Welcome to the Big Easy Bulletin, your guide to all the networking and education opportunities that we're bringing to the 2025 NCPA Annual Convention in New Orleans, Oct. 18-21 — and how to spend your off-hours in the city. See you in the Big Easy!

Start off strong at the 2025 NCPA Annual Convention in New Orleans, Oct. 18-21, with our interactive agenda builder, where you can sift through all of the scheduled activities to figure out where you want to spend your time and how to get there. The guide features a handy sorting function that lets you pick the specific kinds of business education, NCPA Expo events, product theaters, student programming, or other events you want to see. 

Once you add items to your agenda, you can download everything together into a PDF, email it to yourself, or add the events to your calendar app of choice. Make sure you save your agenda in one of those ways before you leave the agenda builder pages or close your browser — if you don’t, you’ll have to start all over again. 

To learn more about convention registration, click here.

Community pharmacies are busy places, we know. If you can’t pull yourself away from your location for the whole length of the convention but are close enough to drive, you can still take advantage of the networking and education opportunities at #NCPA2025 with our one-day registration offering (for pharmacists only!). 

For information on registration rates, click here. You can get started registering here.

Registration is open for the 2025 NCPA Annual Convention in New Orleans, Oct. 18-21, the premier national business show for independent pharmacists and their teams. The convention housing block at the Hilton New Orleans Riverside has closed but other options are still available through the convention registration and housing process. Register and book your housing here.  

As a reminder, you must first register for the convention before booking housing. You can read more about our updated registration process here.  

Once you book, make sure our housing vendor, Spargo, can contact you! Check your email's junk folder in case something went awry and be sure their email address ([email protected]) is approved so you don't miss a thing. 

Congratulations to Denys Coates of Tanglewood Pharmacy in Stephenville, Texas for winning our giveaway for free registration to NCPA’s three biggest meetings next year: our 2026 Multiple Locations Conference in Clearwater, Fla.; Congressional Pharmacy Fly-In in Alexandria, Va.; and Annual Convention in Kansas City, Mo. — a $2,700 value in total! 

Denys won by registering for the 2025 NCPA Annual Convention and booking her housing by the deadline for our room block in the convention venue, the Hilton New Orleans Riverside. If you haven’t booked your housing yet, don’t fret; you can still see some other nearby housing options in our registration portal. You can learn more about convention registration and housing here.  

To book your housing you must first register for convention; learn more about our updated registration process here.

Calling all bourbon and whiskey aficionados attending the NCPA Annual Convention in New Orleans this October! The NCPA Foundation has opened presale for its exclusive bourbon/whiskey raffle — and this year's selection is going to be something special.  

Join the NCPA Foundation's Louisiana Whiskey/Bourbon Raffle for a chance to win two premium bottles valued between $100 and $500. At just $40 per ticket, you could be taking home some exceptional spirits.  

Here's how the mystery will unfold: 

Oct. 16: The bottles will be revealed on the foundation's website and in an email. 

Oct. 18-20: Visit the NCPA Foundation booth just across from registration to see the bottles and purchase more tickets, or buy them right here. 

Oct. 20: Winners will be announced at the Monday Night Mix and Mingle party during the NCPA Annual Convention. 

Don't miss your chance to add some premium spirits to your collection while supporting the sustainability and growth of the independent community pharmacy profession! 

Raffle purchasers must be 21+ to participate and winners must be present to win. Please read the full terms and conditions before purchasing.

When it comes to famous drinks, NOLA is better known for its cocktails than its brews. But there’s good news for beer drinkers: In recent years, a number of craft breweries have popped up across the city. You can find an interactive map of microbreweries here. 

More of a wine person? Check out this list instead.

Who's on the expo floor? Click here to see the up-to-date lineup!