TPE 2024: Day 1

On Wednesday, the 2024 Total Product Expo, or TPE, kicked off at the Las Vegas Convention Center, with a good number of premium cigar companies on hand showing off their portfolios as well as releasing some new products that will be coming to store shelves in the near future.

Going into this trade show, which primarily serves the alternative tobacco product market, I wasn’t exactly sure what the storylines would be, let alone what would catch my eye. If anything—and as with almost every trade show—retailer attendance was going to be a big question for me, since the Premium Cigar Association’s Convention & Trade Show is coming up in just a few short weeks. Would retailers make the effort, spend the money and take the time to be in Las Vegas twice to essentially see many of the same products?

My barometer on attendance swung back and forth throughout the first day of the show. At times, the cigar portion of the floor felt emptier than I remember it in previous years. Then I’d walk into a booth, and there’d be several premium cigar retailers chatting with sales reps and principals of the company and either placing orders or opening up an account if they didn’t yet have one. Numerous manufacturers told me they’d already written up enough orders on day one to cover their costs.

That said, the cigar side of the floor felt less densely packed than I remember from other TPE shows since the pandemic. One independent cigar broker told me that he only had three confirmed appointments for the show, which feels incredibly low for someone whose territory covers the area around Las Vegas and several states that neighbor Nevada.

I bring all this up because the PCA show is now much closer to TPE, and while I felt like TPE was gaining ground among cigar manufacturers, I do wonder how this year’s attendance will affect that trajectory. I’m definitely curious to know if manufacturers place deposits for the 2025 show, which is also close in dates to the PCA trade show, though PCA will be in New Orleans that year instead of Las Vegas. If the numbers don’t add up, this could be a truly pivotal year for many manufacturers in their decision to return in future years.

As for the new products, I was pleasantly surprised to see a number of the companies I visited with new releases. I believe all of the cigar accessory companies had new products, mainly lighters but Vector-KGM had a revamped cigar travel humidor that caught my eye as well.

On the cigar side, this definitely was not the TPE of recent years, where it felt like there were new products at every booth and we would need to make the most of every minute to ensure we got everything covered, very similar to how we have to approach the PCA show.

Beyond the products, the soccer star Ronaldinho made an appearance for a company on the alternative products side of the floor, entering and departing the show floor flanked by a pretty sizable security detail and support crew that got more attention than he seemed to, at least by the people I was hanging around with, though some attendees clearly knew who he was judging by the crowd following him and taking photos and videos.

I also happened to see Flavor Flav of the rap group Public Enemy on the floor, though I missed the chance to chat with him, which I would have liked to have done given that I grew up listening to hip-hop in the 1980s and 1990s.

Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top, who is getting into the cigar business, is scheduled to make an appearance on Thursday, while Mike Tyson is scheduled to appear on Friday on behalf of Futurola, a company that produces blunt wraps and other products.

Finally, while I didn’t spend very much time on the other side of the floor where the tobacco alternative products are, it certainly seems like that industry continues to thrive, even despite evolving legislation concerning flavored tobacco and nicotine products. The booths of these companies continue to grow, and the industry, on the whole, continues to feel like it gets more and more polished every year. Charlie’s going to spend some time on that side of the hall as well as in the upstairs part of the show and will pass along his thoughts later in the week.

But for the most part, Day 1 of TPE 2024 felt very much like previous years, just with a slightly smaller number of new products.

Due to a scheduling conflict, I’m taking off from TPE and Charlie will be taking the lead on coverage. Be sure to follow halfwheel on Instagram for updates from the show floor and check back for more daily blogs and news.