IAC 2026 in Antalya: Venue, Rules, Deadlines and Stand Planning for Exhibitors

A Congress First, With an Exhibition Attached

The International Astronautical Congress is not a trade fair, and planning a stand for it as if it were one is the most common mistake we see companies make. IAC is the annual meeting of the world's space community, run by the International Astronautical Federation since 1950. The technical program carries the week: plenaries, keynotes, thousands of paper presentations. The exhibition runs alongside it, and that order shapes how the floor behaves.

In 2026 the congress comes to Türkiye for the first time in its history. The Turkish Space Agency (TUA) hosts the 77th edition, with the SAHA Istanbul Defence, Aviation and Space Cluster as co-host, under the theme "The World Needs More Space". Delegations here mean space agencies and government programs, not badge scanners and impulse buyers. If your company sells into the space sector, this audience is hard to assemble anywhere else.

The Venue: NEST Convention Center in Belek

IAC 2026 runs from Monday 5 to Friday 9 October 2026 at the NEST Convention Center in Belek, on the coast east of Antalya. NEST is one of the largest conference venues in Türkiye, built for up to 20,000 participants, and it sits inside Belek's five star hotel belt, with thousands of hotel rooms within walking distance. The two exhibition halls connect through a balcony level that also houses the venue's meeting rooms, and the floor plan is published at iac2026.org. Accommodation is booked through the congress registration system, managed by Serenas Group as the official PCO. Book early; October is still high season on this coast.

Two access facts are worth writing down. The venue is about 32 kilometers from Antalya Airport and 45 kilometers from the city center, and there is no direct public transport to the Belek area: plan on shuttles or taxis, with airport transfers bookable through the registration system. Visa requirements depend on citizenship; Türkiye runs an e-visa system at evisa.gov.tr, and participation confirmation works as the invitation letter.

The exhibition floor opens at 12:30 on the Monday and runs 10:00 to 18:00 through the core days, closing at 16:30 on Friday. That Friday also brings a Public Day in the late morning: for a few hours your stand meets students and families rather than program managers, and some exhibitors love that while others send the interns.

The Numbers Behind Recent Editions

IAC draws more than 6,000 participants in a normal year, and recent editions have run well past normal. Milan 2024 closed as the largest IAC ever held: more than 11,200 delegates from 120 countries, with a record 530+ exhibitors. Sydney 2025 brought 7,500+ delegates from 99 countries and over 450 exhibitors on 19,000 square meters of exhibition floor. Antalya will write its own numbers, but Türkiye's aerospace ecosystem is treating this edition as a home fixture, and that usually shows up in how fast exhibition space moves.

Exhibition space is handled through the congress's Sponsorship & Exhibition program; the floor plan is on the official website and the exhibition team is reachable at [email protected]. National pavilions are a fixture of IAC: Germany alone is bringing 21 companies under its own pavilion in Antalya. Agencies take the anchor plots, and the floor fills in around them, from launch providers down to component suppliers.

What a Congress Asks of a Stand

A trade fair stand is built to stop traffic. A congress stand is built to hold meetings. The difference sounds small and changes the whole brief.

Delegates move on a session schedule, so the conversations that justify your budget are booked in advance and need somewhere to happen: a closed meeting room, sometimes two, with acoustics that let people talk quietly and coffee that keeps coming all day. Delegation visits and signing ceremonies are normal at IAC, which means a backdrop that photographs well and a front desk able to receive a minister and a masters student in the same hour. For most space companies the product on display is a scale model and a screen anyway; open seating earns its space better than oversized plinths.

Restraint also reads differently in this crowd. The agencies you want to look comfortable next to build clean, institutional architecture, and a stand shouting like a consumer fair booth works against you here. Put the budget into meeting space and AV rather than height. In Antalya that instinct is backed by the rulebook, because the Exhibition Manual sets numbers that reward exactly this kind of design.

Hall 1 or Hall 2: Heights, Loads and Rigging

NEST has two exhibition halls and they are not interchangeable. Hall 1 is the permanent hall with a 10 meter ceiling. Standard stands build up to 4.00 meters, dropping to 3.80 meters against the perimeter walls. Two-level stands are permitted here up to 5.50 meters total height, with a structural engineer's certification required before design approval and the upper floor limited to half of the contracted area, under a separate contract. The floor carries a 400 kg/m2 live load, and ceiling rigging is available at up to 200 kg per point, with banners and flags counted as rigging, executed only by the officially appointed rigging contractor, and every suspended element carrying a secondary safety wire.

Hall 2 is a steel framed hall with a pitched roof, and the numbers change character: 3.66 meters of clear build height on most plots, 2.60 meters next to the walls, a hard 300 kg/m2 floor limit, no rigging and no two-level stands. None of this hurts if the design starts from the numbers. It hurts when a concept drawn for Hall 1 lands on a Hall 2 plot. If your stand depends on height or heavy exhibits, raise it with the exhibition team before space allocation, not during build-up.

Rules in the Manual That Will Edit Your Design

The IAC 2026 Exhibition Manual reads like any venue rulebook until the details start deciding your layout. These are the ones we flag for clients first:

• Everything stays inside the contracted boundary. Nothing overhangs the aisle, ramps included.
• Any wall facing a neighboring stand gets a clean finished back in a compatible color, with no branding on that surface.
• Each open facade may be closed off by at most 40 percent; congress floors are meant to stay visually open.
• Accessibility is written as a hard requirement. Steps are prohibited on raised areas: access is by ramp, minimum 80 cm wide at a 1:12 gradient with protective edging, on a non-slip surface. Raised platforms need visual contrast with the hall floor, and platform corners must be rounded rather than square.
• Narrated video on stand screens must run with subtitles or captions, and touchscreens are recommended between 38 and 122 cm height for wheelchair access.
• The sound limit is 50 decibels at the stand boundary, far below what trade fairs tolerate. Plan demos and stand receptions for that reality.
• No welding, cutting or painting inside the halls. Stands arrive prefabricated and get assembled, which quietly favors builders with their own production.
• Furniture is sourced through your contracted stand builder unless you are in a shell scheme package.
• Nothing attaches to the venue's walls, ceilings or pillars by any means, and flags or banners fly only in pre-approved locations.
• Special content needs paperwork: alcohol service, drones, lasers, compressed gases and export-controlled hardware all require prior written approval, with ITAR, EAR and Turkish export rules sitting on the exhibitor's side of the table.

Two smaller ones that catch people out: the IAF, IAC, TUA and SAHA names and logos cannot appear in your stand graphics without written approval, and any event you host at the stand needs advance sign-off so it does not clash with the plenary programme.

The Calendar Is Front-Loaded: Key Deadlines

Paperwork runs through the IAC 2026 Exhibition Portal, and the manual concentrates almost everything into one stretch of August. The dates that matter:

• 5 August 2026: stand design submission for approval (scaled drawings with front and side elevations), stand contractor details, a structural report for anything 4 meters or taller, insurance certificates, rigging requests and badge holder names. This is the date that decides how your October goes.
• 11 August: logo files in vector format for congress publications.
• 17 August: electrical and internet orders through the portal.
• Freight: GrupTrans is the official freight and customs agent, and coordination with them is mandatory. Recommended windows: shipments from North America and the Asia Pacific leave by early August, Central Asia by mid August, Europe and the Middle East by early September. Türkiye accepts ATA Carnets, so display goods enter duty free provided they leave again; the carnet is issued in your home country before shipment. We wrote a separate guide on shipping products to Turkish exhibitions.
• 21 September: final personnel and contractor lists with ID details. Names not on the approved list do not enter the venue, build-up crews included.
• 30 September: build-up begins, running 09:00 to 21:00 daily. Stands must be complete with aisles cleared by 4 October at 12:00.
• 9 October, 19:00: dismantling starts. The area is handed back empty by 11 October at 15:00, and the contract attaches hourly penalties to delays.

Behind those portal dates sits the production math. A custom stand wants design frozen and approved in early August anyway, engineering behind it, and the workshop cutting material through September. Our factory is in Istanbul, one truck day from the venue: no sea freight for the stand itself, no customs file, and a revision can still happen in the workshop the week before load-in.

Reading this after a deadline has passed? Talk to the exhibition team at [email protected] before assuming the worst, and get a contractor whose submission package is routine rather than a research project. Portal dates are sometimes survivable; production time is not. Be suspicious of anyone promising a palace in the final three weeks.

Where We Come Into the Picture

ExpoTurco is an Istanbul based stand design and build company, producing custom exhibition stands for over two decades and installing in Antalya as routinely as at home. One line in the Exhibition Manual matters more than any reference we could list: stand construction at IAC 2026 is overseen by SAHA EXPO Exhibition Services as exhibition organizer, and contractors must be accredited by SAHA EXPO before starting any work. We have built stands at SAHA EXPO in Istanbul, the defence and aerospace fair run by the same organization, and we hold accredited supplier status there. In an industry where vendors are vetted before they are trusted, that box is already ticked for us.

We will also be at IAC 2026 with a stand of our own, and our team is on site all five days. If you prefer judging a builder by something better than a portfolio PDF, come and look at ours up close; joinery tells the truth. And if the stand is still an open item on your IAC checklist, send your space details through our design request page and we will come back with a 3D concept and a clear quote: get a stand design for IAC 2026. Bring your floor plan to Antalya; we will bring the tape measure.

Common Questions About IAC 2026

When and where does IAC 2026 take place?

From 5 to 9 October 2026 at the NEST Convention Center in Belek, Antalya, Türkiye. It is the 77th International Astronautical Congress and the first one hosted in Türkiye.

How do I get exhibition space at IAC 2026?

Through the Sponsorship & Exhibition program on the official congress website; the exhibition team is reachable at [email protected]. Confirmed exhibitors manage design approvals, service orders and badges through the Exhibition Portal.

Is there an exhibitor manual for IAC 2026?

Yes. The official IAC 2026 Exhibition Manual is distributed to confirmed exhibitors through the Exhibition Portal, and it is binding: it sets the submission deadlines, hall height limits, accessibility requirements and safety rules summarized in this guide. Request the current version from the exhibition team and put it in your stand builder's hands the same day.

How tall can a stand be at IAC 2026?

In Hall 1, 4.00 meters for standard stands and 3.80 meters against perimeter walls, with approved two-level stands up to 5.50 meters. In Hall 2, 3.66 meters on most plots and 2.60 meters next to the walls, with no two-level stands and no rigging permitted.

How many exhibitor badges does a stand get?

Two exhibition badges for the first 9 square meters and one more for each additional 9, capped at ten per single booth. Exhibition badges cover the exhibition floor, the Opening Ceremony and the Welcome Reception, but not the technical and plenary sessions, which require delegate registration. Build-up crews work on separate contractor badges tied to the approved personnel list.

Who can build our stand at IAC 2026 in Antalya?

A contractor accredited by SAHA EXPO, the exhibition organizer; accreditation before starting work is a manual requirement, not a preference. ExpoTurco holds accredited supplier status from its SAHA EXPO projects, builds in its own Istanbul factory and exhibits at IAC 2026 with its own stand, so you can inspect our work on the floor before signing anything.