Salon des Maires 2026: Paris and the departmental mayors' fairs

The Salon des Maires et des Collectivités Locales 2026 runs from Tuesday 24 to Thursday 26 November 2026 in Pavilion 7 of Paris Expo Porte de Versailles, alongside the 108th Congrès des maires organised by the AMF, the French mayors' association. It is the year's largest meeting between local elected officials and the companies that work with French municipalities. But it is not the only one: between late September and mid-December, some fifteen departmental mayors' fairs take place across France, and for many exhibitors they are worth as much as Paris, if not more. Verified dates, exhibiting conditions, the calendar of departmental events: here is what you need to plan the autumn.

Salon des Maires 2026: dates, venue and opening hours

The Salon des Maires et des Collectivités Locales 2026 opens on Tuesday 24 November and closes on Thursday 26 November, in Pavilion 7 of Paris Expo Porte de Versailles (1 place de la Porte de Versailles, Paris 15th). The opening hours announced by the organiser are 9 am to 7 pm on Tuesday and Wednesday, 9 am to 6 pm on Thursday.

Admission is free for professional visitors, with a badge. The badge is obtained online before the show or at the reception desks on site. The show is reserved for professionals: elected officials, local authority staff, public buyers, partners. To get there, the metro (line 12, Porte de Versailles station), trams T2 and T3a and buses 80 and 39 serve the exhibition centre, which has three car parks (1, 6 and 7).

The theme of the 2026 edition is "L'audace est locale", boldness is local. The organiser, Groupe Moniteur (Infopro Digital), sets it in the context of the renewal of municipal teams after the March 2026 elections: new mayors, new deputy mayors and department heads who are discovering their suppliers.

The Congrès des maires and the associated shows: what happens at the same time

The 108th Congrès des maires et des présidents d'intercommunalité de France, organised by the AMF, takes place on the same dates, from 24 to 26 November 2026, in the same exhibition centre. Its theme is "Regagnons nos libertés", let us regain our freedoms. The congress requires a registration separate from the show badge, on the AMF website: an exhibitor who wants to attend the congress debates must therefore plan both.

Two shows are held in conjunction with the Salon des Maires, in the same place and on the same dates: the Salon des Sports et Parasports and the Salon de la Biodiversité et du Génie écologique. According to the figures published by the organiser for 2025, the first welcomed 18,179 visitors and 136 exhibitors for its 4th edition, the second 12,494 visitors and 85 exhibitors for its 3rd edition. An exhibitor in sport, landscaping or water would do well to look at these two shows before booking on the main one.

Who visits, who exhibits: the 2025 figures

The 2025 edition, the 31st, brought together 65,672 visitors, 1,380 exhibitors and 448 talks, with 600 accredited journalists, according to the report published by the organiser. Still according to the organiser, 79% of visitors attend no other show in the sector and 90% of AMF congress delegates walk the aisles of the show. That is what makes the event valuable for an exhibitor: mayors and their technical teams are on site, at the same time, for three days.

Visitors are mayors and local elected officials, chief executives of local authorities, technical services directors, public buyers and project managers, plus institutional and voluntary-sector partners. For 2026 the organiser highlights the presence of the teams from the new term of office.

Exhibitors are spread across ten sectors: construction and planning; safety, prevention and protection; environment and quality of life; transport and mobility; energy and climate; digital and connectivity; health, social affairs, childhood and community life; culture, leisure and events; development, attractiveness and territorial cohesion; biodiversity and ecological engineering. The 2026 exhibitor list is available on the show's website as registrations come in.

Exhibiting at the Salon des Maires 2026: the three formats and what you need to know

Any company that sells to local authorities can apply to exhibit, young companies included: the organiser's contact form has a dedicated entry for startups. Three formats are offered.

• The stand: the classic formula to present your solutions, run demonstrations and hand out documentation to elected officials and technical departments.

• The talk: the show offers three conference areas (Lab, Atmosphère, Arène) where an exhibitor can share its expertise for 30 to 45 minutes, alone or with a sponsor.

• The "Vis ta Ville" area: a full-scale staging of solutions in reconstructed settings (connected town hall, school, railway station), to show a product in situation rather than on a counter.

Stand prices are not published on the website: they are requested from the organiser's sales department (smcl-commercial@infopro-digital.com, +33 1 79 06 76 66), with one contact per sector. No booking deadline is given either; in practice, the best-placed spaces at a show with 1,380 exhibitors go early, and bookings are usually made in spring or early summer for the November edition.

Three practical tips for a first mayors' fair:

• Choose your exhibition sector carefully: visitors walk the show by theme, and a badly classified stand loses qualified visits.

• Prepare an offer that a passing elected official can grasp in thirty seconds: a problem, a solution, a cost for the municipality, a reference in a comparable local authority.

• Plan the follow-up before the show: an appointment after November, when the 2027 budgets are voted, is worth more than a pile of business cards.

The 2026 departmental mayors' fairs: the autumn calendar

The Salon des Maires in Paris is not the only event. Almost every department has its own, organised by the departmental mayors' association, often with a regional daily newspaper or a chamber of commerce. These fairs last one day, gather 50 to 150 exhibitors and attract the mayors of the department, the ones a regional supplier actually has a chance of meeting. Here are those whose 2026 dates are published by the organiser or by the AMF calendar, from the nearest to the furthest.

Fair	Department	2026 date	Venue
70th Congress of the Association des maires du Nord	Nord	Thursday 24 September	Douai
Salon des maires des Bouches-du-Rhône	Bouches-du-Rhône	Friday 25 September, 8.30 am to 4.30 pm	Salon-de-Provence, Espace Charles Trenet
Congress of the mayors and inter-municipal presidents of Seine-et-Marne	Seine-et-Marne	Friday 25 September	Dammarie-lès-Lys, Espace Pierre Bachelet
4th Salon des maires, des élus locaux et des décideurs publics du Tarn	Tarn	Tuesday 29 September	Albi, Parc des expositions
Congress of the mayors of Pas-de-Calais	Pas-de-Calais	Thursday 1 October	Longuenesse
Salon des communes et intercommunalités de l'Hérault	Hérault	Friday 2 October	Montpellier, Parc des expositions, hall B2
9th Salon des Communes et des Intercommunalités du Var	Var	Friday 9 October	Draguignan, Complexe Henri Giran
5th Salon des maires, des élus locaux et des décideurs publics du Tarn-et-Garonne	Tarn-et-Garonne	Friday 9 October	Caussade, Espace Bonnaïs
Forum des élus locaux et Salon des collectivités de la Mayenne	Mayenne	Saturday 10 October	Laval, Espace Mayenne
Salon des Communes et des Intercommunalités des Alpes-Maritimes	Alpes-Maritimes	Thursday 15 October	Mandelieu-la-Napoule, Centre Expo Congrès
Congrès des Maires et des Présidents de Communautés des Hautes-Alpes	Hautes-Alpes	Thursday 15 October	Gap, Le Quattro
Salon des maires de l'Aude	Aude	Friday 23 October	Narbonne, Parc des expositions
Salon des maires de la Vienne	Vienne	Thursday 5 November	Chasseneuil-du-Poitou, Palais des congrès du Futuroscope
Salon des maires du Vaucluse	Vaucluse	Thursday 12 November	Avignon, Parc des expositions
Salon des Maires et des Collectivités Locales	national	24 to 26 November	Paris, Porte de Versailles, Pavilion 7
24th Salon des Maires de la Côte-d'Or	Côte-d'Or	Thursday 10 and Friday 11 December	Dijon, Parc des expositions

A few pointers on these events, from the organisers' websites. The Bouches-du-Rhône fair, organised by the newspaper La Provence with the department's Union des maires, announces more than 50 exhibitors, a general assembly of mayors, five round tables and technical workshops. The Hautes-Alpes congress, run by the departmental mayors' association with Le Dauphiné Libéré, also expects more than 50 exhibitors after 470 participants in 2025; registration there is reserved for municipal-level elected officials and the association's partners. The Côte-d'Or fair, organised by the departmental mayors' association, brought together 140 exhibitors and 4,000 visitors in 2025 over its two days.

Several departmental fairs have already taken place in 2026 and will return next year at the same time of year: the AMIF fair in Île-de-France (2 and 3 June, Porte de Versailles), the Pyrénées-Orientales fair (11 and 12 June, Perpignan), the Rhône mayors' congress and fair (9 July, Arnas, 114 exhibitors registered according to the organiser) and the Lot-et-Garonne congress (18 September, Agen). If your department is not listed here, the departmental mayors' association is the right door: it sets the date and sells the stands, sometimes with a local press sales house.

Paris or the department: how to choose when you exhibit

The two do not play in the same league and are not mutually exclusive. The Paris Salon des Maires offers volume (65,672 visitors in 2025) and national visibility, at the price of a Paris stand, three days of mobilisation and competition from 1,380 exhibitors for visitors' attention. A departmental fair offers one day, a far lower stand cost and, above all, the mayors you can actually serve: a street furniture supplier based in Draguignan has more to gain at the Complexe Henri Giran than in Pavilion 7.

A simple rule: a company with national reach, or a strong reputation to build, aims for Paris; a regional SME starts with its own department and the neighbouring ones, then moves up to Paris once it has references to show. In both cases, autumn 2026 has one particularity: municipal teams are new. An elected official who has just arrived is trying to understand the market before choosing, and remembers those who helped them understand it.

On the organising side: a departmental fair means an association of elected officials and a sales house that must, within a few weeks, register exhibitors, allocate spaces, track payments and keep an up-to-date floor plan, often with a spreadsheet and a mailbox. For associations and sales houses that industrialise their process, French exhibitor registration tools such as Keyqo, specialised in exhibitor management and interactive floor plans, cover these needs in a single tool.

FAQ

What are the dates of the Salon des Maires 2026?

The Salon des Maires et des Collectivités Locales 2026 takes place from Tuesday 24 to Thursday 26 November 2026 in Pavilion 7 of Paris Expo Porte de Versailles, from 9 am to 7 pm on the first two days and from 9 am to 6 pm on Thursday. The 108th Congrès des maires organised by the AMF is held on the same dates in the same exhibition centre.

Is the Salon des Maires free?

Yes for professional visitors: admission is free with a badge, to be collected online before the show or at the reception desks on site. The show is reserved for elected officials, local authority staff, public buyers and partners. The Congrès des maires requires a separate registration with the AMF.

How much does a stand cost at the Salon des Maires 2026?

The organiser does not publish a price list: stand prices are requested from the show's sales department, with one contact per sector. Three formats exist: the stand, a talk in one of the three conference areas, and the "Vis ta Ville" area that puts solutions in situation.

What is the difference between the Salon des Maires and the Congrès des maires?

The Congrès des maires is the annual assembly of the Association des maires de France, with its debates and sessions, on registration with the AMF. The Salon des Maires et des Collectivités Locales is the trade show held on the same dates and in the same place, organised by Groupe Moniteur, where companies present their solutions to local authorities. According to the show's organiser, 90% of congress delegates visit the show.

When do the departmental mayors' fairs take place in 2026?

Mostly between late September and mid-December: for example on 25 September in Salon-de-Provence for the Bouches-du-Rhône, 9 October in Draguignan for the Var, 15 October in Mandelieu-la-Napoule for the Alpes-Maritimes and in Gap for the Hautes-Alpes, 12 November in Avignon for the Vaucluse and 10 and 11 December in Dijon for the Côte-d'Or. Each department generally has its own fair, organised by the departmental mayors' association.

Going further

If you are exhibiting at or organising other professional events this autumn, these guides complement this one:

• Autumn Fairs in France 2026: Marseille, Metz, Dijon and the Calendar: the big fairs from September to November, with the exhibitor side of each.

• How to Organize a Trade Show: The Complete Guide: budget, exhibitor registration, schedule and show day for an organiser.

• Trade Show Management Software: The 2026 Guide: a comparison of solutions to manage exhibitors and stand bookings.