How many “World of Coffee” events can the industry absorb before it becomes noise?
In 2025, I have attended WOC Dubai, Specialty Coffee Expo in Houston, WOC Geneva, HOST in Milan, Swiss Coffee Festivals in Zurich and Lausanne. At the end of the year, I had very uncomfortable questions:
– where were the innovations ?
– what are the differences between those events ?
– Who is really earning money directly or indirectly , except SCA and the event organizer ?
World of Coffee is everywhere in 2026:
• Dubai (Jan 18–20)
• San Diego (Apr 10–12)
• Bangkok (May 7–9)
• Brussels (Jun 25–27)
• Panama City (Oct 23–25)
Add the “parallel universe” of festivals and trade shows (e.g., London Coffee Festival May 14–17, 2026) and you start to feel it: we’re saturating attention, budgets, and meaning.
The other uncomfortable question
Is coffee truly booming so hard that we need this many global events…
—or are we building a visibility treadmill?
Because at the same time, coffee markets have been wildly volatile (tight supply narratives, weather risk, financial pressure, “panic buying”, and yes, speculation via futures).
So what are we really celebrating:
• Coffee as an agricultural reality (risk, climate, farmer viability),
or
• Coffee as a tradable story (hype cycles, auctions, content, “the next origin”, “the next fermentation”)?
If we keep multiplying events, what happens next?
• Who can afford to be visible? (and who disappears?)
• Do we create more market access… or more marketing arms races?
• Are we training the industry to chase stages instead of improving systems“?
And here are the risks…
• We don’t have a coffee calendar anymore. We have a touring season.”
• “Visibility is not value—unless you’re selling visibility.”
I’m genuinely curious: where does this over-visibility end?
And what would be a healthier model: fewer events, stronger regional hubs, or totally different formats?
#CoffeeIndustry
#WorldOfCoffee
#SpecialtyCoffee
#CoffeeEvents
#CoffeeBusiness
CoffeeTrade
GlobalCoffee
CoffeeProfessionals