Events & ConventionsPublished Jul 27, 2026Updated Jul 27, 2026 9 min readBy Caden, Lead Automotive Media Director, Cross X Agency

The SEMA Content Calendar: What to Post Before, During, and After the Show

A week-by-week publishing plan for SEMA exhibitors, from six weeks out through the month after the show, with the assets each channel actually needs.

Exhibitors usually think about SEMA content as something that happens during the show. It mostly does not. The posts that perform during show week are built from material captured weeks earlier, and the revenue that comes out of the show is generated in the month after it. The four days in the hall are the middle of the calendar, not the whole thing.

Here is a working calendar you can hand to whoever owns your channels. Adjust the volume to your team's capacity. The sequence matters more than the frequency.

Six to eight weeks before the show

This window is for announcement and for capture. Announcement is easy. Capture is the part people skip, and skipping it is why show week ends up thin.

Announce that you are exhibiting, with your booth number and hall. One post per channel, pinned where possible.
Update the website. A simple SEMA page with booth number, what you are showing, and a way to book a meeting. This is the link every other post points to.
Open meeting booking for buyers, distributors, and press. Getting appointments on the calendar before travel is worth more than any single post.
Shoot the pre-show assets. Product on white or in a controlled setting, founder or product lead talking through what is new, and clean detail shots of anything launching. Controlled footage beats floor footage for anything that needs to look precise.

Capture in advance or you will not have it

Controlled product shots, the founder intro, the build or fabrication process, and any clean audio interview are far easier to record at your shop than in a loud hall. Record them now and you can publish steadily through show week even on a day where the floor gives you nothing.

Two weeks before the show

Shift from announcement to reason to visit. Everyone in your category is posting a booth number right now. The differentiator is telling people what happens if they walk over.

Teaser clips from the pre-show shoot. Partial reveals, a detail, a silhouette. Short and vertical.
Schedule post. Demo times, reveal time, giveaway, or whatever you are running. People plan SEMA routes in advance.
Email to your list and to your buyer contacts. Booth number, reveal time, and a direct link to book a meeting.
Partner and sponsor coordination. Send logos, booth numbers, and approved copy to anyone who will cross-post. Ask for their assets too, so nobody is chasing files during show week.
Brief the crew. Whoever is shooting needs the run of show, the shot priorities, and the deliverable list before travel, not on Tuesday morning.

Show week, day by day

Your team is working the booth. Assume nobody has thirty free minutes to think about content, and build the plan so posting is a five-minute job. The SEMA Show 2026 runs November 3-6 at the Las Vegas Convention Center.

When	Capture	Publish
Move-in day	Empty hall booth build, time-lapse, crew setup	Behind the scenes story or short vertical, plus a we are here post
Day one	Hero wide of the finished booth, crowd, first customer conversations	Booth reveal post on Instagram and LinkedIn, stories through the day
Reveal or demo day	Full multi-angle coverage of the reveal, reaction, detail pickups	Same-day vertical clip while the floor is still busy
Day three	Interviews, testimonials, partner and distributor conversations	Daily recap vertical, LinkedIn post aimed at buyers rather than fans
Final day	Remaining detail and product shots before teardown	Thank you post with booth number of next appearance if known

One person should own posting during the show, and it should not be the person running demos. If nobody owns it, nothing goes out until Sunday.

The first 24 hours

This is the window that separates exhibitors who get value out of the show from exhibitors who get a folder of footage. Attention around the show is highest while it is live and for the day after. If your first edited piece lands two weeks later, it competes with a moment that already passed.

One edited vertical clip from the reveal or the busiest booth moment, cut and posted within a day.
A photo set of the booth and product to Instagram and LinkedIn.
An email to everyone you met, sent while they still remember the conversation, with one clip embedded or linked.
Sales team gets clips immediately, so follow-up messages carry visual proof instead of text alone.

This is the reason turnaround is a real spec and not a nice-to-have. We get an exhibitor's first edited content back within 24 hours of wrapping day one so it can go out while the show is still live.

The first week after

Show over, work starts. This week is about converting attention into conversations.

Recap reel across Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube Shorts. One story, sixty seconds or less.
LinkedIn recap written for buyers and distributors, not for enthusiasts. Different tone, different asset.
Follow-up email sequence to booth leads, segmented by whether they saw the demo.
Website update. Replace the pre-show SEMA page with a recap page, product demo video, and a clear next step.
Send partner and sponsor deliverables. If you promised anyone footage or a tagged post, send it this week while it still helps them.

Weeks two through four

Most exhibitors stop here. This is where the compounding actually happens, because the footage becomes durable marketing rather than event coverage.

Product demo cut published on the product page and used in sales conversations year round.
Testimonial and interview clips released one at a time rather than dumped in a single post.
Retargeting creative built from the booth footage, aimed at people who visited the SEMA page or engaged with show content.
Distributor and dealer outreach using the demo cut as the attachment that makes the pitch concrete.
Case study or recap article on your own site, which is also the asset that keeps earning search traffic long after the show.
Archive handoff. Organized, labeled footage your team can pull from for the next twelve months.

If you want the full day zero through day thirty version of this, with owners and deliverables, read how to turn SEMA footage into a 30-day post-show sales campaign.

What has to be captured for this calendar to work

Controlled product footage shot before the show, not on the floor.
Founder or product lead intro with clean audio.
Empty-hall booth build and hero wide.
Full reveal or demo coverage with reaction and detail pickups.
Crowd and scale shots that prove the booth was busy.
At least three on-camera interviews or testimonials.
Photo set of booth, product, and team.
Vertical and horizontal framing of every priority moment.

The shot planning behind that list is covered in how to film product demos and vehicle reveals at SEMA. If credentials and floor rules are still open questions, start with SEMA video permits, media credentials, and booth filming rules. For the wider planning picture, the SEMA video coverage guide for exhibitors covers crew size and turnaround, and the convention exhibitor content checklist is the pre-travel version.

Cross X Agency covers conventions out of Las Vegas and builds the deliverable list around a calendar like this one. See SEMA content production or our event and convention coverage.

Plan Your SEMA Coverage

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