More than 100 businesses and organizations are converging on Indian Canyons Golf Resort tonight for the Business Expo & Taste of Palm Springs, an annual showcase pairing local commerce with more than 40 restaurant and beverage partners dishing out samples under the desert sky. General admission runs $40 and includes entry, live entertainment, and food and beverage tastings, while a $90 VIP ticket adds early entry at 4 p.m., an air-conditioned lounge, golf simulators, premium wine tasting, and a commemorative wine glass and holder.
According to KESQ, the Palm Springs Chamber of Commerce is hosting the event, which gives attendees a chance to connect with local businesses while sampling wine and beer alongside dozens of restaurant offerings. Online ticket sales closed at 10 a.m. Wednesday, but tickets remain available at the event while capacity allows, and can otherwise be purchased through the chamber directly.
Free Booths Draw Dozens of Local Eateries
The event's food lineup leans on a simple trade: participating restaurant and beverage vendors get complimentary booth space in exchange for providing tasting samples to roughly 800 attendees, according to the Palm Springs Chamber of Commerce. General business exhibitors, by contrast, pay between $200 and $300 for booth space — a structure that helps explain why more than 40 restaurant and beverage partners have signed on this year. The chamber itself has operated as a 501(c)(6) nonprofit focused on regional economic development, and ProPublica records list its tax-exemption date as May 1942.
Live music has long been a fixture of the expo's programming. This year's headliner, Never a Dull Moment, is a Southern California-based tribute act built around five decades of Rod Stewart hits, performed by a lineup that includes musicians who have previously played in Rod Stewart's own touring band, according to GigRoster. The expo's programming has included live music in past editions as well.
A Venue Steeped in Desert History
Indian Canyons Golf Resort itself carries plenty of backstory. The North Course sits on 550 acres of Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians tribal land and features a 100-foot water fountain donated by animator Walt Disney, according to Casago, which notes the course historically entertained U.S. presidents and Hollywood stars like Frank Sinatra and Bob Hope. The resort originally opened in 1961 as the private Canyon Country Club, home to Palm Springs' first 18-hole golf course and a mid-century clubhouse designed by Donald Wexler and Richard Harrison, according to Modernism Week. The surrounding neighborhood wasn't formally renamed Indian Canyons until 2009, after the golf facility itself.
Why Food and Business Events Matter to the Desert
Tonight's gathering fits into a regional economy where hospitality carries outsized weight. Tourism across Greater Palm Springs generated a record $9.6 billion in total economic impact in 2025, according to Visit Greater Palm Springs. Food and beverage is part of visitor spending in the valley. Palm Springs International Airport is another part of the region's tourism infrastructure.
The Taste of Palm Springs also slots into a broader calendar of desert culinary events, joining Greater Palm Springs Restaurant Week and Cathedral City's Taste of Jalisco on the desert culinary calendar. For tonight, though, the focus is simpler: networking, samples from more than 40 local eateries, and a night of Rod Stewart covers under the lights of a historic Coachella Valley course.
