This year's IT Arena is in question - organizers are hesitating whether to cancel the event. What is known
IT Arena 2026 may be postponed or canceled. The reason is that the organizers cannot guarantee the safety of 7,500 participants
IT Arena 2026 may be postponed or canceled. The reason is that the organizers cannot guarantee the safety of 7,500 participants
The IT Arena conference was scheduled to take place in Lviv on September 25–27, but the event has been called into question. According to DOU, the organizers have informed some partners of the cancellation due to the impossibility of ensuring 100% safety of participants. However, there is no final decision yet — they are considering another location or postponing the conference.
At the same time, several DOU sources noted that there is no final decision regarding IT Arena yet. Organizers are looking for another location to hold the conference, or are considering rescheduling the event to another date.
The organizer of IT Arena — Lviv IT Cluster — does not publicly comment on the situation.
This year, organizers expected over 7,500 participants, over 300 companies, over 100 speakers, and over 100 startups. Representatives from over 40 countries were expected to participate.
The conference was planned to be held at the Arena Lviv stadium. The 2026 program was to include separate Business, Dev, Product, Startup, and Defense stages, as well as expos for startups, defense tech, partners, and Ukrainian companies. Separately, the organizers announced the launch of the Dev Stage and the expansion of the Defense Expo. Among the planned activities are the traditional Startup Competition, networking, meetups, parties, and afterparties. In 2025, the Startup Competition investment fund reached $15 million.
The situation with IT Arena is taking place against the backdrop of a review of security requirements for major technological and defense events in Ukraine.
Following the Russian attack on a defense exhibition in the Kyiv region on July 24, a number of deftech events were canceled or postponed .
This is not the first change in the Lviv IT Cluster’s plans for IT Arena this year. Previously, the organizers announced that IT Arena in Warsaw would be postponed to 2027. At that time, the Cluster explained the decision by the desire to direct all resources to holding the main event in Lviv.
At the same time, the official pages of IT Arena and Lviv IT Cluster still indicate September 25–27, 2026 as the dates of the Lviv conference.
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UPD. Lviv IT Cluster stated that its executive director Stepan Veselovsky never owned the rights to the IT Arena brand. He replied
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