What I Learned at Licensing Expo 2026 (Costs, Trends & $389B Industry Insights)

What really happens at Licensing Expo?

After 13 years attending - and exhibiting for the first time - this is the honest breakdown of Licensing Expo 2026 in Las Vegas.

No highlight reel. Just real insights, real numbers, real costs - and what actually matters if you're in (or entering) the licensing industry.

This year’s event confirmed one thing: licensing is booming. With the industry now valued at $389.8 billion, the opportunity is massive - but so is the gap in understanding how it actually works.

🎯 In this episode, you’ll learn:

• The real numbers behind Licensing Expo 2026
• Why licensing is now a $400B global industry
• What first-time exhibitors reveal about the future of IP
• The true cost of exhibiting (and what people underestimate)
• ROI insights from exhibiting vs attending
• Why many people still don’t understand licensing fundamentals
• The rise of new brands, AI tools, and faster IP creation
• Key trends: fandom, food brands, sports licensing & global growth
• Why physical products and “offline play” are making a comeback

💡 The big takeaway:

The licensing industry is growing fast—but knowledge, relationships, and execution are still what separate success from noise.

🎙 Born to License – Hosted by David Born

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Transcript

Hello from Australia. I flew straight from Licensing Expo in Las Vegas and I'm here for a few weeks. I can't reveal why I'm here just yet, but I promise you that I'll have some pretty big news to share with you soon. Last week I gave you the Live from Vegas version of Licensing Expo 2026. The AI panel, the Team check ins from the booth, and a few chats with some of the new exhibitors on the floor. If you haven't listened to that one yet, go back and start there. It's one of the most listened to PODCAST episodes we've ever had. This week is the follow up, the one where I've had a few days to decompress, process what actually happened and give you the real takeaways. 

 The numbers, the lessons, the honest costs, and a few things I've been sitting with since I got home. Let's get into it. I'm david born and this is Born to License. So let's start with the data because I think it's important to ground this conversation in what the numbers actually say. Licensing Expo 2026 wrapped with 400 exhibiting companies, the largest exhibitor presence in the show's history. There were over 12 and a half thousand total attendees, more than 1500 qualified retailers in the room. And I'm talking about decision makers, teams from Walmart, tug, Adidas, Zara, Primark, Hot Topic, Pop Mart, and many more. Not just buyers wandering around, people with purchasing authority and strategic partnership mandates and underpinning all of it. Licensing International announced on opening day that the global brand licensing industry is now valued at 3, $389.8 billion. 

 That is the estimated amount of retail sales from licensed product in 2025 and that's up 5.45% from 2024. Let that number sink in. Licensing is now an almost $400 billion business from where I was standing, which at times included the Born to License booth on the show floor. Those numbers match the energy my team was securing deals in principle, nonstop for Born to License and Born Licensing licenses were open for business. The conversations were real, the decision makers were present and the deal making was happening. Now I will say there are people who felt the floor traffic was lighter than previous years. I heard that from some of the exhibitors I spoke to last week. Both things can be true. You can have record exhibitors and a different feel to the foot traffic. 

 But what I can tell you is that the quality of those who were in the room was exceptional. 49% Of visitors hold global decision making power and that's the right room to be in. I personally felt that the turnout was on par, at very least with last year. Thursday, the last day was noticeably quiet. But that's normal. That happens every year. Anyone reviewing all this data would understand that the licensing industry is healthy. The numbers say so. And what I experienced last week absolutely confirmed it. Now, one of the most exciting things about this year's show and I touched on this last week, was the sheer number of first time exhibitors. 130 Of them out of five. 410 In total. That's nearly one in three exhibiting companies showing up for the very first time. And I got to meet some of them. 

 Those who listened to last week's PODCAST would remember me speaking with Meg from Meg's Mashables. She creates these hybrid animals that she started drawing during the pandemic and six years later exhibiting at the world's biggest licensing event. She had a booth right behind Warner Brothers Discovery. And then there's Jet the Adventure Pup, a brand that was two months old. Two months old. They created the brand in March and were on the show floor in May. These are just a few of the 130 first time exhibitors. So what does all that signal? Well, a few things. First, the barriers to entry are coming down. The tools available to independent IP creators now, digital publishing, social media, AI assisted design mean that compelling characters and brands are being built faster than ever before. These aren't scrappy little booths with no businesses behind them. 

 These are people who have built real audiences and real product. And they've made the decision to come to Licensing Expo and put themselves in front of the industry. Second, it tells me the global appetite for new IP is growing. And this is something that Netflix's CMO Marion Lee made very clear on the main stage. She talked about the lack of product at market after K Pop Demon Hunters became a global phenomenon. I've talked a lot about this. The movie broke, it was a huge hit and there was product lacking on shelves because retailers and manufacturers were too hesitant to back a new IP before it proved itself. The industry needs new to thrive and new can come from major licensors who have been exhibiting at Licensing Expo for years, as well as first time exhibitors. 

 If you're sitting on an IP or you're working with a brand that's been hesitating about getting into licensing, pay attention to what's happening on the floor of Licensing Expo. New is welcome and new is absolutely needed. Now here's something I wasn't prepared for even after 13 years of attending the show. The number of people who came to the Born to License booth with very little understanding of how licensing actually works. And I want to be careful here because I'm not saying this as criticism, not at all. If anything, it tells me how much the industry is growing and how many new people are entering it. But the knowledge gap is real and it's significant. My team were constantly directing people to learn to license My course that covers the fundamentals of how licensing works. 

 And since the expo wrapped, we've had an upswing of signups. People who came to the booth, had a conversation, realized that they didn't have the foundation that they needed when it came to licensing, and went and enrolled. Think about what that means. The world's biggest licensing event. 12 And a half thousand attendees, the biggest brands on the planet. Three days of deal making and a meaningful portion of the people walking that floor still are working out the basics of licensing. And that's not necessarily a failure of the industry. It's a sign of how much new blood is coming in and how important it is that there are resources available to help them get up to speed quickly. The most interesting version of this was with some of the first time exhibitors. 

 Alicia from Jet the Adventure Pup, for example, remember that 2 months month old brand I mentioned before? She said they changed their business direction around 10 times during the week just from conversations on the floor. That's the value of being in the room, but it's also a reminder that knowledge is what lets you move faster and makes better decisions when you're there. If you're new to licensing or you're building a brand and you're trying to figure out how this industry actually works, Learn to License exists for exactly that reason. Anyone interested in signing up can take a look@ learntolicense.com all right, now, this is the one that nobody really talks about, honestly. So let me try and change that. Exhibiting at Licensing Expo is a significant investment and I think people who haven't done it before often underestimate what that actually means in practice. 

 This was born to licenses first ever booth at Licensing Expo. I've attended this show 13 times as a visitor. Yes, that is 13 times. And this was the first year we had our own space on the floor. So I went in with open eyes and I still found myself surprised by some of the costs. Let me walk through what you're actually paying for. The obvious ones, booth space, building the booth itself, having your samples physically there to show people, but Then there's the things that start to add up in ways you don't necessarily anticipate. Furniture that needs to be delivered to the booth, getting your printed materials done and delivered to the booth. And here's one that caught my attention. Carpet. Yes. You have to pay for carpet separately. That's the reality of trade shows. 

 Every line item that you assume is included probably isn't. And then outside of the financial cost is the time cost, which in my view is the biggest one that people underestimate when they're doing the maths. We had three people on the Born to License booth at all times across the three days. But it wasn't just those three days. The preparation for Licensing Expo started months and months in advance. Planning the booth design, coordinate logistics, briefing the team, preparing client materials, managing the scheduling of meetings. This is not something you can put together in a few weeks if you want to do it properly. Some of the exhibitors I spoke to last week confirmed this. 

 One team from China said they only had three months to prepare and they were clear that it was a tight window, even for a company that does around 10 expos per year. And I have to say their booth looked incredible. So huge kudos to them. So what's my honest take on roi? We were genuinely pleased. It looks like we're going to exceed our ROI targets for the event, which is great. The visibility we got from having a booth versus just attending as a visitor was a completely different level. People were able to discover us on the show floor for the first time. But I want to be honest with the people out there who are thinking about exhibiting for the first time. Go in with a clear picture of the full cost, not just the invoice from the organizer. 

 The all in cost of being there, the build, the logistics, the time, the team. And be realistic about what success looks like before you go so you can actually measure it when you come home. Now, a few things that are clearly in motion right now based on what I saw on the show floor and what was being discussed in the conference sessions. Fandom is the engine driving everything. That was the central message from Netflix's keynote and it came through clearly across the entire show. When brand owners lean into their fans, when they really lean in, those fans respond to products and experiences in a massive way. This is not new information, but the scale at which it's being applied right now is food and beverage is having a genuine moment in licensing. Pepsi, Coca Cola, McDonald's, Kraft, Heinz, KFC. 

 These brands are showing up on the licensing floor in a serious way, and consumers are buying into it. The idea that people want to wear, carry and live with their favorite food brands is playing out in categories from apparel to stationery to personal care. Sports licensing is surging. F1 continues to be one of the most searched brands in the industry, and with a World cup year in play, Sports IP is on every retailer's radar. The international dimension here matters too. 28% Of attendees at this year's expo came from 78 different countries. Significant growth from Japan, China, Argentina and Spain specifically. Licensing is not a US Industry, it is a global one, and this year's show made that clearer than ever before. And one trend I found really interesting, the return of analog physical play. 

 Hasbro's president said on stage that the element of play is timeless, and the evidence was all around the show floor. Action figures, trading card games, coloring books, guided journals. There is an appetite for things you can hold, things that you don't require a screen. And smart licensors are paying attention to that shift. And finally, I touched on this. In last week's episode, I was on the AI panel at the Networking Hub Shout out to Stephen Heller, who did a brilliant job as monitor for the chat. It was a full house standing room only, a great achievement considering Sharon Osborne was speaking around the same time on another stage. I want to come back to two things I said that I think are worth sitting with. The first is trust and relationships. 

 When I was asked what AI cannot replace in licensing, that was my answer. Trust and relationships. This is an industry built on decades of personal connections. The people in that room at Licensing Expo, many of them have been working together for 20, 30 years. That history, that trust, that human context, it cannot be replicated by any tool, no matter how sophisticated. And I genuinely believe that the deal making that happens in licensing will remain a human to human process for the foreseeable future. Because it really has to be. The second thing I want to raise is a word of warning about something that I think the licensing industry, and honestly most industries, needs to grapple with. 

 We are entering a period where AI can handle a lot of the administrative and foundational tasks that used to be an entry point for junior people coming into this business. And that is genuinely dangerous if we're not mindful of it. I said this on the panel and I want to say it again here. Where would I be without that junior role at Haven Licensing in Australia 20 years ago, doing the admin, learning the basics, making the photocopies, building my understanding of how deals work from the ground up. That opportunity shaped everything that came after it. I wouldn't be a team of 14 people bringing innovation to the industry if I hadn't had that to start. 

 If we replace entry level licensing roles with AI because it's cheaper and faster and I understand the temptation to do it, I genuinely do, we are cutting off the pipeline of future talent for our industry. The licensing professionals of 2045 are the juniors of today. We need to protect those roles, invest in those people and resist the pressure to automate away the very opportunities that built the careers of everyone already in the room. AI is a tool, a powerful one. Use it to make your experienced people more efficient. Don't use it to avoid hiring the next generation. So that's my real wrap up of Licensing Expo 2026. The numbers, the knowledge gap, the honest cost of exhibiting the trends and a few things. I hope to stay with you. So what comes next? The event I'm focused on now is Brand Licensing Europe. 

 It's taking place from the 6th to the 8th of October 2026 at ExCel London. For those who don't know, BLE is Europe's premier licensing event. Three days of deal making, networking and trend spotting and it bring retailers, licensees, manufacturers, brand owners, service providers all across Europe and beyond. I'll have a lot more to say about BLE as we get closer, but if you're in the licensing world and you're Europe based or interested in the European market, mark those dates in your calendar now and book your accommodation. Because especially around Excel London, it gets very busy and full very quickly. Now, if you're new to licensing and you found this episode useful, the best next step is learn to license. 

 Go to learntolicense.com to sign up and if you're an experienced professional who knows someone trying to break into the industry, share this episode with them. The more people we can bring into licensing with a solid foundation, the better our industry gets. Lastly, if you want to see what went down at Licensing Expo this year, take a look at my Instagram. You'll see a highlight which includes all the stories I posted during the week. My account is david born with a zero instead of an o because the original was taken. If we haven't connected yet on LinkedIn, why not come find me on there? And if you want to dive deeper, take a look at my personal blog where I talk about all things licensing. You can find that on my website. It's thedavidborn.com. Thanks for listening and I'll catch you next week. 

 I'm david born and this is born to license.