Registration for CES 2027 opened on Tuesday 8 September, a touch earlier than the usual window the Consumer Technology Association (CTA) had been signalling. The show runs January 6-9, 2027, with Media Days on January 4-5. I covered the announcement itself, the eligibility rules and the headline pricing in CES 2027 Registration is Open , so I won’t repeat all of that here. What I want to get into instead is the bit that actually trips people up: which pass tier is worth the money, the paperwork CTA expects before it’ll let you register, and the order you should book everything in.
Standard Pass or Premium Pass?
For 2027, CTA has renamed the badge types. The Standard Pass gets you the exhibit floor, keynotes, and select conference programming on a first-come, first-served basis. The Premium Pass adds more than 100 additional sessions across curated tracks, plus an exclusive planning webinar.
My rule of thumb after eight CES trips: if you’re only there for the show floor and keynotes, Standard is fine. If you’re eyeing three or more individual conference tracks, Premium tends to work out better value once you tot up what those sessions would cost booked individually.
CES 2027 pricing hasn’t been published yet, but for context, CES 2026 early-bird rates (before 1 December 2025) were approximately £117 ($149) for the basic pass and around £1,100 ($1,400) for the conference pass, rising to roughly £276 ($350) and £1,340 ($1,700) respectively after that date. That jump is the whole reason early registration matters. It isn’t about being keen, it’s about not paying double for the same badge.
The Paperwork You’ll Need Before You Even Start
CES is trade-only, and CTA checks. You’ll need a photo, a business domain email address, and, if you’re registering as media, recent editorial work dated within the last nine months. Screenshots or mockups aren’t accepted as proof. Badges are non-transferable and non-substitutable, and everyone picks up their own at a remote badge location in person. There’s no workaround here, so get the paperwork together before you sit down to register rather than discovering a gap halfway through the form.
One thing worth repeating from my earlier post: Maritz is the only official registration vendor. Nobody else should be taking your money for a CES badge.
The Order I’d Actually Book Things In
This is the part that catches people out. Registration opening doesn’t mean everything else waits. Here’s the sequence I follow, and it starts well before September.
March to May, the previous year: flights and hotel, if you can stomach booking that far out. This is when package deals are cheapest and rooms near the show venues haven’t started filling up with exhibitor bookings. I broke down the Venetian versus Strip hotel trade-off in CES 2027 Registration is Open , so I won’t repeat that debate here. For the flight-booking logistics from the UK specifically, I’ve also written about why the UK delegation books this early .
September, once registration opens: get your badge sorted straight away, while early-bird pricing is live. Decide Standard versus Premium at this point too, not later, because Premium sessions can fill up.
October to November: if you haven’t booked flights and hotel by now, do it this month. Prices are already climbing and the best package deals have usually gone.
December onwards: you’re paying whatever’s left. Rooms near the venues get scarce, flights are at their most expensive, and early-bird pricing on the badge is long gone.
If you only take one thing from this: the badge is the easy part. It’s a form. The travel is what punishes procrastination.
Don’t Forget the Monorail
You can add discounted Las Vegas Monorail passes directly through CES registration, either 24-hour or unlimited daily passes for up to seven days. They’re non-refundable, so only buy what you’ll actually use, but if you’re moving between venues across the week, it’s a small add-on that saves a lot of standing around for rideshares.
My Verdict
The badge takes ten minutes. Everything around it is what needs a calendar. After eight CES trips, the mistake I see people make most often isn’t picking the wrong pass, it’s treating registration as the starting gun for booking everything else. By the time registration opens, the smart move is to already have flights and a hotel roughly pencilled in, so all you’re doing in September is confirming the badge and locking in extras like Monorail passes. Do it that way and CES week is genuinely one of the best of the year. Do it the other way and you’ll spend January paying for a decision you made, or didn’t make, back in the spring.
What to Do Right Now
If you haven’t registered yet, go to https://ces.tech and do it today while early-bird pricing holds. Decide Standard or Premium based on how many sessions you actually want. If your flights and hotel aren’t booked, that’s now your priority, not registration, because that’s where the real money and availability risk sits.
Want more practical CES coverage, including what’s actually worth your time on the show floor? Subscribe to the Tech Dads Life newsletter at techdadslife.beehiiv.com and I’ll keep you posted as CES 2027 details firm up over the coming months.
