Hotel, Restaurant & Catering — HRC — returns to ExCeL London in less than two weeks, and for the first time in several years the show is arriving with a significantly changed format rather than an incremental update. The 2026 edition runs 30 March to 1 April and is expected to draw more than 25,000 buyers and industry professionals across three days.
This year's event relocates to ExCeL's South Hall, joining The Pub Show and the newly launched Hospitality Tech360 to form a combined proposition billed as Food, Drink & Hospitality Week. The logic is straightforward: consolidating adjacent events creates a stronger reason for operators, chefs, buyers and suppliers to spend three days at the venue rather than one, and it gives exhibitors exposure to a broader visitor profile.
What's new on the show floor
The most visible change is the introduction of four new dedicated sections: Bar, Pastry, Street Food, and Pizza & Pasta. Each is designed to move beyond the standard supplier-on-a-stand format into what the organisers describe as immersive, trend-led experiences — working bars, live production kitchens and demonstrable product showcases rather than brochure stands.
For buyers working in those categories, the new sections should make HRC meaningfully more useful than it has been in recent editions, where the general floor plan made it difficult to navigate towards specific product areas without considerable time investment.
The Pastry section in particular reflects a broader industry recognition that pastry, bread and dessert have become significant points of differentiation for restaurants and hotels — an area that has historically been underrepresented at trade events relative to its commercial importance.
The Pub Show and Tech360
The co-location with The Pub Show gives managed and independent pub operators a more efficient annual buying trip — sourcing across food, drink, equipment and technology from a single venue across overlapping dates.
Hospitality Tech360 is the most interesting new addition to the week. Point-of-sale, reservations management, workforce scheduling, energy monitoring, AI-driven forecasting and contactless ordering have all accelerated as categories of active operator investment since 2022. A dedicated technology show within the hospitality event calendar — rather than a tech annex bolted to a traditional trade show — reflects where capital spending in the sector is actually going.
Who should attend and what it costs
The event is restricted to trade buyers and industry professionals; consumer visitors are not admitted. Registration before the show is free; walk-up tickets at the door cost £50 per visitor. For operators in food, beverage, hotel or contract catering procurement roles, the free pre-registration is the obvious route.
With over 1,500 exhibitors confirmed, the show remains the largest single gathering of hospitality and foodservice suppliers in the UK calendar. Whether the redesigned format delivers a meaningfully better experience than previous editions will be the industry question answered by 1 April — but the ambition behind this year's changes is the most coherent HRC has demonstrated in some time.
For any operator who hasn't yet registered, there are 13 days left to do so at no cost.
HRC 2026 — 30 March to 1 April, ExCeL London South Hall. Registration: hrc.co.uk