About SoCo

SoCo stands for Soccer Collectors. It also stands for Soccer Community, and that second one is the whole point.

We started in 2024 in a 10,000 square foot hall in Parma, Ohio, with 105 tables. Five shows later we took over a 100,000 square foot convention center — with another 25,000 square feet set aside just for SoCo After Dark trade nights. Same show, same tagline, a lot more room. Collectors, vendors and breakers have come in from over 40 countries.

Why SoCo Exists

I started this show to honor my dad. He passed away from pancreatic cancer during COVID, and everything with SoCo on it is built in his memory.

That is why the tagline has never changed. For the community. Not for a board, not for a spreadsheet — for the people who show up.

There is no board of directors here. If something makes sense, we do it, and we can decide it on the floor that day. I meet every vendor personally and spend most of the show hosting — walking the aisles, checking in, making sure the people who paid for a table are doing well. That is the job, and it is the part I actually enjoy.

— Scott Leshman, Founder

• Parma, Ohio Local 1005 Hall · 10,000 sq ft · 105 tables Show one. Where SoCo started, in 2024.
• Melrose Park, Illinois Chicago Soccer Fields Out of the hall and into Chicagoland.
• Ontario, California Delta Hotels · 136 tables The West Coast edition.
• Allen, Texas Hilton Garden Inn · 80 tables A tighter room and later hours — the SoCo After Dark format.
• Schaumburg, Illinois Renaissance Schaumburg Convention Center · 100,000 sq ft The takeover. Full convention center, plus 25,000 sq ft for After Dark trade nights.

What We Care About

Serving the whole hobby

Plenty of shows treat soccer, TCG, Pokémon, One Piece, F1, WWE and UFC as an afterthought — a few tables near the back, if they turn up at all. We built SoCo around them. If your category has been the small table in the corner somewhere else, it has a real floor here.

Vendors who belong there

Tables are vetted. Attendees should be able to walk the floor knowing the inventory is real and the people behind it stand behind it.

Rooms built for trading

Wide aisles, good sightlines, and formats that give people time to actually do business — whether that is four days on a convention center floor or one long night that runs to 1 AM.

The SoCo Formats

SoCo Expo is the flagship — the full four-day convention-center show.

SoCo After Dark is the late-night format: one room, one night, doors at 7 PM and trading until 1 AM.

SoCo Cup is the tournament side of the show, running at Schaumburg in 2027.

2027

Two shows announced so far: SoCo After Dark Dallas over two nights in January at the Hilton Garden Inn Allen, and SoCo Expo Schaumburg — the flagship — July 29 to August 1 at the Renaissance Schaumburg Convention Center. More cities are on the calendar and get announced here first.