With the end of the year upon us, there are now 11 months to go until the return of LOCATE, Australia’s premier geospatial conference and exhibition.

LOCATE26, which is being supported by the Melbourne Convention Bureau, will be held at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre from 24 to 26 November.

Running in conjunction with LOCATE26 will be the 2026 Digital Earth Summit, a major annual global conference of the International Society for Digital Earth (ISDE).

This will be only the third time that LOCATE has been held in Melbourne, the previous occasions being in 2019 and 2014. It will come more than 18 months after this year’s combined LOCATE and FIG event, so there will be plenty of developments to catch up on.

Organisers are expecting an attendance of around 1,000 delegates and 60-plus exhibitors.

As announced in October, in the wake of the collapse of the Geospatial Council of Australia, both LOCATE and Spatial Source were acquired by Geospatial Media & Events (GME), a new company set up by The Intermedia Group (the original publisher of Spatial Source).

LOCATE26 is being steered by events industry veteran and publisher of Spatial Source, Simon Cooper, and Alicia Smith from events company Will Organise.

Smith is very well known to the Australian geospatial community, having been the organiser of LOCATE every year since 2017.

“Events of this magnitude need to be planned a long way ahead, so the organising team is already working hard behind the scenes to ensure LOCATE26 reinforces its position as the centre piece for the geospatial community,” said Cooper.

“Preparations are well underway, with the focus for the event to be to provide expert insights and a spotlight on emerging technologies.”

Early next year the call will go out for abstracts and speakers. An exhibitor and sponsor prospectus has recently been released.

Potential exhibitors and sponsors who wish to participate are invited to contact Alicia Smith via asmith@willorganise.com.au.