The second International MICE Summit (IMS), hosted by the Saudi Conventions & Exhibitions General Authority (SCEGA), brought together about 3,000 event industry professionals in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on the Wednesday and Thursday of the U.S. Thanksgiving week.
IMS’s core theme was public-private collaboration, with content leaning towards the exhibition side of the industry. Just as last year, trade show organizers dominated the speaker list. C-level leaders shared their enthusiasm for doing business in Saudi and praised the hosts.
dmg events CEO Geoff Dickinson framed Saudi Arabia as “the best canvas to paint on,” and praised the country’s “many extraordinary, imaginative projects.”
Saudi leadership sees business events, especially trade shows, as core to its Vision 2030. Most sessions were short panel conversations featuring industry experts. Sustainability and gender equality were among the more challenging topics addressed in dedicated sessions, highlighting some of the region’s profound cultural shifts.
Leveraging the Power of Events
SCEGA chairman Fahd Al-Rasheed opened IMS with a speech referring to events as a “multiplier effect.” He called events an “enabler that hosts conversations that shape policies that ultimately scale industries.”
He highlighted the country’s accomplishments in streamlining regulations, expanding infrastructure, training 90,000 Saudi nationals, and the 17,000 event companies in the country.
Al-Rasheed sought to counter the notion that Saudi Arabia is taking event business from others. “Saudi is not interested in competing for events,” he said. “It is focused on contributing to solutions; its focus is solving real problems.”
The Elephant in the Room: Limited Convention Space
In advance of IMS, SCEGA reported a 32% year‑over‑year increase in the Kingdom’s exhibition capacity. In total, the country has 923 venues offering a combined 3.2 million square feet of event and exhibition space, a 320% increase since 2018.
Yet, organizers opening shows in Riyadh, the capital and financial hub, are limited by the capacity of the city’s largest venues.
dmg events took a drastic measure to accommodate the rapid growth of one of its larger shows, Big 5 Construction. It split the show into two separate editions at different times of the year, each focused on a set of subsectors.
Larger exhibitions have two venue options: the 750,000-square-foot Riyadh Front Exhibition & Conference Center (RFECC) located close to the international airport and the similarly sized Riyadh Exhibition & Convention Center – Malham, almost an hour north of the city. The latter is preferred by larger shows — including Tahaluf’s tech megashow Leap — as its capacity can be expanded using temporary structures.
With more than 30 shows announced between IMS’s two editions, the calendars of Riyadh’s convention centers are full. However, according to RFECC CEO Majed Aljuaid, there is still limited space available.
Gerd Weber, partner at exhibition consultancy jwc, expressed concerns about the city’s limited capacity. While moderating a venue panel he asked, “What will the next years look like if we do not see a major venue development from 2026 to 2030?”
Aljuaid shared plans to launch venues in Medinah and internationally. For Riyadh, he promised the company is working on another venue but couldn’t announce it before securing a license.
Office Openings and Show Announcements
A dedicated 20-minute session at IMS provided the opportunity for an exchange of pleasantries between exhibition organizers and SCEGA leadership. Al-Rasheed was joined by Acting CEO Hatim Alkahily on stage for photo opportunities. Among the new show announcements, many had already been formally launched.
RX Global, Messe Frankfurt, Clarion, Comexposium, Messe München, dmg events, Koelnmesse, MCH Group, China International Beauty Expo/GL events, Terrapinn, Honegger Group, and Fiera Milano used stage time to share new show announcements.
All these new shows are locally adapted versions of successful exhibitions — known as geocloning. Organizers mostly framed this approach as bringing their intellectual property to Saudi.
Exhibition organizers including RX Global, Messe Frankfurt, Koelnmesse, and MCH Group announced opening regional offices in Saudi Arabia. With the Regional Headquarters (RHQ) program now being enforced, international companies without offices in the Kingdom have limited access to government procurements. This was a predictable development, as government contracts are essential to the public-private partnerships that make many of the new shows possible.
Venue management company OVG also announced a Riyadh office to complement its joint venture with Abu Dhabi-based Ethara. It manages the Zayed Sports City and works on the Diriyah Gate Arena project with the Saudi government.
Richard Attias & Associates, the company that produced IMS, announced regional offices in Riyadh as well as a 2026 listing in the Saudi Exchange.
