GovCon Events.

The SamSearch GovCon Events Calendar is a curated, free directory of every government contracting conference, agency industry day, training webinar, and set-aside matchmaking event happening across 2026. SamSearch maintains the calendar from primary sources (organizer websites, agency outreach offices, and industry associations) and updates it as new events are announced.

The most-attended GovCon conferences of 2026 include AUSA Annual Meeting (October, Washington DC), AFA Air, Space & Cyber (September, National Harbor MD), Sea-Air-Space (April, National Harbor MD), the SAME Federal Small Business Conference (November, Charlotte NC), the National 8(a) Association regional conferences, and FedTalks (November, Washington DC). The right event depends on your agency targets and socio-economic certifications — use the calendar filters above to narrow by category, format, and audience.

Yes. Many federal small-business outreach events, APEX Accelerator workshops, GSA training webinars, and SBA Small Business Week sessions are free for U.S. small businesses and aspiring federal contractors. Filter the calendar by 'Training' or look for the 'Free' tag on individual events.

An industry day is a focused, agency-hosted event tied to a specific buyer, program, or upcoming solicitation — typically half a day to two days, with one-on-one matchmaking and pre-solicitation Q&A. A conference is broader and industry-run: multi-day, multi-track programming with hundreds or thousands of attendees, an exhibit hall, and senior agency keynotes. Both are valuable; industry days are higher-signal for an active capture, conferences are better for relationship building and market intelligence.

Use the 'Virtual' filter in the calendar above. SamSearch's calendar includes virtual options for SBA Small Business Week panels, Deltek/GovWin webinars, NCMA training, NIST cybersecurity briefings, and many APEX Accelerator workshops — all delivered online and most of them free.

Top set-aside-focused events for 2026 include the National 8(a) Association regional conferences, the HUBZone Annual Conference, NVSBC VETS26 (the premier service-disabled veteran-owned small business event), and the SAME Federal Small Business Conference for the A/E/C industry. Many of these include reserved matchmaking time with prime contractors and federal small-business specialists.

By attendance, the largest defense industry events of 2026 are AUSA Annual Meeting (~30,000 attendees, Washington DC), AFA Air, Space & Cyber Conference (~15,000, National Harbor MD), Sea-Air-Space (~14,000, National Harbor MD), and I/ITSEC (~20,000, Orlando). Each focuses on a different service or capability area; pick by buyer alignment.

Yes — email support@samsearch.co with the event name, dates, location, organizer, registration URL, and a 1-2 sentence description. We accept conferences, industry days, training events, and matchmaking events, both free and paid, virtual or in-person. There is no fee to be listed.

The calendar is reviewed and refreshed regularly. The dataset on this page was last updated July 29, 2026. New events, dates, and venue changes are published as organizers announce them — bookmark this page or subscribe to the SamSearch newsletter to stay current.