PIE 2026: The Parking Industry Expo, Built for Results
PIE has always been where parking professionals go to get business done—through the relationships they build, the insight they gain, and the momentum they bring back home. At this national gathering, part trade show, part leadership summit, part community-building, and part training ground, everyone who touches parking is welcome.
Serving cities, universities, airports, hospitals, and private operators, PIE connects the people who operate, enforce, plan, and lead with the software providers, infrastructure firms, designers, consultants, and suppliers shaping what comes next. These conversations happen in context—not behind a table, but across shared challenges and real operational goals.
PIE aligns staff development with institutional priorities: smarter vendor relationships, stronger operations, and sharper people. This is a parking management event where your team can build capacity and show up differently—with renewed focus and tools they’ll use.
On this page, you’ll find:
Registration for PIE 2026
All registrants receive all-access to educational sessions, the exhibit hall, evening activities, and several planned meals.
- Business Badge: $770
- Attendee Badge: $225
Simply, Business attendees sell to the industry. Standard Attendees buy from business attendees.
Booth packages start at $2,000 and include multiple business badges based on booth size.
📍 PIE 2026 takes place March 30-April 2nd, 2026 at the Hilton Anatole Hotel and Conference Center in Dallas, Texas.
2201 N Stemmons Fwy, Dallas, TX 75207
Booking Now locks in our conference rate of $229, available in either a single King-sized room or two Queens—as of this writing, that’s a $100 savings over the street rate.
What Sets PIE Apart From Similar National Parking Conferences
Educational Focus: PIE centers the entire agenda on parking—its people, systems, and future. Programming spans leadership, operations, technology, and emotional resilience. Teams return with actionable insights specific to parking, grounded in real operations, and designed to make an impact back at their workstations.
Universal Access: All attendee types have full access and are encouraged to participate in every part of the show: sessions, activations, networking, and social opportunities. Build rapport with the entire industry, hearing their pain points and pitching solutions. With real access, teams accomplish a year of feedback and solutions exploration in days.
Editorial Integrity: PIE curates educational sessions for relevance, insight, and practical impact—without turning the agenda into a sales deck. Solution providers have separate spaces to share their offerings, while your team engages with editorial content built for clarity and growth. It’s professional development grounded in operations, and business development that respects your time.
Whole-Professional Programming: PIE programs its sessions like we write our editorial—direct, unscripted, and grounded in the realities of parking work. We don’t build content to fill time or fulfill CE credits. We build it to change the way professionals lead, communicate, and make decisions. Emotional intelligence and interpersonal insight aren’t add-ons—they’re core competencies. And everyone participates: staff, managers, and solution providers alike. Boost satisfaction, retention, and performance through programming that addresses the emotional and interpersonal realities of parking work. PIE is the only event in the industry offering strategic, editorial-style content designed to improve communication, collaboration, and leadership across all roles. Shared participation builds trust, sharpens professional credibility, and delivers stronger team and customer outcomes long after the show ends. |
Intentional Networking Focus: Networking at PIE is designed to create shared experiences across roles—from frontline staff to executive leadership. Through hosted activities, social events, and collaborative programming, attendees make connections rooted in shared challenges and practical solutions. Even if not making purchase decisions, teams gain insight, represent your pain points, and will facilitate introductions that make the vetting process more efficient for your organization. Expo Hall Integration: The PIE expo hall is an essential pillar of our event. Educational sessions and hosted, experiential activities reinforce brand messaging directly on the expo floor to draw attendees in and keep them engaged. We’ve reserved premium spaces to curate vignette meeting areas, allowing attendees to recharge before continuing and to facilitate discussions of real challenges and solutions with vendors. Teams deeply engage, gathering insight and clarity through more purposeful interactions in an anticipated, intimate, 10:1 buyer to brand ratio. A business-forward layout promotes idea exchange that increases the likelihood of smart business matchmaking. |
Equal Voices Raise the Dialogue: PIE gives every attendee type full access to every element of the event: educational sessions, hosted discussions, networking, and activities. Salespeople, consultants and end users dialogue about solutions together, building rapport and reinforcing expertise. This model benefits everyone: those on the front lines engage with seasoned professionals and vendors directly, represent your challenges, and return with stress-tested, realistic solutions for operations while investing in professional growth. Immersed businesses hear buyer priorities and return with insights they need, shortening the qualification cycle while helping shape the future of parking. Expertise Building: PIE integrates branded Activations into the event experience—immersive, hosted opportunities designed to build trust, reinforce messaging, and forge memorable, high-value connections in a social, low-pressure environment. Only at PIE, Activations turn branded, recreational experiences into strategic business tools. Teams build genuine peer relationships in curated environments, encouraging dialogue, idea exchange, and trust. Through gamified activities, brand messaging and expertise are subtly reinforced while attendees expand their skills through work-adjacent social opportunities that shift mental models and create new operational insights. |
Signature Programming at PIE 2026
Real Talk Sessions: Encourage us to strengthen resilience, confidence, and leadership through emotional intelligence, equipping your team to handle pressure, conflict, and public-facing challenges.
Accelerate Competition: A curated competition featuring five early-stage brands with emerging technologies and operational strategies. Attendees bring inspiration home and look for ways to unlock competitive advantages.
ParkFlix Parking Film Festival: Our careers and stories told on the silver screen. Budding filmmakers celebrate and honor our people in ways seldom seen.
Sector-Focused Tracks: Programming is curated for maximum applicability, offering multiple sessions within your sector (private operators, universities, airports, or municipalities). Additional tracks bridge industries and ignite cross-functional discussion with topics like strategic use of AI, data analytics, and customer experience.
Explore Participation Options for Standard and Business Attendees
PIE for Standard Attendees
PIE 2026 is where parking professionals sharpen what matters—and bring it back to the organizations that rely on them.
When your team attends, they don’t sit through generic slides. They sit across from people who’ve been where they are. They’ll hear from peers managing real enforcement pressure, complex revenue models, failing access systems, public frustration, and limited staff. It’s a parking management event grounded in reality,.
Sessions are curated editorially, with content drawn from operations that have solved what others are still figuring out. That includes everything you’d expect from a parking enforcement workshop, a parking revenue management conference, and a parking system integration workshop—plus leadership sessions on policy, decision-making, and the analytics that tie it all together. If you’re building a smarter operation, this is a parking data analytics conference too.
The exhibit hall is the core. Your staff will have structured time to engage with parking software providers, infrastructure suppliers, and consultants who are there to talk shop. They’ll walk in with questions and leave with direction; ready to narrow options, justify spending, or move a stalled procurement forward.
And then there’s the part no one else in the industry is addressing but has become a PIE hallmark: the emotional load of public hostility, isolation, and exhaustion. Real Talk sessions get into the head and heart, validating and equipping attendees with tools to stay grounded while leading people and navigating pressure with emotional intelligence. When teams come to PIE, they leave aligned, informed, and ready to make things better. |
Business Attendees
If you sell to the parking industry—software, infrastructure, enforcement tools, consulting, design, or integrated systems—PIE is where your next customers will be. The audience includes private parking operators, municipal parking professionals, higher education transportation leaders, and airport facilities managers, all of whom are actively responsible for selecting vendors, upgrading systems, and improving performance.
Business participation at PIE is organized around three core opportunities: booth space, sponsorship, and Activations. Each is designed to strengthen visibility, deepen engagement, and deliver measurable value.
Booth space starts at just $2,000, with sizes ranging from 50 to 600 sq ft. Whether you’re looking for a single table or a major presence, PIE offers multiple options to fit your goals and budget. All booths include business badges for your team—providing full access to sessions, networking, and amenities. Placement is transparent and structured: Premium, Preferred, Standard, and Basic zones are available, with sponsor priority built in. You’ll know exactly what you’re getting before you commit.
Sponsorship at PIE starts with a commitment. You choose your sponsorship level, and those dollars become flexible credits you can allocate across booth space, Activations, and placements within the Parking Today Media ecosystem. At PIE, sponsorship is much more than your logo on a forgettable banner: it’s an engagement opportunity. Visibility is earned through presence, creativity, and how you show up. not just how much you spend. |
| Beyond the booth, Activations reign as king of engagement opportunities. Unique to PIE, Activations are the way for brands (business attendees and exhibitors) to co-host an activity designed to leave a lasting impression, solidify your expertise, and build rapport while attendees enjoy experiential marketing activities that subtly reinforce your value proposition. Much more theatrical and memorable than paying for a name on a banner, these experiences will be the talk of the industry. |
Visibility goes beyond the floor. As part of the Parking Today Media ecosystem, your brand will be positioned in front of a targeted industry audience before, during, and after the show. Integration options include print, email, podcast, social, and editorial placements—ensuring you’re remembered long after PIE ends.
Sponsorship credits can upgrade your booth experience, whether expanding footprints, selecting a higher-profile location, or adding logistic elements to increase impact. Your investment gives you options. The layout supports visibility and flow without limiting opportunity to only the biggest brands. Every booth is part of a larger layout strategy that keeps attendees on the floor, engaged, and in motion, creating more moments for your presence to stand out. Sessions, Activations, and amenities are embedded within the expo space itself, making your booth part of the experience instead of an isolated stop for buyers who are still present, still sharp, and still deciding.
If you’re planning how to build visibility, credibility, and pipeline in 2026, this is where you start. More specific details are coming soon for businesses interested in tiered sponsorship, exhibiting, and making the most of the experience as a business.
Who’s Attending PIE 2026
Who You’ll Meet: Cities, Universities, Airports, and Private Operators
PIE attracts professionals from private parking operators, municipalities, universities, airports, and healthcare systems—people responsible for vendor selection, systems upgrades, and operational outcomes.
Most attendees hold executive or operational leadership roles. For 2026, we’re doubling standard attendee outreach to support a 10:1 qualified, buyer-to-brand ratio, ensuring stronger conversations, sharper insight, and a floor full of qualified professionals.
Which companies will be exhibiting?
We won’t know exactly how many for some time, but based on previous attendance, PIE 2026 exhibitors should include:
- parking software and system integrators
- infrastructure and capital improvement
- curb management and smart cities
- security and surveillance
- credentialing hardware providers
- marketing, consulting, revenue optimization, collections, and specialized vendors
These are the businesses working in your space, speaking your language, and ready to talk specifics.
Event Venue and Travel
Hilton Anatole in Dallas, Texas
2201 N Stemmons Fwy, Dallas, TX 75207
PIE 2026 takes place at the Hilton Anatole in Dallas—an event-ready venue in close proximity to one of the most vibrant hospitality districts in the country. Whether you’re planning client dinners, hosting meetings, or just want to step away from the show floor, you’re five minutes from some of the best restaurants and private dining rooms in Texas. It’s a sharp contrast from prior years, where travel time and distance made offsite connection harder to justify. This move was intentional: more opportunity, more flexibility, and more ways to turn your time at PIE into something bigger than just booth hours or badge scans.
Travel to PIE 2026: DFW, Love Field, and Central Access
The Hilton Anatole is easily accessible from both Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) and Dallas Love Field. Attendees flying in will find short, affordable rides to the venue and fast turnaround from gate to hotel room. Centrally located in North America, Dallas offers equitable access for teams across every region—making PIE 2026 easier to reach and more viable to attend.
Industry Leaders Investing in PIE 2026
Tiered sponsorship for PIE 2026 has earned the following companies both recognition and the ability to allocate their investment across a variety of experiences and exposures within the Parking Today Media network. Through their participation, we aim to deliver the most connected event in the parking industry—offering our community the finest content, community, and connection.
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Bird-X is a leader in humane bird and pest control solutions. They offer a wide range of products designed to deter pests without causing harm.
DivDat provides payment processing solutions and kiosks that help businesses and municipalities collect payments efficiently.
Millennium Digital Technologies offers IT services and digital transformation solutions for businesses looking to modernize their technology infrastructure.
ParkHub provides parking management software and hardware solutions that streamline operations for parking facilities and venues.
