Four November days in Lisbon's Parque das Nações when tens of thousands of founders, investors and technology staff take over an arena and a city.
An event page tells you when it happens (with how sure we are of the date), why it matters, how the week around it feels, when to arrive and leave, where people stay, how access works, and which events come before and after it on the circuit.
Web Summit is the largest technology conference in Europe by attendance, staged across the MEO Arena and the adjoining Lisbon Exhibition & Congress Centre at Parque das Nações, the riverside district built for Expo 98. Its structure is a main stage in the arena, a dozen or more thematic stages in the exhibition halls, and a very large startup floor on which several thousand young companies exhibit in rotating daily shifts, so a founder gets one day of stand space rather than four.
The organiser has published attendance around 70,000 since 2018, up from 53,056 in 2016, the first Lisbon edition. Unusually, the organiser also runs the evenings: Night Summit takes over bars across central Lisbon on each night of the conference, with attendance included in the pass, which is why the event is as visible in Cais do Sodré and Bairro Alto as it is at the arena.
01Why it matters
Web Summit is the annual point of contact between European early-stage founders and international capital, and it is large enough that the fundraising conversations it starts show up in the following year's seed and Series A rounds. It also matters to Lisbon: the conference has been a substantial part of the city's transformation into a European technology base.
02The week around it
Lisbon is fully booked and the effect reaches well beyond the conference site.
03When to arrive
Arrive Sunday. The opening ceremony is Monday evening, Tuesday is the first full day and Wednesday the busiest.
04Where to stay
Two strategies. Parque das Nações puts you minutes from the venue and next to the airport, in a modern riverside district with conference hotels and very little atmosphere.
05Access and hospitality
Web Summit is a commercial conference with tickets sold openly online in tiers, alongside separate application-based tracks for startups, investors and press. Prices rise as the event approaches and no fixed public tariff is published, so none is quoted here.
06Where the social activity happens
The organiser's evening programme puts the conference into the bars of Cais do Sodré, Pink Street, Bairro Alto and Santos every night, and those districts are effectively given over to it.
07Getting there
08Practicalities
09History
The conference began in Dublin in 2009, founded by Paddy Cosgrave, and reached 22,000 attendees from 109 countries by 2014.
10Who is there
Early and growth-stage founders and their teams; venture and corporate venture investors; large-technology company staff and recruiters; corporate innovation and marketing departments; policymakers and regulators, particularly on European technology rules; academics; and one of the largest press contingents at any European business event.
The circuit continues
Dates on record
| Edition | Dates | Status |
|---|---|---|
| 2027 | ExpectedNot announced. Every Lisbon edition has run Monday to Thursday in the second week of November, moving back one day each year with the calendar; the estimate applies that pattern to 2027. | |
| 2026 | ConfirmedPublished by the organiser as 9-12 November 2026 in Lisbon, following the same Monday-to-Thursday slot used in 2024 (11-14 November) and 2025 (10-13 November). |
Related events
Sources
- Web Summit, Web Summit official accessed 6 September 2026
- Web Summit, Wikipedia encyclopedia accessed 6 September 2026