Lithuania postpones Litexpo events for EU Council presidency

Parliamentary preparations for Lithuania’s presidency of the Council of the European Union will lead to the postponement of next year’s exhibitions and events at Litexpo, an exhibition and congress centre, LRT reported. The Vilnius Book Fair will move almost seven months to September, while the Study Exhibition will be cancelled and return only in 2028.

The Vilnius Book Fair, Litexpo’s most popular event, usually takes place at the end of winter and attracts more than 50,000 visitors. Next year, it will be held in mid-September.

Senior European officials will gather at Litexpo from January until the end of June while Lithuania holds the EU Council presidency. Litexpo’s director said organisers were working with the Lithuanian Publishers Association and Agata to develop a different format for the book fair.

Other events will also move to the autumn. The Comic Con Baltics popular culture festival will be held in September instead of its usual spring schedule, while the LOGIN technology and innovation conference will take place in October rather than May.

LOGIN organisers considered keeping the conference at its usual time but could not find suitable premises. The event reached 10,000 participants this year, and its director, Tomas Stasiukevičius, said Lithuania currently had no other venue capable of hosting an event of that scale.

Several exhibitions will be cancelled next year and held only in 2028. They include Resta, the Study Exhibition, Pelenė and the Engineering Exhibition.

Some Litexpo facilities are also being renovated ahead of the presidency. Construction work in Pavilion 5, which is familiar to event visitors, is nearly complete as new conference halls are being prepared.

Litexpo is expected to become one of the main venues for international events during Lithuania’s presidency, with around 20,000 representatives from different countries expected to visit. The programme will include about 16 informal meetings of ministers, a European Commission College visit in early January and an informal European Council meeting in May.

EU member states hold the Council presidency for six months at a time. Ireland currently holds the presidency, while Lithuania will take it for the second time after a 13-year break.