ILPA Forum EMEA

ILPA Forum EMEA is the European convening of the Institutional Limited Partners Association, held in London. It is built around the LP membership: limited partners get programming that general partners cannot enter, and GP admission is capped at 35 firms chosen by LP ranking rather than by open registration. The most recent edition ran 27-29 April 2026 at the Waldorf Hilton London, and the next is scheduled for 19–21 April 2027.

The next ILPA Forum EMEA runs 19–21 April 2027 in London, according to the official ILPA event page. The 2027 venue had not been confirmed as of 26 October 2026, and no GP application window, registration terms or pricing for 2027 had been published as of that date. Earlier editions fell in late April in London.

Same event, renamed. Through the 2025 edition it ran as ILPA Summit Europe. ILPA renamed it ILPA Forum EMEA for 2026 and changed the format at the same time: expanded LP-only content, an LP-driven Meetings on Demand scheduling system replacing the prior mutual-ranking algorithm, and GP admission decided by LP ranking. Both URL families still resolve on ilpa.org, so the legacy pages appear to be retained rather than redirected.

Three tracks, on unequal terms. Limited partners, meaning pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, endowments, foundations, insurance companies and funds of funds, are the intended audience and get LP-only sessions closed to everyone else. General partners and fund-of-funds managers enter only through an application that the registered LPs then rank, with 35 firms admitted. Service providers and advisers cannot register as delegates at all: buying a sponsorship package is their only route in.

ILPA members receive priority registration for ILPA Forum EMEA, and the event page directs non-members to ILPA's membership page rather than to a non-member rate. ILPA does not state that membership is mandatory for LP attendance, and it publishes no LP registration fee. Registration for the April 2026 edition closed on 10 April 2026.

Application, then LP vote. For the 2026 edition, GP and fund-of-funds applications opened on 10 December 2025 and closed on 31 January 2026, across three tiers: Emerging Managers, Established Managers, Large Established Managers. The registered LPs then rank applicants against their own investment interests, and the top 35 firms across all tiers are invited. A firm that no attending LP ranks is not admitted, whatever it is willing to pay, and sponsorship is a separate track that does not substitute. As of 26 October 2026, no application window for the 2027 edition had been published.

Up to four representatives per firm, four formal meeting sessions with LPs plus further meetings where LPs request them, a dedicated meeting room, the full attendee contact list one week ahead, and access to the networking activities, which in 2026 included a pub quiz, fitness sessions and cocktail receptions. Content access is deliberately partial: in 2026 it began at mid-day on 28 April, after the LP-only programming had already run.

Only as sponsors. ILPA Forum EMEA has no delegate route for service providers: a sponsorship package buys entry, along with passes to networking functions, branding, and the right to distribute marketing material. The sponsor window is also shorter than the LP one. In 2026 the service-provider dates were 28-29 April, against 27-29 April for the LP track.

Not disclosed, in any track, and nothing had been published for the 2027 edition as of 26 October 2026. ILPA publishes no LP member or non-member rate, no GP rate and no sponsorship rate. The GP page refers to a pricing chart broken down by tier without showing a figure or a currency. Pricing sits behind the ILPA member portal or a direct enquiry in every case, so any published price for this event should be treated as unsourced.

Through Meetings on Demand, an LP-driven scheduling system in the event app: LPs select the managers they want to see, instead of a two-sided algorithm pairing mutual interest. ILPA introduced it with the 2026 rename, replacing the mutual-ranking method used under the ILPA Summit Europe name.

Seven published themes at ILPA Forum EMEA 2026: artificial intelligence, secondaries, co-investments, retail capital, and sector sessions in technology, healthcare and defence. LP-only programming ran first, with GP-accessible sessions from mid-day on 28 April. ILPA publishes neither a session-by-session agenda nor a single speaker name for this event, in 2026 or any earlier edition, so any named line-up attributed to it comes from somewhere other than the organiser.

Twelve firms across five tiers. Top tier: Carta and Coller Capital. Platinum: DLA Piper and Gen II. Gold: Blackstone, Gibson Dunn and PitchBook. Silver: Morgan Lewis, Preqin and SIPA Metrics. Bronze: CFC and Tangible Markets. Sponsorship is the service-provider entry route, not a shortcut into the 35 GP places.

The Institutional Limited Partners Association, founded in 1990 as an informal LP networking group, with offices in Toronto, Washington DC and London. ILPA reports nearly 600 member institutions representing more than USD 3 trillion in private equity assets under management, and publishes the ILPA Principles, the reference governance standard for LP-GP fund terms. Its 2026 calendar also carried the ILPA Summit in New York, the ILPA Members' Conference in Chicago, the ILPA Legal Conference in New York, and recurring ILPA Institute training courses.

General partners without existing standing among ILPA's LP membership: no LP ranking means no place, and sponsorship does not change that. Service providers who want a delegate pass rather than a sponsorship contract. Family offices and high-net-worth individuals, who sit outside the institutional LP definition the event is built on. Firms that need a published price, agenda or speaker list before committing budget. And anyone who needs the 2027 venue, price or agenda settled early, since none had been confirmed as of 26 October 2026.