The 72nd Annual AAEP Convention and Trade Show runs December 7 to 11, 2026, at the Mandalay Bay Convention Resort in Las Vegas. It is the largest gathering of equine veterinarians in the world, with more than 100 hours of RACE-accredited CE and a trade show floor of over 300 exhibitors.
One scheduling note before anything else: the convention opens on a different day this year. Instead of the traditional Saturday start, activities begin Monday, December 7, and the educational program kicks off Tuesday, December 8. If you booked flights based on previous years, check them now, not in November.
The lameness sessions will be excellent. The reproduction forums will be excellent. But if last year's convention was any indication, the loudest conversations in the aisles won't be about joint therapies. They'll be about software.
Why practice technology owns the hallway conversation
At last year's convention, we surveyed equine veterinary professionals at our booth about their practice management software. The average satisfaction score was 2.7 out of 5. Eighty-four percent said they were considering switching.
That is not a software problem in the abstract. That is hundreds of practitioners paying monthly for tools they don't trust, adapted from small animal clinics, that fall over the moment you drive out of cell range.
So when 3,000 or more practitioners, students, and techs walk the trade show floor at Mandalay Bay this December, a lot of them will be shopping. Here are the questions we expect them to ask, because they're the same ones we heard, verbatim, last year.
1. "Who owns you, and what happens to my pricing?"
The most emotionally charged feedback we collected last year wasn't about features. It was about ownership. Vets told us their PMS got acquired by private equity and prices doubled within 18 months. One had watched three vendors get acquired in five years, with pricing jumping 40 to 60 percent each time.
Expect this to be the first question at a lot of booths in Vegas. It should be. Ask about ownership structure. Ask what happens to your contract if the company is sold. A vendor that squirms at this question is answering it.
2. "Does your voice-to-text know what a fetlock is?"
Sixty-seven percent of the vets we surveyed asked for voice documentation, and nearly all of them added the same qualifier: it has to understand equine terminology. Generic dictation that transcribes "cannon bone" as "cannon bond" and has never met an AAEP lameness grade creates more cleanup than it saves.
The test is simple. Stand at the booth and dictate a real case. Flexion findings, a Triadan number, a Coggins draw. If the transcript needs surgery afterwards, keep walking. This is exactly the job our AI assistant for equine vets was built for: dictate the visit, review the SOAP, done.
3. "What happens when I lose signal at the barn?"
Ambulatory practice runs on ranch roads and indoor arenas with the connectivity of a mineshaft. Software demos always run beautifully on convention-center Wi-Fi. Your Tuesday afternoon does not take place on convention-center Wi-Fi.
Ask every vendor what their product does with no bars. Can you view records? Add notes? What syncs when signal returns, and what gets lost? Mobile-first, field-ready software is table stakes for equine practice, not a premium add-on.
4. "Can I bill a 40-horse barn visit without hand-splitting invoices?"
Multi-owner billing is where small-animal software adapted for horses goes to die. One barn, 40 horses, a dozen owners, split ownership on half the performance horses, and one trainer who wants everything on a single statement. If the answer involves the word "workaround," you already know how your month-end will go. We wrote up how multi-owner invoicing should actually work if you want the full checklist.
5. "Does it talk to my imaging?"
Radiographs on one system, records on another, and a USB stick doing the diplomacy between them. Vets asked us repeatedly last year about imaging that lives inside the patient record instead of beside it. Ask vendors which PACS they integrate with, whether images attach to the visit automatically, and what the referring workflow looks like.
The practical details
- Dates: December 7 to 11, 2026
- Venue: Mandalay Bay Convention Resort, Las Vegas, NV
- Trade show hours (Bayside ABC): Tuesday, Dec 8, 10am to 6pm; Wednesday, Dec 9, 10am to 6pm; Thursday, Dec 10, 10am to 4pm
- CE: More than 100 hours of RACE-accredited education across lameness, imaging, reproduction, infectious disease, dentistry, and practice management
And yes, we'll be in Vegas. Come tell us what your software did to you this year. We take notes. Last year those notes became our roadmap.
FAQ
When and where is AAEP 2026? The 72nd Annual AAEP Convention and Trade Show runs December 7 to 11, 2026, at the Mandalay Bay Convention Resort in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Is the AAEP 2026 schedule different from previous years? Yes. The convention traditionally opened on Saturday, but in 2026 activities start Monday, December 7, with the educational program beginning Tuesday, December 8. Adjust travel plans accordingly.
What are the AAEP 2026 trade show hours? The trade show is open Tuesday, December 8 and Wednesday, December 9 from 10am to 6pm, and Thursday, December 10 from 10am to 4pm, in Bayside ABC at Mandalay Bay.
What should equine vets ask software vendors at AAEP? Five things: who owns the company and how pricing has behaved after acquisitions; whether voice documentation understands equine terminology; what the software does offline; how multi-owner and barn billing work; and which imaging systems it integrates with.
Before You Walk the Floor
Shopping for a PMS before Vegas? Book a 15-minute demo and walk the AAEP floor already knowing what good looks like.