Cars, Pop Culture, And Music Meet At SEMA 2024

Specialty Equipment Market Association’s 2024 SEMA Show took place November 5th–8th, 2024 at the Las Vegas Convention Center. The four-day event drew a gate of more than 160,000 attendees. For reference, New York Comic Con 2024 drew 200,000 and San Diego Comic Con 2024 drew 135,000. More than 2,400 exhibitors occupied 1,200,000 square feet of exhibit space and nearly 1,000,000 additional square feet of features and attractions, including the SEMA Fest blowoff concert, with a lineup that boasted Cage The Elephant, Sublime (Bud Gaugh, Eric Wilson, and Bradley Nowell’s son Jakob), Fitz and the Tantrums, and Petey.  

I spent the entire week on the show floor, and I estimate that I saw roughly .01% of the content. It just isn’t possible to get the full experience. You really have to know which vendors you want to check out, what events you can’t miss, and how to navigate the enormous venue to fit them all in. 

Various manufacturers of automobile accessories that enhance the performance, styling, comfort, convenience and safety of cars, trucks and SUVs, major automakers, leading aftermarket manufacturers, and small businesses display their products and services with custom booth vehicles. These builds include everything from OEM (and OEM adjacent) restorations of classics, wild overlanding overhauls, concept cars, and incredibly rare supercars. Various themes include pop culture references, such as Johnny Jimenez’ Deadpool themed 2024 Mustang on display at the Katzkin Leather booth. 

With literally thousands of vehicles on display, show promoters have a genius method for evacuating the vehicles on Friday. With all the time, effort, and cost that goes into these builds, the owners are more than happy to show them off. LVCC cordones off the street in front of the convention center, and then files the vehicles out in a parade where spectators have the ability to view the entire lineup. Adrian Muñoz of AJM Studios was kind enough to share his images of the parade with Comicon. Check out some of my favorites below.