get picked up to design some patterns for things. Her work is incredible. I am finding a common theme that many artists are very talented people who are just burnt out from the corporate world.

We left around 5pm when it looked like it was slowly clearing out. We thanked Lena for hanging with us and took some food recommendations. We ended up just walking around the mall area after I charged my phone in the car for a bit but, Sushi Neko and Palette were recommended. We'd like to return to Vegas, so I want to remember them either way. I love sushi but we were just tired.

We had initially planned on walking the strip so we didn't have to move the car, yeah. I was hungry and wanted to sit. We ended up at Rí Rá Irish Pub we had passed on the way to go check out the Luxor. The Luxor actually was not what I had expected inside! It was very themed and had attractions and restaurants. I have no idea what the hotel rooms were like. I do remember I had originally planned to stay here for Licensing Expo but decided to get some points with Hilton instead. I think next time we will stay somewhere that everyone else is staying. People were having dinner and drinks and chatting outside of the event, so maybe that's part of the networking we should be doing? I am not super sure.

The food at the pub was quite good and I do think I would eat there again. Maybe we were so hungry everything was delicious.



We had to return our rental vehicle by 8pm and then head to the airport to wait for the flight that was at midnight. We were going to hang out at the USO since I thought veterans were allowed, but apparently that is not the case. We never had a reason to use them when we were active duty so I guess we never would have known. We ended up going through TSA fairly quickly then heading to our gate. Our flight ended up overbooked with the next flight being at 6 in the morning. Since my husband had to work, we were absolutely not giving up our seats. I don't remember what time it was, but they eventually had us change gates as well.



This was the most uncomfortable plane and it reminds me why I don't like flying. You just can't have legs. I have flown so few times I can count it on both my hands haha. I spent most of my time watching what looked like Anaconda since that is what the person in front of my husband was watching. I had been reading but I know the light is bright and I didn't want to disturb everyone around me leaving it on.

We arrived home just in time to send our daughter off to school and be zombies for the rest of Thursday. I would absolutely not plan it out this poorly next time.

What Worked & What Did Not

We should have arrived Monday night so we could have been around for all the morning panels we needed to be at on Tuesday. They took walk in meetings on Thursdays so not being there for Thursday was also a bad move on my part.

Panels were worth it and I would have loved to attended more. I do wish this was not all the way in Las Vegas, but they have no shortage of parking and hotels so I get why it is there. The weather was perfect as well.

I don't think I would have been better prepared for myself as I'm just an artist, product designer, IP owner, etc all rolled into one. I have a lot of options on how I could handle things. I could easily make products for other people, for example, and offer services or I could just license my stuff through agents and have them help me get distribution. I could also do none of that and continue with what I am currently doing with very slow growth.

Our hotel was actually better than expected. I guess we ended up on the strip but also just far enough down the strip that we still had to use a vehicle. We were at the Hilton Vacation Club Polo Towers Las Vegas. If we came back, this would still be okay since it wasn't expensive.

Conclusion

I wish I had been able to fly in Monday night and leave Friday morning instead. I am thankful I didn't skip it despite the challenges with organizing childcare. Shoutout to my father in law for being able to help us with this. Also shout out to my husband who listens better than I do and had a LOT of very good insights that I didn't catch during any of the chats. We both had completely different takeaways from each of the panels and it was nice to have those discussions with him.

I am also grateful to Ashley Benson for talking with me early on about it. She really taught me a lot about the booth side of things as well as working in the industry. These conversations were prior to this event, but it really gave me insight into basic expectations.

You really need to attend this event to experience it before you do anything else. Show up for the whole event, attend panels and network like crazy. I sort of botched it by not doing the full three days, missing panels because I was on a plane/not there yet and not getting any meetings set before arriving. It's not cheap to have a booth and it's not cheap to attend unless you're local. I did learn a lot despite everything.

Would I return? Yes. I think I would probably return again. I need to work on networking, cleaning up my brand to be more recognizable and be significantly more prepared before I ever consider dropping any real money on a booth. I will also be buying and breaking in new shoes before I ever come back. I walked ~45k steps between the two days and I was dead.

The Details (TLDR)

Event	Licensing Expo 2026
Date	May 19-21, 2026
Location	Mandalay Bay Convention Center, 3950 S Las Vegas Blvd, Las Vegas, NV 89119
Hours	Tuesday 9:30am-5:30pm, Wednesday 9:30am-5:30pm & Thursday 9:30am-3pm PST
Exhibitors/Retailers	410 exhibitors & 1,500 retailers
Attendance	~12,500
Travel/Booth	Worth visiting if you are unsure on what direction you're taking your business. Attend before you booth for sure!
Badge Cost	$60 ($30/each standard pass)
Hotel Cost	$157.88 (including the $25/day valet parking)
Parking Fees	$135 ($20/day at Mandalay Bay + $95 MSP Parking)
Flight & Car Rental	$977.58 + $17 (Rental car was $17 since we had points)
Total	$1,347.46 (excluding meals)