Europe's largest dedicated IT security trade fair, three days in five halls at the Nuremberg exhibition centre, combining a vendor floor, open forums and a paid congress programme.
it-sa Expo&Congress is the annual IT security trade fair run by NuernbergMesse at the Nuremberg exhibition centre. The 2026 edition takes place from 27 to 29 October. It is the largest event of its kind in Europe by exhibitor count: the 2025 edition closed with 993 exhibiting companies and 28,267 trade visitors from 64 countries, up around 9 percent on the 25,830 visitors of 2024. The show covers the full commercial range of cybersecurity, hardware, software, training, consulting and security as a service, and is supported year-round by the it-sa 365 online platform.
it-sa is a buyer's inventory of the European security market. A German or Austrian security team arrives with a renewal coming up or a project starting, and in three days sees every credible supplier in the category. That is a different exercise from the research conferences: there is little original vulnerability disclosure here, and a great deal of comparison shopping, roadmap briefing and channel business. The presence of the German public sector and of the Federal Office for Information Security community gives the floor a compliance and critical-infrastructure weight that purely commercial shows lack.
Three layers run in parallel. The exhibition fills five halls, organised by technology category. The open forums, branded it-sa insights, run several hundred short presentations across the three days at no extra cost; the 2025 edition ran more than 400 forum presentations across six forums. Congress@it-sa is the paid layer, built with industry associations, and delivered more than 70 sessions and workshops in 2025. The ATHENE Startup Award adds an early-stage competition to the floor.
Both in practice. The floor is the European market's full vendor lineup and visitors came from 64 countries in 2025, but the buying audience and most of the forum programme sit in the German-speaking market.
No. it-sa is exhibition-led and commercial: comparison, procurement, channel. Black Hat Europe is research-led and technical: briefings and hands-on training. Many practitioners attend both for opposite reasons.
The organiser's year-round online platform, which carries exhibitor profiles, editorial content and digital events between physical editions.
NuernbergMesse is one of Germany's larger exhibition companies and has run it-sa since 2009, when the show moved to Nuremberg from its earlier home. The company also exports the format, with associated IT security events outside Europe.
The European IT security market's annual inventory, where the whole vendor field lines up in five halls and German buyers walk the floor with a shortlist and a budget.
Trade visitor tickets are sold through the official website, with day and three-day options and a discounted advance rate; entry covers the exhibition and the open it-sa insights forums. Congress@it-sa sessions are ticketed separately. Exhibitor packages are quoted by NuernbergMesse and stand space for the following edition typically opens for booking shortly after the show closes.
27 to 29 October 2026 at the Exhibition Centre Nuremberg, Germany.
It includes the open forums, not the Congress@it-sa programme, which is a separate paid ticket.
The organiser describes it as onsite and online, with it-sa 365 carrying digital content around the physical dates.
| Official website | https://www.itsa365.de/en/it-sa-expo-congress |
| Visitor information | https://www.itsa365.de/en/it-sa-expo-congress/visit/visitor-information |
| Exhibition info | https://www.itsa365.de/en/it-sa-expo-congress/exhibition-info |