Move to National Western Center’s LVC is a ‘game changer’ for Colorado Golf Expo, show owner says
By Gary Baines – 2/12/2026
As one of the first shows to utilize the new Livestock Center following its use for the National Western Stock Show last month, the Colorado Golf Expo had an understandable — albeit joking — request.
And the folks from the National Western Center were more than happy to comply.
“They just promised to clean it up beforehand,” Kevin Morton, the owner of the Golf Expo, noted with a cow-pie-inspired chuckle in an interview last week.
All joking aside, this is a very important time for the Colorado Golf Expo. The weeks leading up to the show are always significant, but this year even more so. After all, for just the second time in decades, the Expo — previously known as the Denver Golf Expo — have moved the event to a new site. Specifically, after spending the last four years at the Colorado Convention Center, the CGE will be held at the National Western Center’s LVC (4850 National Western Drive in Denver) the weekend of March 6-8. Prior to 2022, the Expo was held at the Denver Mart/Denver Merchandise Mart — aside from 2021, when Covid safety concerns prevented an in-person show from being held.
And even before the first Expo at the Livestock Center, Morton said it’s apparent this will be a positive move for the show, which annually has attracted between 7,000 and 12,000 people to the three-day affair.
“First off, moving to National Western has been a game-changer,” Morton said. “The brand-new building is amazing. It’s state of the art. There’s 19 roll-up doors for (exhibitors) to move in and move out of. Last year, we had one door at the Convention Center, and it was challenging to get that many people in and out quickly and get set-up done.
“And this new location, they’ve really thought about how to set this up and have done just an amazing job. And because of this new facility, we also have 1,700 parking spots right next to the building.”
In addition, with Genesis of Littleton sponsoring that aspect of the show, parking will be free in that area this year. While parking was also free at the Denver Mart when the show was held there in 2020 and before, it was a bone of contention at the Colorado Convention Center, where many Expo attendees shelled out money to park — and often had quite a long walk to the convention hall, to boot.
In fact, when the Expo asked for feedback from attendees in recent years, the top two items mentioned consistently have been related to the parking situation — availability of free parking and regarding close-in parking. And an ancillary issue that frustrated exhibitors was having just one door for load-in and load-out.
“People hated the parking situation,” Morton said succinctly.
Morton noted he still is in regular contact with the Expo’s previous longtime owners, Mark and Lynn Cramer, and he noted that “Mark was like, ‘Yeah, that (change) was necessary.’”
“It’s just the challenge of the convention centers,” Morton said. “(The CCC) had 430 spots, but they were divided among three or four different expos (that were using the Convention Center at the time). And so you really couldn’t park at the facility. You had to park off-site. And some people didn’t like light rail or thought light rail could be confusing at times. So it was definitely a challenge.
“So I’m really hoping that the frustration that people had with parking, they’ll be alleviated.”
And beyond the parking situation, Morton feels National Western Center’s LVC will be a better fit for the show. The building features about 120,000 square feet, of which the Expo will utilizing about 100,000. Last year at the Convention Center, the event was limited to about 85,000 square feet.
“It is much better,” Morton said of the LVC. “The layout is more open, so there’s fewer columns throughout the entire facility, which gives us the opportunity to really be creative over the next few years to figure out what we can do to grow. We’ve talked about adding a concert after the show on Saturday (in future years) and different events that we could add. We’re going to leave no stone unturned over the next few years and just really continue to come up with ideas that make sense for what attendees want. … I want to just continue adding value so that people really want to be at the Expo.
“This really is an amazing facility. It really is great. And my understanding is over the next year or so, they will be building another parking structure, they’ll be building a hotel. So they’re going to continue to expand what they can offer.”
After the 2025 Expo attracted just over 8,000 attendees — about 1,000 fewer than 2024 as spring-like weather on Sunday last year hurt crowd numbers — Morton said he’s hoping for a return to a 9,000-plus figure for the 2026 show.
“The weather, especially when you look out the window right now, is the wild card,” he said. “We know that when the weather is good, fewer people come to the show because they want to be playing golf.”
Meanwhile, Morton expects 85-90 exhibitors to be on hand next month, and those vendors will have a separate parking area, further eliminating a past concern.
Among those on hand at the Expo, as always, will be the CGA,the Colorado PGA and the First Tee Colorado Rocky Mountains, from which attendees can learn about what’s going on with some of Colorado’s major golf organizations. The Colorado PGA, as usual, will provide free 10-minute golf lessons to those interested. Lenny’s Golf will once again been a major mainstay of the show. In fact, its footprint at the Expo will be even bigger, at about 10,500 square feet.
The World Long Drive exhibitions at the Expo proved popular last year, and will return to the show next month.
For the second straight year, there will be a big presence at the event for the newly renamed Pinnacle World Long Drive Tour. In 2025, World Long Drive held three of its competitions in Colorado — specifically at Bigfoot Turf Farm in LaSalle, southeast of Greeley — including its grandaddy of them all, the World Championships. (No WLD competitions are planned for Colorado in 2026; this year’s World Championships are set for Oct. 13-17 in Reno, Nev.)
Morton said he anticipates competitors from the World Long Drive Tour will conduct at least six exhibitions/seminars (two or more per day) in simulators during next month’s show. He said among those expected to participate are long drivers Hunter Noell, Josh Cassaday and possibly 2023 women’s world champ Monica Lieving. Also, like last year, there will be local qualifying competitions for World Long Drive events at the Expo.
World Long Drive’s appearance at the Colorado Golf Expo in 2025 apparently has spawned more of the same this year as the Michigan Golf Show (March 6-8) and the Texas Golf Expo (April 3-4) are part of WLD’s schedule that was released on Thursday.
“What we found is people really love that,” Morton said of the World Long Drive presence at the Expo. “They love seeing them hit the heck out of the ball. We also want to have a junior program this year to get some kids up there and see what they can do.”
Much of the focus at the Expo continues to be offering early-year opportunity to get deals on merchandise, equipment, services and rounds of golf; and a place to try out new clubs. The Expo also offers contests, interactive games and entertainment, and information on travel destinations.
Likewise at the Expo will be educational seminars, Junior Golf Central, Back 9 Mini Golf, a long-putt challenge, a SynLawn Chipping Challenge, and simulators for the Local Drive and ParHopper closest-to-the-pin contest. There’s even a booth where kids can use Legos to build mini-golf holes and the like.
New this year, “X Golf” will bring its large X-Force One mobile golf simulator set-up to the Expo. Also, the driving range/demo are at the LVC will be updated, with 16 enclosures included this year.
And, of course, there will be multiple spots for food and drink at the show. Morton is even considering having a couple of food trucks on hand.
“The National Western team has been great in getting this set up,” he said. “It’s really making this a smooth transition.”
Here are the hours for the Colorado Golf Expo at the National Western Center’s LVC:
Friday, March 6 — 10 a.m.-6 p.m.
Saturday, March 7 — 9 a.m.-5 p.m.
Sunday, March 8 — 10 a.m.-4 p.m.
Tickets run $19 (general admission), $17 (65 and older), while kids 15 and under are free.
For more information, CLICK HERE.
About the Writer: Gary Baines has covered golf in Colorado continuously since 1983. He was a sports writer at the Daily Camera newspaper in Boulder, then the sports editor there, and has written regularly for ColoradoGolf.org since 2009. The University of Colorado Evans Scholar alum was inducted into the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame in 2022. He owns and operates ColoradoGolfJournal.com