Racquet Sports Has Never Had a Stage Like This. SMASH 2026's Full Schedule at the AB Show Just Went Live.
- 2 days ago
- 3 min read
Smash 2026 – The IAPPF Conference and Expo at AB Show, produced by the International Association of Pickleball & Padel Facilities (IAPPF), is a standalone three-day summit dedicated to the business of running pickleball and padel facilities, held alongside AB Show, one of the largest and most established trade shows in athletics and recreation, November 17 to 19 at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, Florida. The full schedule and agenda just went live.
See the full schedule and register now — early bird pricing ends August 15, save $100.
WHAT'S ACTUALLY HAPPENING AT SMASH 2026
The numbers are real. More than 2,000 attendees from all 50 states. Over 200 exhibitors. More than 100 education sessions. An audience of owners, operators, and program directors behind more than $50 million in active capital projects. That audience matters specifically because there are more than 17,000 pickleball and padel facilities operating in the US today, and this show puts you in front of the people building and running them. That's on top of full access to AB Show's own expo floor, hundreds of exhibitors spanning the broader athletics, fitness, and recreation industries, included with your registration.
Day one runs three tracks, operations, growth, and development, plus a dedicated Padel Business Summit in the afternoon. Day two shifts to money, risk, and real estate, with tracks on business, real estate, and insight. Both days are built for the people running these businesses day to day.
Day three is new: the Global Racquet Sports Investment Summit. One day, one room, the capital and the operators shaping where this industry goes next, private equity, family offices, venture capital, and the people actually scaling facilities.
The International Padel Cluster will have a presence at the show. I'm the Cluster's International Development Partner for the US, and I've also been working directly with David Johnson, CEO of IAPPF, to help build out the padel side of this event, from programming to bringing padel companies into the room. As David put it, they want to push padel as hard as they can at this show, and that's exactly what I'm there to help them do.
TWO WAYS IN
Attend. Walk the floor, sit in the sessions, meet the people actually writing checks and running facilities right now.
Sponsor. IAPPF built a full menu for this, title sponsorships, pavilions, activations, à la carte packages, booth space from a 10x10 up to a 20x20, custom deals built around your goals.
WHO'S ALREADY ON THE FLOOR
The floor plan is already live. Court Reserve, Selkirk Sport, PlayerU, and Conquer Padel Club are already on it. That tells you who's already decided this is worth showing up for.
If you own, operate, develop, or invest in facilities, the real buyers and the real capital are sitting in the same building.
If you're in racquet sports technology, tourism, apparel, equipment, or another adjacent category, this is your audience too. Participants are coming from around the world.
IF YOU'RE WITH THE CLUSTER, THIS PART IS FOR YOU
This one might matter more than it looks like on the surface.
It also happens to be in Florida, the center of gravity for American padel since the sport started arriving from Europe. The largest indoor padel facility in the country sits in West Palm Beach, an hour down the road. If you're sizing up the US from the outside, this is the closest you'll get to the real center of the market in one trip.
RacquetX doesn't come back around until next spring. Right now, there's nothing else in the US even close to this scale for padel. That makes this the first real move on the board, before 2027, while the window to plant a flag is still wide open.
If you're already thinking about 2027 strategic planning, this is the event to build that plan around, not after the room fills up, while it's still forming.
I'd go as far as saying this could be the most important event you attend in the next eighteen months. I don't say that lightly.
Michel Gogniat, Managing Director of the International Padel Cluster, and I have been building this presence together. Day one includes a dedicated Padel Business Summit, 2 to 5pm, built specifically for this audience.
Reach out and I can help you make sense of what you're looking at.
Contact me directly with any questions before you commit.