XAVER Award 2026: Submission deadline for Swiss LiveCom projects started

Agencies, clients and project teams can now submit their best live communication projects from 2025 for the XAVER Award. With this year's edition, the Swiss LiveCom Association Expo Event wants to build on the successful premiere in the Festhalle Bern. "We are looking for excellent live communication - from strategically strong concepts to creative implementations. The focus is on innovation, realization, impact and sustainability," explains jury president Dany Waldner.

This year, the conditions of participation were revised with the aim of further sharpening the individual criteria, increasing the comparability of the submissions and making the participation process as simple as possible.

Early bird discount and live pitch in the Hallenstadion

Registration takes place via the website xaver-award.ch and is open until April 30, 2026. Those who submit early will benefit from an attractive early bird discount of CHF 390 per project until March 16. From March 17, the standard rate of CHF 590 for members and CHF 690 for non-members will apply.

A central element of the XAVER remains the live pitch on the jury days on May 26 and 27, 2026 in the Hallenstadion Zurich. In 2026, XAVER Awards will again be presented in gold, silver or bronze in the following categories Best Corporate Event, Best Consumer / POS Event, Best Efficiency Project, Best Expo Project, Best Brandworlds & Installations, Best Public Event and Best Exhibition Stand. In addition, the community selects the winner of the Public XAVER in an online voting process. The Lifetime Achievement XAVER Award is also one of the emotional highlights of the award show.

Prominent addition to the jury

New members have been added to the jury for XAVER 2026. Paola Biason, former editorial director of the SRF format "Glanz & Gloria" and "Gesichter & Geschichten", Franz Reichholf, Managing Director of Bucherer, and Michel de Maddalena, Creative Director of the Bern-based event agency Evenjo, have joined the XAVER jury. "All of these personalities bring diverse expertise from the fields of live communication, marketing, creation and strategy. The new composition guarantees different perspectives, a high level of expertise and a well-founded, independent assessment of the submitted projects," explains Dany Waldner.

The association would like to thank the departing members Andrea Meyer (Swisscom Switzerland) and Maximilian Souchay (LiveLab) for their many years of dedicated service.

Successful premiere in Bern

The XAVER Show will take place on September 8, 2026, preceded by the Expo Event General Assembly. The new XAVER LiveComvention format will also be offered for the first time this year. This masterclass will focus on knowledge transfer with insights and exciting keynotes - both for industry experts and for the next generation.

For the second time, the XAVER Awards will be held in the Festhalle on the Bernexpo site in Bern. Last year's premiere in the federal city under the Wild West motto "Wanted - LiveCom Excellence" met with great interest from participants and received particularly good feedback. 45 projects competed, 19 of which were awarded prizes. Both gold trophies were awarded in the "Best Public Event" category: firstly to "Mesh - Festival for Art & Technology", which impressed the jury with its visionary first edition under the motto "Tooling the Future", and secondly to "Art on Ice" by Carré Event, which combined world-class figure skating with live music, dance, acrobatics and modern stage and lighting design. The Lifetime Achievement XAVER Award was presented to Marco Solari.