Trade show calendar: UAE, Saudi Arabia and the UK

A trade show calendar is easy to find and easy to get wrong. Organisers move dates, rename shows and switch venues, and the aggregator sites that rank for this term copy last year's entry and leave it sitting there. Below is every event Event BDR currently covers across the UAE, Saudi Arabia and the UK, with each date and venue checked against the organiser's own website on the day of writing, plus a method for cutting the list down to the two or three floors your budget can actually work.

Why most published show calendars are wrong

Of the twenty-nine events checked for this page, five had moved, been renamed or changed venue.

• Arab Health no longer exists under that name. It is now WHX Dubai, running 25 to 28 January 2027, and it now spans two venues rather than one: Dubai Exhibition Centre at Expo City and Dubai World Trade Centre.
• GITEX Global has left Dubai World Trade Centre. The Dubai Media Office confirmed on 8 October 2025 that the show moves to Expo City Dubai from 7 to 11 December 2026. Both the month and the venue changed.
• LEAP moved from April to August, and the organiser now lists 31 August to 3 September 2026 at RECC Malham.
• Speciality & Fine Food Fair left September and left Olympia, moving to 5 to 7 April 2027 at ExCeL London.
• Arabian Travel Market is a September show now, not an April one: 14 to 17 September 2026.

The rule is dull and it works. Check the organiser's own site, then diarise. Never the reverse, and never trust a date you wrote down more than six months ago.

Saudi Arabia: nine floors across three venues

Saudi capacity is why this part of the calendar keeps thickening. The Saudi Conventions and Exhibitions General Authority put national exhibition capacity up 32 per cent year on year at 300,520 square metres in its November 2025 snapshot, reported by TravelDailyNews on 14 November 2025. More space means more shows chasing the same buyers.

Riyadh Front Exhibition & Conference Center

• Saudi Industrial Expo, 30 August to 1 September 2026, Hall 1. Manufacturing plant and industrial supply.
• Saudi Wood Expo, 30 August to 1 September 2026, Hall 1. Machinery, panels and the fit-out chain.
• Air Cargo Middle East Expo, 30 August to 1 September 2026. A dmg events launch edition.
• Seamless Saudi Arabia, 9 to 10 November 2026. Payments, e-commerce and retail technology.

Riyadh Exhibition & Convention Center, Malham

• LEAP, 31 August to 3 September 2026. Tech, startups and investors, with DeepFest co-located.
• Global Health Saudi, 26 to 29 October 2026. Hospital procurement and health authorities.
• Cityscape Global, 16 to 19 November 2026. Developers, brokers and giga-project supply.

Riyadh International Convention & Exhibition Center

• Hotel & Hospitality Expo Saudi Arabia, 15 to 17 September 2026. Runs 4pm to 10pm daily.
• INDEX Saudi Arabia, 15 to 17 September 2026. Interiors and furniture, co-located with the above.

The UAE: ten floors, and the venue map is shifting

• Crypto Expo Dubai, 9 to 10 September 2026, Sheikh Maktoum Hall, Dubai World Trade Centre.
• Arabian Travel Market, 14 to 17 September 2026, Dubai World Trade Centre.
• Beautyworld Middle East, 6 to 8 October 2026, Dubai World Trade Centre.
• ADIPEC, 2 to 5 November 2026, ADNEC Abu Dhabi. Energy, and the only Abu Dhabi entry here.
• Big 5 Global, 23 to 26 November 2026, Dubai World Trade Centre. Construction and urban development.
• GITEX Global, 7 to 11 December 2026, Dubai Exhibition Centre at Expo City.
• Intersec, 12 to 14 January 2027, Dubai. Security, safety and fire protection.
• WHX Dubai, 25 to 28 January 2027, across Dubai Exhibition Centre and Dubai World Trade Centre.
• Gulfood, 15 to 19 March 2027, Dubai World Trade Centre and Dubai Exhibition Centre.
• INDEX Dubai, 1 to 3 June 2027, Dubai World Trade Centre.

Two of these now run across two sites. That is a staffing problem before it is anything else, and the one exhibitors most often miss.

The UK: ten floors, heavily clustered in September

• PLASA Show, 6 to 8 September 2026, Olympia London. Entertainment technology.
• London Packaging Week, 16 to 17 September 2026, Halls S2 and S3, ExCeL London.
• Restaurant & Takeaway Innovation Expo, 17 to 18 September 2026, ExCeL London.
• Big Data LDN, 23 to 24 September 2026, Olympia London.
• eCommerce Expo, 23 to 24 September 2026, ExCeL London.
• DTX London, 14 to 15 October 2026, ExCeL London.
• WTM London, 3 to 5 November 2026, ExCeL London.
• The Business Show London, 11 to 12 November 2026, ExCeL London.
• Speciality & Fine Food Fair, 5 to 7 April 2027, ExCeL London.
• DTX Manchester, 28 to 29 April 2027, part of Manchester Tech Week.

Note the collisions. Big Data LDN and eCommerce Expo run on identical dates at opposite ends of London. London Packaging Week and Restaurant & Takeaway Innovation Expo overlap on 17 September in the same venue. If your buyer could attend either, you are splitting your own audience.

Choosing two or three: a scoring method

Most exhibitors pick shows by habit and by whoever called them first. Score them instead. Four inputs, each out of five, multiplied rather than added so that a zero anywhere kills the entry.

1. Buyer density. What share of the hall can actually sign or influence a purchase in your category? Not attendance. Attendance is a vanity input.
2. Cycle fit. Does the show land far enough before your buyer's budget cycle for a lead to convert inside the year?
3. Cost to serve. Stand, build, travel, accommodation, staff days, freight.
4. Coverage feasibility. Can you physically work the hall you are paying to be in?

A worked example. You sell industrial automation and are weighing Saudi Industrial Expo against Big 5 Global. Saudi Industrial Expo scores 4 on density, 4 on cycle fit, 4 on cost because it is three days in one hall, and 4 on feasibility: 256. Big 5 Global scores 3 on density because construction buyers dominate, 3 on cycle fit, 2 on cost because four days at Dubai World Trade Centre in November is peak-rate everything, and 2 on feasibility because the hall is vast: 36. That gap is invisible if you compare headline attendance instead.

Run the arithmetic across your shortlist and it usually collapses to two or three. Spreading a fixed budget across six floors buys presence at all of them and coverage at none. For the geography question underneath this one, see our comparison of exhibiting in Riyadh versus Dubai.

What the calendar does not tell you

A date and a hall number are the easy part. The part that decides your return is whether anyone works the floor beyond your own stand.

Take the Riyadh Front cluster at the end of August. Three co-located shows share one venue across identical dates, and a stand in Hall 1 puts you in front of a fraction of the people in the building. The same applies to the September collision in London and the two-venue Dubai shows. Our guide to the shows at Riyadh Front sets out how the halls connect, and the LEAP exhibitor guide covers what to sort before build-up at Malham.

Before you commit, agree the definition of a qualified lead with whoever chases them in November. Four hundred scanned badges and eleven real conversations is not a working show, whatever the scanner says. Our note on measuring trade show ROI has the arithmetic finance teams accept.

Which of these shows is worth your budget?

Should I exhibit at every show my competitors attend?

No. Competitor presence tells you where a category has historically been sold, not where your buyer is this cycle. Two rivals booking a hall is not evidence. Score the show on buyer density and cycle fit for your own product, then decide. Attending purely to be seen alongside competitors is the most expensive form of reassurance available.

How far ahead should I book stand space?

For the larger Gulf shows, twelve months is normal and better positions go earlier. For the UK shows here, six to nine months usually works. The harder constraint is not space but staffing and accommodation, both of which price sharply upward inside ninety days, particularly around Riyadh in autumn.

What if the organiser has not published next edition dates yet?

Do not guess, and do not copy from a listings site. Some editions here are confirmed years ahead; others are announced late. Where an organiser has published nothing, treat the slot as provisional, hold the budget, and check their site monthly rather than pencilling in last year's week.

Do co-located shows count as one event or two?

Commercially, two. LEAP and DeepFest, or Hotel & Hospitality Expo and INDEX Saudi Arabia, share a venue and a badge but hold different buyers walking different routes. One stand does not cover both. Decide which audience you are there for, then staff the halls that audience walks.

How Event BDR fits

Choosing the right two or three shows is half the problem. Working them is the other half, and it is where most exhibitor budgets quietly fail. Event BDR places vetted, trained BDR reps on exhibition floors across the UAE and Saudi Arabia, so you qualify leads across the whole hall rather than only the people who walk past your stand. You pick specific reps for specific event days, and can add unpaid backups billed only if a no-show forces you to activate them. Leads and meetings arrive as a real-time feed with a daily recap, so you know on day one whether the floor is working. Browse the shows we currently cover.