By Elena Vasquez

Walmart ran 25 livestreams across four days at the 20th annual New York Comic Con (Oct. 8-11, Javits Center), making QVC-style live selling the most pervasive booth trend on the show floor. The broadcasts ran inside a glass-walled structure, where fans tuned in for exclusive launches, interviews, unboxings and shoppable items, according to Walmart's corporate newsroom.

Walmart was not alone. Whatnot, eBay Live and TikTok Shop built their exhibits around the same mechanism: real-time commerce, streamed from the convention floor to buyers at home.

Why are brands broadcasting from convention booths?

The strategy is simple. A booth audience and a remote audience buy at the same time, from the same auction. Event Marketer's field report described the setup as "fast-paced, livestreamed shopping" with sophisticated cameras and lighting, live hosts and screens inside each footprint, so attendees could watch or join the live selling and trading of collectibles.

Live shopping (commerce conducted through real-time video, where viewers bid and buy as the stream runs) lets a brand monetize one activation twice. It converts booth visitors into spectators and remote viewers into buyers.

What did each brand build?

• Whatnot. The live shopping marketplace recreated itself inside a mall-themed space. Sellers sold live from the show floor even without a standalone booth. Viewers at home bid and bought in real time, while attendees watched from an arcade-themed vignette. A smaller auction booth sat inside one of the brand's "stores."
• eBay Live. The platform rolled a branded Airstream trailer into its exhibit. Seller partners traded with fans online all four days, while in-booth visitors watched auctions from dedicated rows of seating. Fans also played rounds of BINGO to win "rare drops."
• TikTok Shop. A large chunk of its carnival-themed footprint (Coney Island was the overall NYCC 2026 theme) housed a high-tech broadcast stage where live sellers traded throughout the show, plus a series of smaller "livestream pods."

What does this signal for exhibitors?

The pattern was consistent across four major platforms: physical exhibits now double as production sets. Cameras, hosts and seating rows are becoming standard booth infrastructure, not add-ons.

For collectibles in particular, scarcity drives the format. Exclusive launches and rare drops give remote and on-site audiences a shared reason to buy immediately, and the livestream carries that urgency beyond the hall.

Expect live selling to remain a fixture of fan-culture events, where inventory is limited, demand is global and the broadcast costs a brand already pays for its booth.