IMEX Frankfurt 2026 has reinforced its position as the preeminent global marketplace in Europe where the business events industry comes together to do business, with strong buyer demand, high-quality hosted buyers and 73,000 meetings across three days.
Post-show data published recently shows a total of 4,739 buyers from 94 countries attended this year’s show (May 19–21), including 3,731 hosted buyers, bringing significant international buying power to the show floor. Buyer mix remained strong across key segments, led by agencies (68%), alongside corporate (16%) and association planners (10%).
For exhibitors, this translated into clear commercial opportunity. The show facilitated 73,000 meetings—including one-to-one meetings, group meetings and booth presentations—representing an 8% year-on-year increase.
Buyer quality remains a defining strength of the IMEX brand. Almost 2/3 of buyers represented organizations with annual purchasing power above $1 million, with 22% controlling budgets exceeding $10 million, underlining the value of face-to-face meetings for generating pipeline and progressing qualified business opportunities.
Global reach reflects wider industry’s prospects
In total, 13,515 participants attended the show at Messe Frankfurt, alongside 2,900 exhibiting companies, reflecting continued growth and global reach at a time when EIC’s new Global Economic Impact Report shows the global business events industry contributes $1.8 trillion to GDP worldwide. Encouragingly, the data suggests direct spending is forecast to grow to $1.6 trillion by 2028, up from $1.3 trillion in 2025.
Speaking about their experience on the show floor, Xiomara De La Torre, Mexico, said: “We took more space this year—double the size—driven partly by the World Cup and a major push behind Mexico City and Jalisco. That’s driving huge interest. And our glass meeting room was full since day one. We’ve even had groups coming to meet the tourism board—something we didn’t see last year.”
Building trusted relationships
The results reflect continued strong demand from global buyers actively seeking to meet suppliers, build relationships and place business. IMEX Frankfurt 2026 reinforced the role of in-person events as a trusted and effective marketing channel at a time when evidence suggests it’s getting harder to verify and trust online introductions or sales pitches.
Hall 9 redesign high note
While the IMEX exhibition takes place in Messe Frankfurt’s Hall 8, just across the atrium is Hall 9—home to a series of professional education theaters (the Inspiration Hub), activations, food courts and the show’s Hosted Buyer Lounge. Following a complete redesign by a cross-functional IMEX operations, design and user experience team, and inspired by the IMEX Talking Point of Design Matters (2026 and 2027), the Inspiration Hub and Hosted Buyer Lounge were granted Gold Better Stands Initiative Awards.
Explaining why these areas achieved the Gold standard, Impact Consultant and Project Manager, Cori Samuel said: “Better Stands is an industry-wide initiative that works to accelerate the transition to reusable exhibition booths. At IMEX Frankfurt 2026, the GDS-Movement team conducted independent assessments during both the build and breakdown of the show, evaluating all booths against the 10-point framework to assess reusability.
"The IMEX team set their sights on a Gold-level build from the very start of their redesign over 18 months ago. They carefully considered reuse at every stage of the design and build process, planning for storage year-to-year, materials use, carbon cost and many other factors that ensured they ultimately hit their target. It's an impressive achievement.”
The global meetings, events and incentive travel industry is already primed to come together again at IMEX America, opening October 13 at Mandalay Bay, Las Vegas. Buyer registration is now live.
