PCA 2026: April 17-20 in New Orleans

The next two PCA Convention & Trade Shows will take place in New Orleans.

At last month’s 2024 PCA Convention & Trade Show, the Premium Cigar Association (PCA), the trade organization that hosts the event, began informing exhibitors that the trade show would be at the New Orleans Convention Center for both 2025 and 2026.

Those dates are:

• PCA 2025: April 11-14, 2025
• PCA 2026: April 17-20, 2026

For both years, the event will keep the format it used this past year. Friday will be a day for meetings and presentations, while the trade show portion—which sees cigar manufacturers set up their own booths as exhibitors to meet with retailers and others—will take place Saturday through Monday.

Previously, the trade show portion ran for four days: three full days and a shortened half day on Tuesday. This year, the PCA got rid of the half-day.

The PCA wants to make clear that smoking will be allowed on the trade show floor. The ability to smoke is one of the more challenging aspects of hosting this trade show, as many convention centers are unwilling to allow smoking indoors. The Premium Cigar Association has successfully lobbied to keep an exemption on the books that specifically allows for cigars and other tobacco products to be smoked during the Premium Cigar Association. Last year, Gov. John Bel Edwards signed the most recent version of that exemption into law.

Unfortunately, smoking is no longer allowed in most bars and restaurants in New Orleans. Scott Pearce, the executive director of PCA, told halfwheel that the organization is working to set up multiple smoking venues near the New Orleans Convention Center that will allow for attendees to congregate. In 2012, the organization set up large tents for after hours events when its trade show was in Orlando, another city that does not allow for smoking inside most bars and restaurants.

Pearce said that the organization is targeting a return to Las Vegas for multiple years, beginning in 2027. He also added that the organization intends to continue hosting the trade show in the spring.

The last time the trade show was hosted in New Orleans was 2015 when the PCA was known by its old name, the International Premium Cigar & Pipe Retailers’ Association (IPCPR). From 2016 to 2024, every trade show the organization has hosted has taken place in Las Vegas, though there was no trade show in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

In addition to the change from four days to three, this year was also the first time in the modern era that the trade show took place in the spring, as opposed to its normal date in the summer, typically in July.