LEAP 2027: The Exhibitor’s Guide to Riyadh (12 to 15 April)

LEAP 2027 runs from 12 to 15 April 2027 at RECC Malham in Riyadh, alongside DeepFest, the region’s largest AI event. LEAP has grown into one of the biggest technology events in the world, drawing north of 200,000 attendees and more than 1,800 global tech brands, and it is the principal commercial gateway to Saudi Arabia’s technology market.

If you’re planning to exhibit, one thing matters before anything else. Building a stand in Saudi Arabia is not the same as building one in the UAE. Contractors working in the Kingdom must be licensed and registered locally, and shipping a stand across the border from Dubai is rarely the right answer. That one fact shapes your timeline and your contractor choice more than any design decision you’ll make.

LEAP 2027 at a glance

• Dates: 12 to 15 April 2027 (four days)
• Venue: RECC Malham, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
• Co-organised by: Tahaluf, a partnership involving Informa, SAFCSP and the Saudi Ministry of Communications and Information Technology
• Co-located with: DeepFest, the region’s AI event, now in its fourth edition
• Scale: 201,000+ attendance, 1,800+ global tech brands, 600+ startups, 1,900+ investors, 1,000+ speakers
• Tracks: 12 industry tracks including AI, Cyber, Cloud and SaaS, Gov Tech, Space Tech, Health Tech, Fintech, Smart Cities and Gaming
• Best for: Technology, AI, cloud, cybersecurity, govtech and deep tech firms entering or scaling in Saudi Arabia

When and where is LEAP 2027?

LEAP 2027 takes place 12 to 15 April 2027 at the Riyadh Exhibition and Convention Centre in Malham, north of the city. It is co-organised by Tahaluf, a venture bringing together Informa, the Saudi Federation for Cybersecurity, Programming and Drones, and the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology. That government involvement isn’t decoration. It explains the calibre of buyer the show attracts.

DeepFest runs alongside LEAP as the region’s AI event, which means one trip covers both the general technology market and the AI ecosystem specifically. For most exhibitors that’s the argument for attending. Your AI proposition and your enterprise proposition reach the same floor.

Note that LEAP has moved around the calendar in recent years, and some third-party listings still show older dates or a February slot. The organiser lists 12 to 15 April 2027. Confirm against the official site before you book travel or freight.

Who exhibits and who attends LEAP?

LEAP is where the Saudi technology market convenes, and the numbers reflect that: over 201,000 attendance, more than 1,800 global tech brands, 600+ startups, 1,900+ investors and 1,000+ speakers across the programme.

The exhibitor list reads like a roll call of global technology. Recent editions have featured Adobe, AWS, Google Cloud, Oracle, Cisco, IBM, Dell, Meta, Nokia, Ericsson, Lenovo, Accenture, Salesforce, ServiceNow, Snowflake, Fortinet and Deloitte, alongside Saudi champions including STC, Aramco, SDAIA, HUMAIN, Elm, Tahakom and Tamkeen Technologies.

What separates LEAP from a conventional tech trade show is the government layer. Saudi ministries participate directly as sponsors and exhibitors, including the Ministry of Interior, Ministry of National Guard, Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Sports, Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development. The Minister of Communications and Information Technology, H.E. Abdullah Alswaha, speaks at the event, and recent speaker line-ups have included Lisa Su of AMD, Chuck Robbins of Cisco and Shantanu Narayen of Adobe.

For a technology supplier, that means the show is not only a commercial event but a market-entry platform. Saudi Vision 2030 is driving public investment into digital infrastructure, AI and localisation, and procurement decisions at this show involve government entities as often as private buyers. A stand that supports formal, scheduled meetings matters more here than one built purely to attract passing traffic.

Why is building a stand in Saudi Arabia different?

This is the section that matters most if you have only exhibited in the UAE or Europe, and it’s where international exhibitors get caught out.

Contractors must be licensed and registered in the Kingdom. Registration with the Saudi Contractors Authority is mandatory for contractors working in Saudi Arabia, including foreign entities, under the Contractors’ Classification Law. Beyond that, companies operating in the Kingdom also register with the Ministry of Investment for a business licence, the Ministry of Commerce for a Commercial Registration number, the General Organisation for Social Insurance for employee cover, and the Zakat, Tax and Customs Authority for tax compliance, with associated registration on government portals. Operating without the required licensing is illegal and exposes the contractor, and by extension your project, to fines and shutdown.

So your UAE or European stand builder can’t just drive a truck to Riyadh and build. They need either a licensed Saudi entity or a vetted local partner. Ask any prospective contractor directly how they are set up to work in the Kingdom, and ask for documentation rather than assurance.

Local fabrication beats shipping. Because of licensing, labour rules and customs procedures on temporary imports, building in Saudi Arabia with local materials and labour is faster and lower risk than freighting a completed stand from the UAE. Industry practice in Riyadh favours in-house fabrication in local workshops for exactly this reason. Where a stand must be imported, temporary import procedures need starting well ahead of build-up, because customs delays put the whole presence at risk rather than one element of it.

Venue approvals follow their own process. RECC and other Riyadh venues apply their own requirements on stand height, structural stability and fire safety, with technical drawings, fire safety compliance documentation and contractor badges submitted for approval in advance, and civil defence involvement on site. As with every venue, accreditation and approval at one does not transfer to another.

Cultural and operational norms apply. Content shown on stand, staff conduct and attire, and on-site protocol carry expectations in the Kingdom that differ from Dubai or Europe. A contractor who works in Saudi will raise these before they become an issue. One who doesn’t leaves you to find out on site.

How early should you start?

For a four-day show opening on 12 April 2027, work backwards and the runway is shorter than it looks, because the Saudi-specific steps sit on top of the normal build timeline rather than inside it.

• Now to December 2026: book floor space and confirm your position. Large stands and prime locations commit first.
• December 2026 to January 2027: appoint your contractor. This is the point to verify Saudi licensing and local fabrication capability, not later.
• January to February 2027: design development and sign-off, with venue technical submissions prepared in parallel.
• February to March 2027: fabrication, venue approvals, fire safety documentation, contractor badging.
• Late March to April 2027: installation and build-up against the venue’s move-in schedule.

Two things compress this timeline. Venue approval in the Kingdom isn’t a formality. Treat it as a dependency with its own lead time. And if the stand has to be imported rather than built locally, add the customs process on top of all of it.

The single most common failure is appointing a contractor late and discovering they are not licensed to build in Saudi Arabia. That isn’t a problem money solves quickly.

What does a stand need to do at LEAP?

LEAP is a technology show with a government audience, which sets a specific brief.

Demonstration over display. Buyers at LEAP want to see whether your technology works. They aren’t there to read about it. Open demo areas where visitors can interact with the product outperform closed display walls, and at a show where your neighbours are Google Cloud and AWS, a static stand says you have nothing to show.

Meeting capacity for scheduled conversations. With ministries and state-backed entities on the floor, a meaningful share of valuable conversations are arranged in advance and need somewhere appropriate to happen. Allocate private or semi-private meeting space rather than maximising open frontage.

Legibility in a very large hall. With 1,800+ brands present, visibility from distance does real work. Vertical presence, clear hierarchy and fewer words beat dense messaging.

Arabic and English. A bilingual stand signals seriousness about the market. So does having Arabic-speaking staff on the stand, rather than making visitors accommodate you.

Follow-up planned in advance. Four days at this scale generates volume, and volume without a capture and qualification method becomes a spreadsheet nobody actions. Decide before the show how you will separate buyer, partner, investor and government conversations at the point of contact.

Planning a LEAP stand with Orchestra

Orchestra Media has delivered more than 1,200 international exhibition projects across over 100 countries in 20 years, specialising in defence, aerospace and technology, for clients including Boeing, Rolls Royce, Pratt & Whitney, SAAB, Jetex and Saudi Aramco. We build from 9 square metres to 1,500+ square metres, including island stands, peninsula configurations and national pavilions.

Saudi Arabia is a market we work in, not one we visit. Our team has built at the World Defence Show in Riyadh, and our client base includes Saudi Aramco. With offices across five continents, the model consolidates booth design and construction , space booking and extra services covering booth personnel, on-site operations and content under a single contract, which removes the coordination gaps that multiply when a project crosses borders and regulatory regimes. You can see our work in our success stories .

If LEAP is one stop on a wider calendar, the Global Alliance programme holds one design language and one point of accountability across every market, and our guides to GITEX 2026 and IDEX 2027 cover the other major technology and defence shows in the region. For government trade bodies bringing a delegation, our national pavilion organiser guide covers multi-tenant pavilion planning and the tender process.

Plan your LEAP 2027 stand

Most of what goes wrong at LEAP goes wrong in December, not April. A contractor appointed late, without the licensing to build in the Kingdom, is the failure we see most, and it’s the one that costs the most to unpick.

If you’re exhibiting at LEAP 2027, book a free consultation and we’ll map your stand, your floor position and your build timeline in one conversation.