HomeGymCon – Why YOU Should Attend in 2026
Last updated on November 26th, 2025 at 10:02 am
You own a home gym and you think you want to attend HomeGymCon. But you aren’t sure if the travel, costs, and time is worth it. Cool. I was in the same boat. But me and my family attended in 2025 in Louisville, KY for the full two days and I’m here to share my thoughts and ideas.
Hopefully at the end of this you’ll know whether attending HomeGymCon is worth it for you, or not. Let’s dig in.
Key Notes
HomeGymCon is a great place to nerd out with like minded people. But it can be VERY expensive to attend, and there are limitations to the experience you should understand.
Links throughout may include Affiliate Links. These help fund the site at no expense to you.
Transparency Note
Jake over at Garage Gym Experiment is the dude behind HomeGymCon. He has been a buddy of mine for close to a decade, as we’ve both built our own Home Gym Businesses alongside each other. He sponsors my Garage Gym Competition, but I have no incentive for you to attend HGC other than to see the event grow my buddy, and to maybe get to shake your hand.
What Is HomeGymCon?
HomeGymCon is an annual event that began in 2023 for equipment manufacturers and retailers alongside content creators and regular people get the opportunity to come together and see cool stuff. Budget equipment, apparel, supplements, lifting events, giveaways, and more go on each year.
If you lift in a commercial gym, or like yoga, this isn’t your jam. If you like lifting heavy things, running on cardio equipment, and doing it in your garage, basement or other home based location, this the event for you!
How Much Did HomeGymCon Cost?
My numbers are going to be a little different than yours because of where we live, when we flew out, the fact it was all 3 of us, and that travel is so inconsistent in pricing. Our trip was about $4,000 coming from California, with 3 people, after flights, hotel stays, food, and various expenses.
Per adult you’ll be looking at:
- Airfare – $500+
- Travel to and from airport – $100+
- Hotel stay – $450+
- HomeGymCon tickets – $50
- Food and various expenses out of the house – $200+
Kids under 13 are free for HGC, so that helps. You likely won’t need a car rental, because the airport is super close to the hotel, just need a LYFT. But it definitely adds up. What made this trip more worth it for us, was that we tacked a vacation on afterwards. If you flew in for the 2 days and out, this might be a little extreme.
Our Itinerary For HomeGymCon
We flew into Louisville on Thursday evening. Our plan was to get off the plane, take a ride to the hotel, check in, grab some food for dinner and hit up a local grocery store for breakfasts, snacks, etc. for the weekend.
Unfortunately our flight had been delayed by 4 hours, which screwed up our food plans and everything tied to check in. Because of this, I’d probably recommend you show up early in the day or even the day before. The reason is because you want to be fresh for Day 1, not getting over any jet lag or travel woes.
We woke up Friday morning, had breakfast, got ready for the day, and then headed into the convention hall. Because of our late night we didn’t get into HomeGymCon until a little after noon.
My Goals As A Content Creator
As a content creator I was there to meet people, see gym equipment, and film and take some pictures. I didn’t set any schedule for time at booths, or have any hard goals for anything I saw. I had some notes on specific equipment that had caught my eyes, and some booths I knew I had to meet people at, but otherwise I was just going in and trying to enjoy the experience.
HomeGymCon Day 1
We walked in and out the gate you see the strongman competition and then some of the booths. I started taking everything in and trying to understand what we were seeing, where people were, and just started talking shop.
The first HomeGymCon booth we stopped at was Black Widow Training Gear to talk to Dean. I’ve known Dean for close to a decade, and it was awesome to see some of his custom stuff, attention to detail, and just chat.
We made our way around the corner and ran into Ashton at Freedom Fitness in his decked out attire. Turned around and watched Deadliest Lift hook up a mouth harness and lift Chris of Belt Fed Strength off the ground. If I didn’t know Mark from his continued antics in the Garage Gym Competition, I’d have been afraid for his safety.
Then I saw Porter PhysEd and got to try out his new cable attachments and rack attachments. We talked awhile about the VOLTRA I’s and what was coming next.
We saw HomeGymCon booths like PowerBlock and several others but kept walking to see what else was there. We got around the corner and Ironmaster had a huge booth with their new IM-3000, and several new attachments for the Ironmaster Super Bench Pro V2. After a quick chat there we found our way to IronBull Strength, and got to see a TON of awesome new stuff. They had some new collars that had me really excited, demos of their rack Functional Trainer, dumbbells, and new barbells.
We walked past REP because their booth was BUMPING, saw Dialed Motion and Gluck was all over it so we skipped them for the time being. The ATX booth was massive, so big that I was afraid if I wandered in that I wouldn’t come back out.
We made it around and found my dude Marcus at 9.22 Designs. He had a custom Gray Matter Lifting mini hoop basketball for us, and I managed to see John Greaves III walk up. We chatted for a bit, as my wife and daughter chatted with Better Through The Barbell.
We were circling looking for a few people and the guys at ANCORE found me and brought me over to their booth. I got to test their pieces, chat, and meet the guys at U clips as well who were sharing a booth.
I looked down and it was 4pm. We had seen less than 10% of the HomeGymCon booths and Day One was almost over, and I hadn’t even found some of my top of the list booths yet. I got called out by name by VAST Strength to check his booth, so I obliged. He had some really unique stuff and I was excited to check it out.
We managed to find Mutant Metals and check out his new pinch block piece, as my daughter played on the Jungle Gym for awhile and then sat behind Chris’ booth and helped clean up.
I made one last stop at Prime Fitness to talk with Intek Strength and HomeGymCon Day 1 was done.
We left and had dinner with two of my GGC friends Travis McKinney and his girlfriend Lindsey at a local pub to wrap up the day. HGC has a VIP Cocktail hour for meet and greets, but I was burnt. This introvert was tired and over stimulated and couldn’t handle 2 hours of chatting after a day of chatting.
Lessons Learned From HomeGymCon Day 1
Holy crap there is a lot of stuff here. If you weren’t trying to have conversations with these people and just see stuff, you’d probably make it through faster than I did. But Day 1 be prepared to be overwhelmed. I don’t think I even touched most of the gym equipment there, outside of a few light weight reps on the ANCORE.
Also, plan to never leave the convention center. They only had pulled pork and brisket sandwiches, and that was it from what I could tell. So bring your water, bring your shakes, bring some snacks, protein bars, essentially you need to bring like 2 or 3 meals with you. I’d probably also print out the floor map and specifically circle and plan out your stops so you can get your must hit items done on Day 1, and leave Day 2 for some adventures.
HomeGymCon Day 2
We got into HomeGymCon a little after 10am and had a much better flow and plan. I knew what companies I had missed and really needed to see.
We walked in and were making our way towards the bigger booths we had missed on Day One and REP Fitness grabbed me. Which was perfect because they had a lot of stuff I wanted to see. We spent awhile testing the Leg Developer with a few of my friends, then took a look at the Smith Machine.
We spent 1.5 hours at REP and could have spent more but my wife pulled me out of there. I didn’t even get to take a look at the Rep x Pepins. Then we made our way over to Prime Fitness and I got to trial the Smart Arm, where GoReckFit captured some footage. I was able to see their new vertical storage for the Shorty Bench, and was all around very excited about what they had cooking.
We made our way over to Dialed Motion and Michael at Jungle Gym Reviews was camping out and doing his thing, so we pivoted again. Freemax, who I didn’t know, told me he had something for me. I couldn’t pass up an opportunity so we went to check it out. I caught Gluck doing dips there and then gave it a shot myself and caught a cool demo. Walking bye in the crowd was David Dennis of Gorilla Strength USA, who we tracked down and I immediately connected him with the dude at Freemax.
After getting my new toy, we wandered back and Dialed Motion was finally open so we stopped in. They took me through their new footplate and got to take a look at possibly the coolest piece in the entire place, their leg developer. I spent half my time their encouraging other people to hop in and try it as well, trying to share my time with friends and others. I was really impressed with the various adjustments and abilities it offered and thought that for a prototype, it was well executed and very promising.
After we were done with Dialed Motion, my wife and daughter were hanging out with Willow and Pam, Gorilla Strengths family, so I started hitting up some of the final booths. I hit up Vendetta Strength and Rorman Strength who had booths at the very front, but managed to get skipped over by a lot of people.
I ran from there to the back of the venue to grab Bells of Steel for about 10 seconds to get some questions from r/HomeGym answered. I talked with Matt Porter one final time, and then wrapped it up.
I managed to see my fellow people like The Kurt Locker, Coach Carp, but miss guys like NoFate247. We finished the day with some pizza alongside Gorilla Strength and the family.
Lessons Learned From HomeGymCon Day 2
Holy crap there is a lot of stuff here. Yes, even with a better understanding and a full day under my belt, I felt like I could have used 2 more days just to get to the companies I knew, let alone explore a lot of the companies I had never heard of before.
Things I Will Do At The Next HomeGymCon
I realized at the end of the day, that I had taken zero pictures with anyone with my own camera. I took enough pictures that Audrey asked my wife “is daddy famous?” But I only took the pictures on their phones. Next year Audrey will be taking the fan photos and pics of me with my friends.
We struggled to eat both days of HomeGymCon. I definitely need to buy something like this kit, and have one of my booth friends hide it for us as I take breaks that are set on my phone. If you are a normal person, I’d fill a backpack or purse with snacks, water, and food options.
I also realized that the majority of the companies were ready for walk-throughs, and I should have used my microphones for better audio. This doesn’t really apply to you, but something I’ll be doing differently next year.
I’ll probably print the floor map for HomeGymCon Day 1, with plans, Day 2 with plans, and a Plan B option in case Day 1 or 2 goes off the rails. I’d probably do this as a normal person too, so you don’t miss anything you REALLY want to see. I completely missed the ForceUSA booth and I had them in my Day One plan.
What I’d Do Again at HomeGymCon
I got some great feedback from a buddy after the event. He said that all the other content creators he ran into, seemed to be boxing people out to get their content at each booth. Where as I was sharing my stage with others, even introducing people to companies, connecting companies together, and just really enjoying my time there with like minded people. I would 100% do this again, even if it isn’t the best process for “content”.
As a normal person, take advantage of this same idea. Go into HomeGymCon and have fun in a room full of people who are there for the same reason… To see some cool gym equipment. Talk with people, connect, share, ask what they think, what they’ve tried, and go have dinner with someone cool.
Overall Thoughts on HomeGymCon
As a content creator I managed to make a few connections, hang out with some friends, and have a great time. The big picture for me is, I had a great time and am already planning for next year.
If I was a normal dude I think I would have moved through faster because I wouldn’t spend 45 minutes talking to Matt Porter about his cable attachments. But I also think I wouldn’t have handled as much equipment.
Even as a guy with a camera and a following, I struggled to get my time at some of the busier HomeGymCon booths. If I was a normal dude I probably would have watched other people test out several pieces and then walked on. I would have seen more things and booths, but struggled to actually test and try stuff. And I can see things on Instagram and YouTube, this is supposed to be one of the few places where you can handle first hand a ton of equipment you might consider buying.
That said, I’m a firm believer that you don’t know how a piece works until you load it up heavy a number of times and take it for a whirl. At HomeGymCon, that TYPICALLY isn’t doable. If I had tried to test every machine ATX had, I might have never gone anywhere else. REP brought a dozen barbells. If I had geeked out over knurling, and compared to the Rogue booth, oh man… There is just not enough time to dig deep.
So I think you get to see and try a lot of cool stuff and a lot of things that aren’t available yet. But I don’t think you get to REALLY trial anything in typical workout situations. You aren’t drinking your pre-workout, doing your warm ups, blasting your music, and getting after it. You are loading a 25lb plate, hitting 5 reps, and getting a feel for it in front of 25 other people. Unless if you are Tim. Nice work Tim!
Should you attend HomeGymCon?
Joe Gray
My name is Joe Gray - aka Gray Matter Lifting - and I've been lifting at home since 2013. In that time I've built a badass gym, deadlifted over 600lbs, helped grow r/Homegym to over 1 Million subscribers, created the Garage Gym Competition and written a ton of posts here on this site. I love the Garage Gym Community... If you do too, I hope you stick around.
