IBC2026 Everything
You Need
to Know
11–14 September 2026 · RAI Amsterdam, Netherlands · The world’s leading media & entertainment tech show
AT A GLANCE
IBC at a Glance
Show Opens
11 Sep
Thursday 2026
Show Closes
14 Sep
Sunday 2026
Venue
11 Sep
Amsterdam, Netherlands
Visitor Pass
Halls
14+
Outdoor exhibits
44,000+
Attendees from 170+ countries
1,200+
Exhibitors on the floor
600+
Speakers & sessions
170+
Countries represented
THE INDUSTRY’S STAGE
What is IBC Show?
IBC (International Broadcasting Convention) is the broadcast and media technology industry’s biggest annual event. Every September, 45,000+ professionals from 170+ countries spend four days in Amsterdam buying, evaluating, and debating the tech that runs the world’s media.
It is not just a trade show. The IBC Conference runs alongside the exhibition. Deals get done, standards get agreed, and the direction of the next 12 months takes shape. If you work in broadcast, streaming, post production, or media tech, this is the one show a year that actually matters.
IBC Innovation Awards
Judged by an independent panel, the IBC Innovation Awards carry real weight. The shortlist is a useful map of what the sector considers genuinely new this year. Attend even if you have no stake in a specific category.
Future Tech & Content Everywhere
Future Tech covers what is not quite in production yet: AR/VR, spatial audio, generative AI applications, and emerging infrastructure. Content Everywhere is IBC’s fastest-growing zone, focused entirely on streaming, OTT, and consumer technology. Give it proper time if streaming touches your work.
Show Floor Guide
What's on the agenda at IBC 2026?
IBC’s agenda reflects where the industry’s money is going and where the real pressure is. These are the themes running through the 2026 conference programme and show floor.
AI moving from pilot to production
NAB 2026 featured two dedicated AI pavilions nearly doubling the number from 2025. Expect the same or more in 2027 as AI workflows dominate every part of the content lifecycle.
Central & South Halls
Streaming economics & OTT sustainability
The conversations are about margin, how FAST channels generate revenue, how churn is managed, and what the sustainable business model for streaming actually looks like at scale.
Central Hall
Cloud native infrastructure at scale
After years of hybrid architectures, the industry is running genuinely cloud native playout and post pipelines. IBC 2026 will include honest conversations about what cloud does better than on prem, and where it still doesn't.
South Hall
Metadata, discoverability & intelligence
Growing archive libraries and extended content lifecycles have made the ability to find and reuse material efficiently a strategic priority. Automated metadata at ingest is a thread running through multiple halls.
Central & South Halls
Compliance & regulatory pressure
Broadcast compliance requirements are tightening globally, subtitling mandates, content moderation, ad verification, proof of play. The demand for reliable, auditable automated compliance systems is significant.
Central Hall
Immersive production & next-gen formats
Spatial audio, virtual production volumes, and AI- assisted camera systems have matured. IBC's Future Tech zone will show these with real workflow integrations and production cost comparisons.
South Hall
Worth noting: Two of those themes, AI metadata and broadcast compliance, are exactly what Digital Nirvana has been building for 20+ years. Live demos running in Avid and Grass Valley. See what they’re showing at IBC 2026.
WHO ATTENDS
Who attends IBC?
IBC draws a genuinely cross-functional crowd. Technology buyers, editorial leaders, engineers, and executives all share the same floor. That mix is part of why conversations here tend to be more useful than at narrower events.
Broadcasters & national TV networks
Public broadcasters, commercial networks, and regional stations from 170+ countries.
Streaming & OTT operators
SVOD, AVOD, and FAST channel operators and the infrastructure companies behind them.
Post production studios
Editing, colour, VFX, and audio facilitiesof all sizes.
Technology buyers
CTOs, VPs of Engineering, and technology directors with active procurement budgets.
Broadcast engineers & systems architects
The people who specify and integrate broadcast infrastructure.
Sports broadcasters & rights holders
One of IBC's largest verticals with its own dedicated presence.
Press & industry analysts
IBC is a major news moment for media technology journalism.
Students & early-career professionals
Subsidised access via IBC's dedicated student programme.
Getting There
Getting to Amsterdam for IBC 2026?
IBC’s agenda reflects where the industry’s money is going and where the real pressure is. These are the themes running through the 2026 conference programme and show floor.
By air
Exhibition access plus the full conference programme: keynotes, technical papers, panels, and the Innovation Awards ceremony.
By rail from Europe
Eurostar runs direct from London St Pancras to Amsterdam Centraal in under 4 hours. Thalys and Intercity Direct connect Paris, Brussels, and Cologne. The tram and metro to RAI from Centraal are fast and frequent.
Worth noting: Two of those themes, AI metadata and broadcast compliance, are exactly what Digital Nirvana has been building for 20+ years. Live demos running in Avid and Grass Valley. See what they’re showing at IBC 2026.
PRACTICAL PLANNING
Practical Planning for IBC 2026
MetadataIQ operates across every major broadcast and production vertical from live news to archive enrichment.
WHICH SHOW IS RIGHT FOR YOU
10 Tips for Your First IBC 2026
Nearly half of all attendees are first-timers. Here’s how to walk in prepared and make every day count.
01
Pre-book meetings with key vendors
Popular stands fill up quickly, especially in the afternoons. Pre-book meetings to make the most of your time.
02
Mornings for meetings, afternoons for discovery
Use mornings for scheduled meetings while halls are quieter. Keep afternoons open for valuable spontaneous conversations.
03
Wear comfortable shoes
RAI Amsterdam is enormous. You will walk 10,000– 15,000 steps a day easily. Save the dress shoes for dinner.
04
Don't skip the Conference
Even a free Visitor Pass includes access to valuable show floor sessions. Plan two or three key sessions each day to get the most from the event.
05
IBC Exchange is underrated
The structured peer networking via Braindate creates conversations that random floor encounters don't. Worth the €95 upgrade if networking is your goal.
06
Visit Hall 14 early
Future Tech is where early-stage companies and research institutions show things that aren't products yet. The best ideas are usually here first.
07
Write down 2–3 specific decisions to inform
Focused attendees leave with useful output. Unfocused attendees leave with sore feet and a bag full of brochures.
08
Take your own power bank
Charging stations fill up. A 10,000 mAh power bank keeps your phone alive through a full show day without needing to find a socket.
09
Follow up within 48 hours
The conversations you have on Thursday are ancient history by Monday. Send your follow-up emails the same evening while context is fresh.
10
Check exhibitor locations in advance
Download the exhibitor directory from the IBC app before you arrive and mark your shortlist. Walking the floor without a plan wastes hours.
Getting value from the IBC Conference
Book sessions as soon as the programme drops
the good ones fill before the show opens.
Do not skip the technical papers track
consistently underattended relative to quality. Often more useful than keynotes.
Do not overschedule
two sessions and a few booth meetings per day is a productive and realistic day.
About Digital Nirvana
Twenty years of broadcast AI. Before it was called broadcast AI.
When a vendor tells you they’re bringing AI to broadcast, it’s worth asking how long they’ve actually been doing it.
Digital Nirvana was founded in 2001, when the broadcast industry’s biggest metadata challenge was getting content logged fast enough for same-day news. They built AI-driven tools to solve that. Not to pitch a roadmap. Because broadcasters needed it.
Twenty plus years later the approach has not changed. Every product solves a workflow problem someone in a newsroom, post facility, or broadcast operation is currently solving manually. And it does so without asking staff to learn a new system or change how they work.
That matters most at IBC. Most AI tools on the floor this year will require a new portal, a new interface, a secondary workflow. Digital Nirvana’s tools write directly into Avid and Grass Valley. The metadata goes where editors already are. The AI runs invisibly inside the systems your team uses every day.
2001
Founded, been here longer than most IBC exhibitors
20+ yrs
Building AI for broadcast workflows
90%
Reduction in manual metadata logging time
100+
Live streams indexed simultaneously
The thing that makes the difference
The metadata goes where editors already are
Most metadata automation tools create a secondary workflow, a portal, a dashboard, a separate database your team has to remember to check.
Digital Nirvana’s tools write directly into Avid MediaCentral and Grass Valley. Journalists search and find content in the same place they’ve worked. No adoption problem. No context switching. Just faster.
The Workflow
From live content to searchable
archive, automatically
No extra portals. No manual logging steps. The AI runs in the background and puts structured metadata exactly where your team needs it.
01
Content arrives
Live broadcast, file ingest, or archive item enters your existing Avid or Grass Valley pipeline. Nothing changes about your ingest workflow.
02
AI analyses at frame level
MetadataIQ processes the content in parallel, speech to text, scene segmentation, entity recognition, classification, all time coded to the frame.
03
Metadata writes natively
Structured, time coded metadata is written directly into Avid MediaCentral or Grass Valley, no secondary database, no portal, no extra step for your team.
04
Editors search and find
Journalists and editors search within their normal editorial interface and find exactly what they need, by topic, person, moment, or phrase. In seconds, not hours.
MEET THE TEAM
Meet Digital Nirvana at IBC 2026
See how AI-powered metadata, monitoring, and captioning turn your media into searchable, actionable intelligence — live at our booth.
MonitorIQ
Broadcast & Stream Monitoring
AI-powered signal monitoring, loudness compliance, air-check logging, and content repurposing for linear and OTT. Real-time alerts, SmartSearch, and frame-accurate clip editing.
MetadataIQ
Automated Metadata Generation
SaaS platform that automates metadata creation for production and live content transcripts, object labels, facial recognition, logo detection, and scene changes with native Avid Interplay integration.
Trance
Cloud Captioning & Subtitling
Enterprise cloud-based captioning and subtitling with integrated AI speech-to-text, multi-language support, and 24/7 delivery for broadcasters and media companies of all sizes.
- Exhibiting at NAB Since 2017
- Global Customers, Proven at Scale
- AI-Native Since Before It Was a Trend
Book a Meet
IBC Amsterdam, Netherlands — Sep 11–14, 2026
Free Download
Get the MetadataIQ Datasheet before IBC
If you’re planning to evaluate metadata automation tools at IBC 2026, this is the document to read on the plane. It covers the full technical architecture, integration depth with Avid and Grass Valley, performance benchmarks from live deployments, and the workflow diagrams your engineering team will want to see.
Download it now. Take it into your pre-IBC planning conversations. Then come find us on the floor if you want to see it running live.
Full technical specifications
Integration architecture with Avid MediaCentral and Grass Valley, API endpoints, metadata output schemas and formats.
Real performance numbers
Throughput rates, latency figures, concurrent stream capacity benchmarks from live production deployments, not lab conditions.
Workflow integration diagrams
How MetadataIQ fits into your existing ingest, production, and archive pipeline without requiring workflow changes.
Good questions to ask at IBC
A cheat sheet of the technical questions worth putting to any metadata vendor on the show floor, including us.
DIGITAL NIRVANA
MetadataIQ
AI Metadata Automation, Technical Datasheet & IBC Guide
90%
Time saved
100+
Live streams
20+
Yrs built
Download the MetadataIQ Datasheet
Free. Instant access. No sales call unless you want one.
By downloading you agree to receive occasional product updates from Digital Nirvana. Unsubscribe anytime.
FAQs
Frequently asked questions
When and where is IBC 2026?
IBC 2026 runs September 11–14, 2026 at RAI Amsterdam Convention Centre, Europaplein 24, Amsterdam, Netherlands. The show spans four full days with exhibition and conference programme running concurrently.
How do I register for IBC 2026?
Register at reg.ibc.org. Exhibition passes are frequently free for early registrants, pricing increases as the show approaches. Conference delegate passes carry an additional fee.
What's the difference between an exhibition pass and a conference delegate pass?
An exhibition pass gives access to all 14 halls for all four days, including IBC Exchange networking. A conference delegate pass adds the full conference programme, keynotes, technical papers, panels, and the Innovation Awards ceremony.
How do I get from Schiphol Airport to RAI Amsterdam?
Train from Schiphol to Amsterdam Centraal (15 min), then tram 4 or 25 to the RAI stop, directly at the venue entrance. Metro line 52 from Centraal is also direct (10 min). Taxi from Schiphol costs €35–45 and takes 20–35 minutes.
Do I need a visa to attend IBC in Amsterdam?
Netherlands is part of the Schengen Area. EU/EEA citizens need only a valid ID. UK, US, Canadian, and Australian citizens enter visa-free for up to 90 days. Other nationalities should check with the Netherlands embassy. Contact IBC directly at show.ibc.org/contact for invitation letters.
When should I book a hotel for IBC?
As early as possible. September is peak season in Amsterdam, properties near RAI fill months before the show. NH Amsterdam Zuid and Novotel Amsterdam City are closest. City-centre hotels are a 20-minute tram ride away and offer more availability.
What are the key topics at IBC 2026?
IBC 2026 centres on AI in live production and post workflows, cloud-native broadcast infrastructure, streaming economics and OTT monetisation, metadata and content intelligence, next-generation immersive formats, and broadcast compliance automation.
What is IBC Exchange?
IBC Exchange is IBC’s curated meeting programme, available to all exhibition pass holders. It matches buyers and technology providers based on stated interests. If you’re evaluating vendors, register for IBC Exchange before the show, pre-arranged meetings are far more productive than cold floor approaches.
How does MetadataIQ differ from other metadata automation tools?
Most metadata tools write to a separate database or portal, requiring editors to context-switch. MetadataIQ writes structured, time-coded metadata directly into Avid MediaCentral and Grass Valley, where journalists and editors already work. No secondary workflow. The native integration is the core differentiator. [Download the full datasheet](#datasheet) for technical architecture detail.
Is IBC free to attend?
Exhibition passes are frequently free for early registrants. Pricing increases through the year. Conference delegate passes carry a fee regardless. Check reg.ibc.org for current pricing.
Come find us at IBC 2026
We’ll be on the show floor all four days. If AI metadata or broadcast compliance is anywhere on your IBC agenda, even if you’re still in early evaluation mode, a 30-minute conversation with our team is worth doing. No slides. Live software. Direct answers.
Tell us your setup below and we’ll prepare something specific to your environment. Pre-booking also means you get a proper time slot rather than waiting for a gap to appear at a busy stand.
Tailored to your environment
Avid, Grass Valley, or custom MAM, we'll show what's relevant to your setup.
30 minutes, live software
Real product running live. Your questions answered by the people who build it.
Leave with something useful
A clear picture of where MetadataIQ or MonitorIQ would save the most time in your specific workflow.
Book your IBC meeting
Confirm now, we'll reach out to lock in your preferred day and time.
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Book in advance
IBC 2026 · September 11–14 · RAI Amsterdam
Register through IBC’s official site. Plan your floor time. Come find Digital Nirvana if AI workflows are on your agenda.