When the Anaheim Convention Center opens its doors for the 2026 Natural Products Expo West conference in March, it will mark the 45th year of the partnership between the venue and the trade show.
Expo West staged its inaugural conference at the Anaheim Convention Center in 1981, just 14 years after the facility opened in 1967. Since then, both Expo West and the convention center have grown significantly.
“In many ways, Natural Products and the convention center have grown together,” says Mindy Abel, deputy director at the Anaheim Convention Center. The longtime partners even survived the pain of the pandemic together in 2020, when Expo West canceled at the last minute, marking the only year the show did not take place.
“It took us two weeks to get over the shock, because we had never experienced anything like that in our lives,” says Abel.
The Anaheim Convention Center has increased in size from 375,000 square feet when it first opened to 1.8 million square feet today, making it the largest exhibition facility on the West Coast. It had already undergone one major expansion before the first Expo West show debuted in 1981, and several more expansions and renovations have occurred since:
The second expansion, in 1982, added another 100,000 square feet to the exhibit hall and 21,000 square feet of flexible space with the creation of the Pacific Room.
A third expansion, in 1990, featured the grand opening of Hall D, which added 150,000 square feet of exhibit space, a 1,100-space parking structure and 500 parking spaces below ground.
The ACC was expanded and remodeled in 2000, adding 220,000 square feet of exhibit space, new meeting rooms and a 38,000 square-foot ballroom. The grand opening was celebrated in December.
In 2013, the Grand Plaza created 100,000 square feet of multi-purpose outdoor space, complete with lighting, landscaping and water features.
Because the facility is landlocked by existing structures, much of the recent growth has been vertical, with the addition of more floors above ground level.
The biggest expansion came in 2000, but the facility has always executed its expansion efforts in phases to allow events to take place with minimal interruption. Throughout these construction projects, the convention center and Expo West have become adept at making use of the surrounding hotels to help stage various activities related to the shows, Abel says.
“Everybody works very closely together to execute events,” she says. “We’re almost like one large property, even though we’re individual entities.”
As Expo West and other events at the Anaheim Convention Center have continued to grow, the facility has expanded its partnerships with other venues in the city where convention-related events take place. These will soon include the OCVibe, a 100-acre, mixed-use entertainment district surrounding the Honda Center arena. Slated to begin opening to the public next year, OCVibe is being touted as Orange County’s “new downtown,” featuring dozens of restaurants and private spaces for corporate events.
Located less than 3 miles from the convention center, OCVIBE will be natural fit for Expo West to leverage in the future, says Abel.
Natural Products Expo West’s attendance peaked in 2019, with 86,000 attendees. The COVID-19 pandemic shut down the 2020 and 2021 events.
A boon to Anaheim’s economic engine
Located literally across the street from Disneyland Resort, the Anaheim Convention Center and the theme park are the one-two punch of the city’s economic engine. After Disneyland opened in 1955, local Anaheim business leaders were seeking a way to drive more year-round visitors. The convention center has succeeded beyond expectations in this role, hosting not only New Hope’s Natural Products Expo West, but also such global events as the Star Wars Celebration, VidCon, BlizzCon (from Blizzard Entertainment), the Anime Expo, and the National Association of Music Merchants (NAMM) winter show.
Originally built with an arena for the Anaheim Amigos of the American Basketball Association, the Anaheim Convention Center also has a history of hosting a wide range of sporting events, including college basketball tournaments and Olympic wresting.
With its year-round schedule of big-name events, the ACC has helped bolster Anaheim’s status as a major destination for travelers. The city counts 63% of its annual revenues from visitors, says Mike Lyster, chief communication officer for the city of Anaheim. Most of that comes from the 15% hotel stay tax that Anaheim collects.
After the peak season for Disneyland visitors in December, Expo West provides a meaningful boost in March, says Lyster. Hotel revenues totaled $25 million in December 2024, for example, then revenues in January and February of 2025 slid to about $15.7 million and $17.7 million, respectively. March revenues rebounded to deliver $24.3 million, driven largely by attendance at Expo West, Lyster says.
“This really helps fulfill the strategic objective of our convention center,” he says. “Natural Products is like a second Christmas for Anaheim in March.”
Expo West, Anaheim Convention Center are a natural partnership
Anaheim’s strategic location near major airports, its dependably fair weather and the natural and organic lifestyle that has long been embraced by people in the region make it a perfect fit for Expo West, says Abel.
In fact, one of the most significant and impactful aspects of the partnership between Expo West and the Anaheim Convention Center involves their shared focus on sustainability. The LEED-certified convention center prides itself on its sustainable operations, which dovetails with the environmental ethos of Natural Products Expo West.
The convention center’s efforts include diversion initiatives to minimize the sending of waste to landfills, such as a “Green Zone” where food scraps are dehydrated to become compost and recyclables are sorted. The venue also has a 300,000-square-foot solar array on its roof and several other environmentally friendly features, such as a rooftop herb garden, water filling stations to limit the need for plastic water bottles and several other features designed to minimize water and energy consumption.
“There are a lot of front-of-house and a lot of back-of-house efforts around sustainability, and Natural Products has raised the bar for that,” says Abel.