The NSSC is a national creative competition awarding over $20,000 in scholarships and cash prizes. Helping undergraduates become successful creative professionals, The National Student Show & Conference is a professionally judged creative competition and conference built for students and their educators.

We do not offer refunds. Except as expressly provided herein, all payments will be irrevocable, non-refundable, and non-creditable.

Please click on the following link to fill out a form for show entries or conference tickets.  An invoice with payment instructions will be emailed to you. Link to pay by check. If the invoice is payed by credit card a 3% processing fee will be added.

Entry submissions open Nov. 10, 2025. Click the link on our home page, fill out your info, add your entries, and check out.

Early Bird Entry Deadline: Jan. 12, 2026
Show Entry Deadline: Feb. 14, 2026

Early bird entries are offered at a discounted rate until Jan 12, 2026. At the moment, we do not offer discounts on bulk orders.

Submissions cannot be edited at this time. If your submission has a mistake and needs to be corrected, let us know via our contact form.

The next conference will be Thursday, April 9 – April 11, 2026.

Tickets open October 27, 2025 and close on March 30, 2026 at 11:59pm CST.

We offer a Cyber Sale between November 27 to December 1, 2025. Early bird tickets are offered at a discounted rate from November 10, 2025 to January 12, 2026. Additionally, educators with students attending the conference receive a free ticket (must be marked at checkout). NSSC does not offer discounts on bulk orders.

Tickets for NSSC’s Conference are non-refundable. If you are a university that is having students fundraise for the conference and are unsure how many students will be able to officially attend, please submit an invoice request form for the desired amount of tickets. Once you know how many students are coming officially, communicate that to us and we will make sure your invoice amount is correct.

As of this time, keynotes will not be recorded and therefore would not be available to watch after the event.

Aloft is offering $8/night parking for guests, with some size restrictions (check with the hotel for large vehicles). There’s also a public lot next door for $16/day.

We will not be providing any meals for attendees on either days of the event.

We have reserved a small block of rooms at the Aloft Hotel, the conference venue, with a nightly rate of $159.

Either is acceptable. For digital portfolios, we recommend having it downloaded on your device just in case there are issues with wifi. We also recommend having it on a laptop or iPad, and not displaying it on your phone, as that is a rather small screen.

• A portfolio is not a place for every single project you’ve ever worked on to live. This is about what best represents you, your work, and your skill level. We recommend putting your top 5 best projects in your portfolio, no more than 10.
• Show off your work with plenty of mockups and images.
• If you include text, keep it to a minimum. Only include relevant context that would help the viewer understand the concept or the solution you are presenting for a problem.

The conference in general is casual, so nothing fancy is needed. However, keep in mind that this is an opportunity to get potential internships or first jobs after graduation. You want to be mindful and intentional of what impression you are leaving on the professionals you’ll be interacting with. We suggest nice casual.

We can’t give you an exact number, as it depends on how long you chat with each reviewer, but the goal is at least 2-3 reviews.

Portfolio Review will start at 8:30am, Friday, April 12. You are welcome to show up at the venue anytime between 8am and 8:20am to set up your table, depending on how much material you are planning on bringing. 

Absolutely! It is entirely up to you on what and how much you’d like to bring. However, we recommend bringing items that can be set on a table. There will not be any wall space at your disposal to hang things on, and you cannot obstruct walking areas. The NSSC team has the right to tell you if something will impede flow of traffic and ask you to remove such items. We also advise having some business cards available to hand out to students who catch your eye.

2 hours, 8:30am to 10:30am. We have another sub-event in that same room starting at 11am, therefore it will be important for you to easily and quickly pack up your materials so that the vendors for the next event have time to come in.

In order to keep the review time intimate, and prevent you from being bombarded at all sides by students, the NSSC team will restrict the flow into the review room by dividing the students into groups or sessions. Students in each session can approach whichever table they desire and you can spend however long reviewing their portfolio as you wish. We ask that you, as the reviewer, give students honest feedback, including what they are doing well at (strengths) and where they need improvement (weaknesses).

As a presenter at the Round Table event, you need to have a short 10-15 minute presentation prepared. This presentation can incorporate example work or promotional pieces that you may bring. After your presentation, for the remainder of the 30 minute session be prepared to answer any questions the students around your table may have. You can also have prepared some common questions you get asked about what you do or your creative field. The purpose of the Round Table event is to widen the students’ awareness of different creative fields and how we all work and affect one another.

We recommend bringing printed pieces that aid your talk, such as example work or promotional pieces.

Yes! The Round Table event is split up into two sessions in order to accommodate the number of predicted attendees. Therefore, you’ll give your presentation twice. Each session will be around 30 minutes long. If this changes we will let you know!

You can fill out the Get Involved form found in our main navigation menu or you can reach out to our chair at nssc@dsvc.org. Either way, we’d love to welcome you on the team!

Whatever interests you, we probably have a spot on the team! Anywhere between social media, socializing with students at the conference, studio tour guides, operating registration, helping accommodate speakers, and even photography for the event.