What’s new in business and sports events Montréal
What's New in Montréal
As 2025 barrels into 2026, there is, as always, no shortage of action on numerous fronts throughout Montréal’s business, sports, leisure, innovation and myriad other ecosystems. Elegance and imagination were top of mind in the hotel sector with a raft of noteworthy openings and renovations. Several striking additions to the city’s wealth of venues were also newsworthy. Many major sporting events brought Montréal and visiting sports fans out in droves, and some big announcements for 2026 see the city building on that success. Additionally, Montréal was the proud recipient of a number of notable accolades for work in a variety of categories and sectors.
Read on to catch up with what’s new and exciting in the city.
New and reimagined hotels dominate the landscape
From award-winning contemporary design to majestic old-world architecture, Montréal’s world-class hotels combine comfort, commerce and convening. The city is currently celebrating exciting news throughout its hotel industry, including the arrival of a number of innovative new hotels as well as the ambitious reinvention of iconic others.
Where inspiration and relaxation intersect
- Old Montréal’s Hôtel SonoLux, the city’s first immersive sound and light hotel, opened in November 2025. The 36-room hotel features cutting-edge installations, experimental video art and multiple exhibition spaces.
- Surrounded by cobblestone streets, the new Marriott AC Hotel Old Montreal opened in May 2025, and each room embodies the brand's signature European refinement.
- France’s pioneering luxury hotel brand, Sofitel, has completely beautified its flagship Canadian property, Sofitel Montréal Golden Square Mile, including extensively redesigned guest rooms, lobby, fitness centre, common areas and its top-tier Renoir French restaurant.
Learn more about Montréal’s rapidly expanding accommodations ecosystem here.
Headline-stealing venues
Montréal isn’t a place where you have to work to make business — it’s a place where making business works. This is in large part due to an almost endless choice of venues for every event and occasion. From well-appointed hotels to offsite venues at, for example, old-world event spaces and architectural gems, stunning converted churches , creative circus spaces, LEED-certified venues or even on a river cruise, there is always something new at your disposal.
Venues in the news
Glamourous new event space Le 9e, on top of the downtown Eaton Centre, was inspired by the dining room of the Île-de-France transatlantic ocean liner, and is one of the crown jewels of Montréal’s art deco architectural legacy. It’s state-of-the-art La Grande Salle ballroom can be configured to host everything from live performances to corporate event, meetings and more.
Capacity: 575 people
Also at the Eaton Centre, The Fabulous FAB Exhibition is a new multi-sensory immersive exhibition spanning three floors and over 10,000 square feet, with more than 20 fantastical worlds inviting guests to explore imaginative landscapes. Ideal for cocktail parties, and with an adjacent room for private rental.
Capacity: 250 people
The Chalet de la plaine des Jeux in Parc Jean-Drapeau on Île Sainte-Hélène, just minutes from downtown, is a newly renovated, bright, elegantly designed contemporary meeting space in a historic building that features panoramic views of the city.
Capacity: 125 people
Oasis immersion is a spectacular, immersive, multimedia gem within the Palais des congrès de Montréal convention centre with rentable, customizable settings that are perfect for conferences or training events, film shoots or corporate events looking for something completely out of the ordinary.
Situated in the heart of the vibrant Griffintown neighbourhood, the industrial-vibe La Nesra boasts 20,000 square feet of space and 40-foot ceilings. It has a fully equipped kitchen and can accommodate up to 1,800 standing guests for cocktail-style celebrations or 1,200 seated.
Nestled within the Montreal Marriott Chateau Champlain, Caf’ Conc’ (short for Café Concert) is an intimate hidden gem inspired by the decadence of the Roaring ’20s but possessing the most modern technologies and amenities.
And, located in the downtown Bell Centre, home of the Montréal Canadiens NHL team, L’Espace 1909 officially launched in the spring of 2025. The stylish, multilevel space can support up to 1,000 guests and comes equipped with a 46-foot giant screen, advanced audiovisual systems and customizable screens.
Sports is the name of the game in Montréal
Montrealers are legendarily passionate sports fans, and love for the city’s sports teams and major competitive events — the Montréal Canadiens, the F1 Grand Prix du Canada, UFC, Canadian Open Tennis, the PGA and more — makes Montréal is one of the world’s great sports cities, holding approximately 60 top-tier sporting events during an average year.
Montréal sports scoring big
- The 2026 UCI Road World Championships, the most significant sports event in the city since the 1976 Summer Olympics, will be held on the streets of Montréal from September 20 to 27, 2026. This will only be the second time that this elite cycling event has taken place in Montréal and only the third time it’s been staged in Canada.
- The 2026 UCI Road World Championships will be part of the commemorations of the 50th anniversary of the 1976 Olympics, and be a part of numerous celebratory happenings taking place throughout the city.
Dive into more of Montréal’s major upcoming sporting events here.
A winning partnership with SportsPro
Business Events Montréal partnered with SportsPro on an editorial collaboration explaining why the “festivalization” of sport is central to Montréal’s hosting strategy, and how the city has mastered the art of elevating sporting events into unforgettable festivals.
Game on: New Sport Business
In a recent article, SportBusiness.com recently reported that Montréal is living up to its four-season sports city reputation, citing its attractiveness to a whole range of elite sports, its flexibility as an event host and a built-in audience of diehard fans that run the gamut of sporting events interests.
Major conferences coming to Montréal
For many years running, the Union of International Associations has named Montréal the top city in the Americas for international meetings (see more below), and dozens of high-profile, can’t-miss conferences will again be the story of 2026.
Major meetings and events on the agenda
- Joint Commission on Sports Medicine & Science (JCSMS) annual meeting
- ISSCR 2026 Annual Meeting (International Society for Stem Cell Research)
A sampling of notable events in 2025
- The 15th World Congress on Brain Injury, the largest gathering of international professionals working in the field of brain injury.
- World Summit AI Americas 2025, which tackled critical topics such as regulation, safety and ethics, trust, privacy and scalability.
- ISPOR 2025, the leading global conference for discussion of health economics, outcomes research and the latest trends in healthcare.
- The 34th International Joint Conferences on Artificial Intelligence, which presented cutting-edge scientific results in AI via groundbreaking presentations.
- C2 Montréal featured world-renowned speakers, interactive exhibits, collaborative workshops and a collective experience over an immersive three-day business conference.
Get your group on
It also bears mentioning that the city has a broad spectrum of spaces and settings specifically geared to groups of all sizes. They range from live entertainment options to VIP sports experiences, fun and unique team-building activities, flavourful culinary expeditions and much more.
What’s cooking on the culinary scene
On its own, but also as a jumping off point to the rest of the province of Québec, Montréal enjoys an international reputation as a food connoisseur’s paradise awash in a vast diversity of cuisines. Three restaurants — Mastard, Jérôme Ferrer – Europea and Sabayon — recently received the city’s first MICHELIN stars, and numerous Bib Gourmand selections and fine-dining recommendations were given to others.
New and reinvented offerings to whet appetites
The highly esteemed Renoir French restaurant at the Sofitel Montréal Golden Square Mile reopened its doors in April 2025 following a spectacular transformation. Its complete metamorphosis invites guests to experience new spaces, including a cocktail lounge, solarium and an intimate chef’s table.
The high-end Mexican restaurant Casa Bonita is slated to open in late 2025/early 2026 in downtown Montréal. It combines contemporary elegance with authentic and refined cuisine.
The much-anticipated Bambino will open its doors in Old Montréal in 2026. Bambino brings a bold Italian concept and cuisine to the corporate events scene, as well as a luxurious, versatile venue ideal for executive dinners, team meetings and large corporate events.
SOTTO par Soubois celebrates handmade classics of Italian cuisine in a refined and lively ambiance in an attractive, signature new space nestled beneath Soubois’ famous urban forest.
What’s happening: the Palais des congrès convention centre
The Palais des congrès de Montréal has announced a promising collaboration with Polytechnique Montréal as part of an integrated AI project initiated by IVADO. The project is developing a system to manage waste generated by events at the Palais convention centre.
Find out more about the convention centre’s upcoming events here.
Exciting innovation-sector news
Montréal provides fertile ground for innovation and has long been the kind of place where surprising things grow. Indeed, innovation is deep in the DNA of the city, and the expression of this can be found in many of the city’s pioneering tech projects.
Prepare for impact
Business Events Montréal is currently participating in the development of Impact AIQ, a groundbreaking, AI-powered project led by #MEET4IMPACT and Gevme. Impact AIQ is designed to measure and analyze the societal impact of business events, and inspire transformation across the events industry.Braindate, an event networking technology that specializes in knowledge-sharing, was named to Fast Company’s list of the Worlds Most Innovative Companies for 2025, making the top 10 in the Events, Concerts and Live Experiences category.
Significant notices of appointment
Hugo Larochelle, computer science professor at the Université de Montréal, has been appointed as Scientific Director, Mila – Quebec Artificial Intelligence Institute. Trained under the supervision of the Yoshua Bengio, and then alongside Nobel Prize-winner Geoffrey Hinton at the University of Toronto, Larochelle is contributing to major breakthroughs in AI.
Noteworthy recent rankings and recognition
It was once again a banner year for international recognition of the city’s efforts in a number of different categories, with Montréal placing at or near the top of several globally respected rankings.
By the numbers
- Montréal has been ranked as the #1 city in North America for international association meetings by the International Congress and Convention Association (ICCA) for nine consecutive years, largely because our teams are committed to delivering exceptional and welcoming events that exceed expectations.
- For the eighth year in a row, Montréal has topped the Union of International Associations (UIA) annual list of top cities in the Americas for hosting international association meetings.
- The city was named one of the top 10 Safest Cities in the World to travel to in 2025 by Berkshire Hathaway Travel Protection.
Prestigious award wins for Montréal
Business Events Montréal is thrilled to be the 2025 Stella Award gold medal winner for Best International and U.S. Territories Destination Marketing Organization. The award is a seal of excellence that signifies that we help deliver an exceptional meetings experience.
Travel + Leisure’s highly regarded World’s Best Awards for 2025 saw Montréal jump to #2 in the 2025 Best Cities in Canada rankings. It was recognized its diverse gastronomic and hotel offerings, as well as its world-class arts and cultural scenes.
Montréal was ranked in the top 10 “Best Big Cities in the World” by Condé Nast Traveler 2025 Readers’ Choice Awards. Condé Nast cited the palpable creative energy that pulses through the city’s wealth of internationally renowned restaurants, eclectic bars and chic boutique hotels.
