Amusement Expo 2026

Mar 26
4 min read

Amusement Expo International returned to Las Vegas, taking over the west hall of the Las Vegas Convention Center with two days of education followed by two days of the annual trade show for professionals across all ends of the family entertainment industry. Once again I took this opportunity to catch up with all the laser tag manufacturers in attendance.

In lieu of a separate laser tag education track, I interviewed the reps from each manufacturer about advice for potential or current laser tag operators. Their thoughts will be included in an upcoming episode of the Laser Unfocused Tag Talk podcast to be titled “Laser Tag 101 with the Pros at Amusement Expo”. Watch for that episode, coming soon.

This show is excellent for networking and I was delighted to catch up with so many industry friends. In fact, one of the things I love about laser tag is that we are part of a global community and I have tag friends literally all over the country.

When I stopped by the Battle Company booth I was chatting with Director of Sales, Brian Sytkowski when a couple walked over and expressed interest in talking with him. As soon as I heard her voice I recognized it was Janet who hosted me for an outdoor game session with Flashpoint Laser Tag on my last trip to Montana. It really is such a small world!

Well, it’s a small world until you board a plane from Australia! Maree Harris has joined the Zone team and made that lengthy journey to be at the show so she and Simon Willetts, president of Zone USA, could showcase their latest products.

Laserforce also had some international representation. I saw co-owners Elias Tourgaidis and Phillipp Hacker had made the journey back to the U.S. to join Jeff Willy, Chris Epstein and the other U.S. reps on site.

Alyssa Schaumann and Mitch Reichert were showcasing the iCOMBAT product line coming from their headquarters in Wisconsin.

Mike Ewald, president of LaserBlast, is always a great guy for talking tag. Showcasing his CyberBlast product made in the USA, he traveled in from Michigan.

And while you can see I already had friends there from all across the country, when I visited the Delta Strike booth Geordyn introduced me to two more, Andrew Roth and Nate Murray, who are the new faces in sales out of Indianapolis.

So yes, it’s a small world when it comes to the laser tag community. Of course some of us travel it more than the average person. Oh, hello Clint Novak!

I think Clint wants to challenge me for which one of us can travel/blog/podcast about the most sites, lol!

I also ran into Steve Barnhart, the new owner of Lazertag Extreme in California, who was hosting my west coast Tag 4 A Cause. He and his manager Ray were out on the show floor checking out the cool offerings being showcased by the different companies in attendance.

Of course I go to Amusement Expo to talk laser tag and keep up with the latest in the industry, but it’s also a chance for me to see what is new in the amusement marketplace overall. Russ Van Natta from Creative Works was standing next to something that caught my attention.

I always like to talk with Russ about the new arenas and theming Creative Works is bringing to the marketplace, but this time I was more intrigued with something else. It’s called Detonate and is a multi-game escape room challenge all built into this single unit. My interest was piqued!

I really made a conscious effort at this show to broaden my horizons past just the laser tag booths and find some interesting attractions that might enhance an entertainment center overall. Here are a few of my favorite non-tag cool things from Amusement Expo.

The compact flying theater from DOF Robotics takes the cake. There is seating for four to be lifted up into the air and brought close to this half-sphere where a 4D experience engulfs you as the seats move with the motion of the movie. I did the experience twice and would put this on the top of my list!

Verse Immersive was another thing I really liked at this show. Now, the brand is not new, but the glasses are. The technology seems to have taken a big leap forward from the previous goggles and these sleek glasses provided a much more accurate augmented reality game experience where I would “pick up” a spark of light and throw it towards a target. You can’t see any of this from the outside, but if someone were in the game with me we would be looking at the same things in this virtual space.

Ok, this next one is smaller scale, but made a big impression on me. I actually haven’t had an Icee since I was a kid, but when I saw they had a Peeps marshmallow flavor I decided to give it a go. OMG, it was SO GOOD! This gets my absolute seal of approval!

While I have never taken a lot of interest in arcade games, there was one that caught my eye. Liquid Death has sponsored beverages for a couple of tournaments I have played, so when I saw this I had to try it out.

This game was fun! Simple in concept, but challenging enough to keep me focused. If I saw this at an arena I would want to play it again (which is my highest praise for an arcade game, since I don’t often look twice at them).

And my final cool thing from the show was the photo booth that printed my face on a clear plastic Star Wars ID card. I had to try three times to line up my neck so it appeared I was wearing the uniform, but every time was fun and this makes for a very cool souvenir.

So there was definitely a lot to take in during this year’s Amusement Expo trade show. I appreciate that I have been established well enough to be considered industry press.

The real insights I got from this show are still to come, so again keep your eyes open for the next podcast episode to drop where you’ll hear directly from the laser tag pros straight from the show floor here at Amusement Expo 2026!