The position
SPIE Photonics West 2027 occupies Moscone North, Moscone South and Moscone West from Saturday 30 January to Thursday 4 February 2027.
The venue page carries the dates and the three buildings. The terms that decide a room night sit on the organizer's own pages.
SPIE prices exhibition entry at no charge and a booth-staff place at no charge. The paid registration covers the technical program.
SPIE's release of 14 October 2026 puts the week at 24,000 people. One badge type measures one slice of that number.
Two exhibition windows and a dark Monday
SPIE BiOS Expo runs Saturday 30 January and Sunday 31 January in Halls D and E, 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM on Saturday and 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM on Sunday.
The Photonics West Exhibition runs Tuesday 2 February to Thursday 4 February, 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM on Tuesday and Wednesday and 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM on Thursday.
Monday 1 February holds no exhibition floor. The conference program runs that day, and the SPIE Global Business Forum sits at the San Francisco Marriott Marquis under its own registration.
Two windows create two arrival groups and two departure groups. The housing block's selectable nights run Saturday 23 January to Tuesday 9 February 2027.
The show floor carries two free tiers
The organizer's help center states that registration is required to attend and is free for most events, and that an attendee selects the Exhibition Only option at the first step.
The booth-staff line sits at the same no-charge figure in both columns of the registration table. The holder must be with an exhibiting company.
The program page states that a paid registration gains access to the full technical program, the industry sessions and all five exhibitions.
The registration ladder carries five lines: speaker or author with program committee and session chair; non-author attendee; student; booth staff; and exhibition visitor.
The table reads $980 for a member and $1,170 for a non-member, with a $170 step after 15 January 2027. A Student Member badge reads $570, with a $110 step on the same date.
Joining as a member at check-out carries the member rate on the same registration.
The exhibitor count is the show-floor figure
SPIE's release of 14 October 2026 counts more than 1,400 exhibitors at the two exhibitions.
Quantum West, Vision Tech and AR | VR | MR show inside the Photonics West Exhibition.
Five industry stages run panels through the week, and the industry program page counts more than 100 industry sessions.
An exhibiting company registers its crew on the free booth-staff line.
Where the housing terms sit
SPIE names ConferenceDirect as the official housing bureau for Photonics West 2027.
The bureau states that the housing website closes on Monday 25 January 2027, and that hotel closing dates may vary by hotel.
The cancellation term is flat. A room cancellation made at any time carries a $50 fee, and a cancellation made directly with the hotel carries the same fee. The statement descriptor reads CONFDIRECT*SPIEPW27.
One online reservation caps at nine rooms on the bureau's own group-type data. The prior cycle's exhibitor sub-block request site published a ten-room minimum on event nights.
Housing questions go to spie@conferencedirect.com.
The room side, read from two publishers
The Moscone Center's own FAQ states that over 20,000 hotel rooms sit within walking distance of the building. The venue's book-event page states that more than two-thirds of the city's 34,000 hotel rooms are within walking distance.
Engine reads the city at $165 across 3.1M public rate observations from May 2024 to April 2026. January reads $166, December reads $129, and the spread between the cheapest and the priciest month is 35 percent. The city ranks 18 of 50 against a $148 median.
Engine defines its figures as the cheapest publicly available price at the time of each search. Negotiated and booked rates sit outside that basis.
The AHLA and CHLA report with Oxford Economics, dated 25 June 2026, puts San Francisco hotel economic impact above $12 billion for 2025 and citywide visitor spending at about $900 per hotel room night.
The arithmetic a rate decision takes
Saturday 30 January to a Friday 5 February checkout is six nights. Saturday 30 January to a Thursday 4 February checkout is five nights.
At the city's January figure of $166, six nights read $996 and five nights read $830.
At the $900 per-room-night figure, six nights read $5,400 in visitor spending.
Two clocks that decide the booking
Abstracts were due 22 July 2026, registration opened in October 2026, and authors were notified with the program posted on 12 October 2026.
Poster PDFs are due 6 January 2027 and manuscripts are due 13 January 2027. The advance upload deadline for oral presentation slides is 29 January 2027.
The housing clock closes 25 January 2027. The first registration desk opens in the Moscone South Lobby four days later, on Friday 29 January.
Two free entry routes sit inside the week. The housing block closes five days before the exhibition opens. The room forecast rests on the show floor, the exhibitor crews and the two-window stay pattern.