Baku exhibitions 2026 and 2027: the exhibition and congress calendar for delegation planners

Birtour is a Baku-based DMC that builds delegation hotels, transfers and hospitality around the shows on this page, so we keep our own dated calendar rather than trusting third-party listings. Below are 18 exhibitions with published 2026 dates, eight published 2027 dates, the shows that have not published yet, and the overlap that matters most: Formula 1 ends on 26 September 2026 and ADEX opens four days later. ADEX's last edition drew 9,304 visitors and 270 exhibitors.

Why a dated calendar is worth more than a seasonal one

The third-party calendars that rank for "Baku exhibitions 2026" list names and months. They do not say which edition a show is on, who organises it, which shows share the halls, or which have not published a date and are listed on the strength of last year. A planner needs the difference between "confirmed on the organiser's calendar" and "probably October", because a hotel block placed on the wrong assumption costs real money when a Grand Prix and a defence show share one fortnight.

This page is a calendar of dated events. The climate and shoulder-season argument is on when to bring a group to Azerbaijan, and the freight, customs and stand how-to is on exhibiting at Baku Expo Center. Here you get dates, editions, venues, organisers and a list of what nobody has published yet.

Two organiser facts frame everything below. Iteca Caspian, founded in 2000 and running more than 20 specialised shows a year by its own account, and Caspian Event Organisers (CEO), established in 2014, share one Baku address and both state UFI, ICCA and ASTA membership on their own sites; per the UFI global membership list read on 25 August 2026, they are the only two Azerbaijani UFI members. Almost every show in the tables is theirs, and the CEO calendar at exhibitions.ceo.az is what we read.

Which exhibitions run at Baku Expo Center in 2026, and who organises them?

Eighteen exhibitions carry published 2026 dates, all at Baku Expo Center except the Baku Energy Forum at Baku Convention Center. Eight have already run. Autumn is four blocks: ADEX and Securex at the turn of September, Caspian Construction Week in mid-October, Medinex and Beauty at the end of October, and the first LifeX in December.

Dates are from the CEO exhibition-map article of 22 January 2026, the CEO calendar and the stand-builder calendar at bakuexpo.az, read on 25 August 2026. Where a third-party listing disagreed with the organiser (Caspian Power, shown as 3 to 5 June on one page), we printed the organiser's date.

Three things in that table decide delegation logistics. First, 14 to 16 October is five shows in one venue, so a construction delegation competes with four other sectors for the same hotels, coaches and restaurant covers. Second, ADEX is biennial and heavy: its 2024 edition, as the organiser publishes on adex.az, drew 270 exhibiting companies, 14 national pavilions, 9,304 visitors and 53 international military delegations on 20,023 square metres. Third, LifeX is a first edition, so nobody, including us, can tell you what its hotel demand will look like.

On the official supplier chain: ADEX 2026 names Greenwich Travel Club as official tour operator with a free hotel-to-Expo shuttle, as the ADEX site states, and the same company holds the Caspian Oil and Gas 2027 appointment; the ADEX stand-builder partner is AzExpoMontage LLC and cargo and on-site handling sit with Caspian Freight Services LLC, per the ADEX partner pages. What we do sits around that chain: delegation hotels outside the organiser's block, private transfers, hospitality suites, client dinners and the incentive extension. The split is on the exhibitor logistics page.

What are the confirmed 2027 dates, and which shows have not published yet?

Eight 2027 dates are published, all on the CEO 2027 calendar page read on 25 August 2026, and all in the first half of the year: Baku Water Week in April, Caspian Agro and InterFood on 19 to 22 May, and Baku Energy Week in the first week of June with three co-located shows. Autumn 2027 has no dates yet.

The following shows have no published date as of 25 August 2026. We list them so nobody books against a guess, and we move each into the dated tables the quarter it publishes.

Which weeks in 2026 and 2027 will hotels be full because two events overlap?

Three windows, one of them the worst hotel fortnight of the Baku year. In 2026: 24 September to 2 October (Formula 1 into ADEX) and 1 to 5 June (Baku Energy Week, the forum and World Environment Day). In 2027: 9 to 22 May, where SportAccord and the Caspian Agro and InterFood pair sit six days apart.

The Formula 1 Azerbaijan Grand Prix in 2026 runs Thursday 24 to Saturday 26 September, with the race on the Saturday, and ADEX opens on Wednesday 30 September: four days between the two peaks. Four days reads like a gap on paper. In our experience it is not one in practice: F1 blocks do not release cleanly on the Sunday, defence delegations arrive early for pre-show meetings, and both audiences want the same 5-star Caspian-front hotels. One visa detail: a presidential order reported by APA on 25 August 2026 lets anyone holding F1 accreditation or a race ticket obtain a visa on arrival between 25 August and 30 September 2026, so that year's F1 crowd is less visa-constrained and demand arrives sooner.

The June window is a sector squeeze rather than a city-wide one. Caspian Oil and Gas, Caspian Power and TransLogistica run 1 to 3 June 2026 at the Expo Center, the Baku Energy Forum takes the Convention Center on 1 and 2 June, and Report.az's list of 3 January 2026 has Azerbaijan hosting World Environment Day on 5 June. In 2027 the week is 2 to 4 June.

The May 2027 window is new. SportAccord, 9 to 13 May 2027 at Baku Convention Center, expects over 1,700 leaders from more than 120 international federations per its own convention page, with the opening ceremony at Heydar Aliyev Center. Caspian Agro and InterFood open on 19 May. Six days is enough for the hotels to turn, and in our experience not enough for rates to fall back, and federation delegations tend to extend on both ends.

The room-rate reality behind those rules is our own pricing sheet, not a hotel survey: on the 100-pax conference cost page we quote 5-star Caspian-front rooms at Four Seasons or Fairmont at $260 to $390 per person per night twin-share and 4-star city-centre rooms at $160 to $240 during conference weeks. In the overlap windows above, the top of that band is where negotiation starts. Our rule for corporate groups with no show to attend is to keep them out of these windows entirely; the hotels are the same ones, and the rates do not care what the group is for.

Which congresses and sport events land in Baku in 2026 and 2027?

Four dated fixtures matter here: the IsDB Group annual meetings on 16 to 19 June 2026, the World Judo Championships on 4 to 11 October 2026, SportAccord on 9 to 13 May 2027 and the 43rd Rhythmic Gymnastics World Championships on 15 to 19 September 2027. One large one has already happened: WUF13 on 17 to 22 May 2026.

WUF13, the UN-Habitat World Urban Forum, ran at Baku Olympic Stadium on 17 to 22 May 2026 and the host site reports over 57,000 participants from 176 countries. It is the most recent proof of what the city absorbs at scale, and it did so without a new permanent venue.

The IsDB Group's 51st annual meetings, 16 to 19 June 2026, appear on the Report.az list of international events for 2026 published on 3 January 2026; the venue is not stated there and we do not guess it. The World Judo Championships, 4 to 11 October 2026, sit on the same list, and the gap between ADEX closing on 2 October and judo opening on 4 October is two days.

SportAccord's World Sport and Business Summit is confirmed for 9 to 13 May 2027, hub at Baku Convention Center and opening ceremony at Heydar Aliyev Center, as the SportAccord convention page states. The 43rd FIG Rhythmic Gymnastics World Championships were confirmed for Baku on 15 to 19 September 2027 after the flag handover in Frankfurt, as Azernews reported on 16 August 2026. That is the same month as the Grand Prix, and no 2027 F1 date is published as of this writing, so we do not yet know whether September 2027 becomes a triple week.

One correction. The 82nd session of UN ESCAP was announced for Baku in 2025 and that announcement still circulates. UN WebTV lists the 82nd session as held on 20 to 24 April 2026 at the UN Conference Centre in Bangkok, so it does not appear here as a Baku event.

For the venue side of a congress, from the 3,500-seat main hall at Baku Convention Center to what a professional congress organiser does versus what we do, see congress and conference organiser support in Baku.

Is BIHE the same show as Medinex?

Yes. The Azerbaijan International Healthcare Exhibition ran for decades as BIHE, and bihe.az now redirects to medinex.az, a redirect we observed on 25 August 2026. The 28th edition runs as Medinex on 29 to 31 October 2026 at Baku Expo Center, organised by Caspian Event Organisers, whose about page lists Medinex among its brands.

The consequence is budgetary. A company that has attended BIHE for years has the line in its 2026 plan under the old name, and the old domain now lands on medinex.az. The edition count carries over. Beauty Azerbaijan shares the same three days in the same venue, which is why 29 to 31 October is one block in the overlap table.

What is planned for the Expo Center site, and does it change 2027?

Nothing that changes a 2027 booking. On 21 August 2026 Dezeen reported that Zaha Hadid Architects had unveiled a Baku Expo City masterplan around Baku Expo Center, including an extension and a congress hall; no capacity or opening date was published. Until an organiser puts a dated show into a new hall, every event here runs in the three existing pavilions.

How far ahead should we hold rooms around ADEX, Baku Energy Week or SportAccord?

For a delegation of 20 to 60 we place a realistic block on a 30-day synchronised hold from the quote rather than a speculative one the hotel will release anyway, and for the F1-to-ADEX fortnight we want the block signed before the summer. In our experience hotels stop honouring soft holds in that window.

We have delivered 240-plus corporate groups since 2019, and the rule in an overlap week is always the same: a contracted block, not a relationship with a sales manager. Our reply within one hour (GMT+4) and costed proposal within 72 hours apply to a calendar request like any other, so "ADEX 2026, 24 pax, arriving 28 September" gets a named-hotel proposal with an alternative inside three days. What we cannot do is conjure rooms that the promoter's partners already hold.

For Bakutel 2026 and the 2027 autumn shows we will not place a block against a guess; we would rather say the date is unpublished than take a deposit on a fortnight the organiser may move. When the CEO calendar publishes, the show moves into the dated table and the changelog says so.

What we would not recommend, and what we do not claim

We would not recommend booking a delegation against a third-party calendar date for any show in the unpublished table. Bakutel in particular appears on third-party listings without a published organiser date, and rooms contracted for a fortnight the organiser has not confirmed end in a cancellation fee.

We would not recommend a first-time exhibitor delegation in the F1-to-ADEX window without a contracted room block. If it is not signed by early summer, move the arrival to 29 September and accept that pre-show meetings happen on the day.

We do not claim to be an official partner, contractor or tour operator of any show here. Greenwich Travel Club holds the official tour-operator appointment on ADEX 2026 and Caspian Oil and Gas 2027, AzExpoMontage builds stands on ADEX 2026 and Caspian Freight Services handles freight, all per the organisers' own pages; we are not on those lists. We do not build stands or clear customs ourselves.

We do not claim that any date here is more current than 25 August 2026. Organisers move dates, and the CEO calendar is the source of record, not this page. We refresh this calendar quarterly with a dated changelog entry; the next refresh is scheduled for late November 2026.

We do not publish exhibitor or visitor counts for shows whose organisers have not. ADEX 2024 figures appear because adex.az prints them; for Baku Energy Week, AITF 2026 and Caspian Agro 2026 we found no post-show report, so there are no numbers here.

For a delegation, hospitality suite or client programme built around one of the dated shows above, the freight, customs, hotel and side-event detail is on exhibiting at Baku Expo Center; for the wider city read across venues, access and seasons, see the Baku MICE destination guide.