Performance Days returns to Messe München on 13-14 October 2026 with an education programme expanded across three platforms: the established Expert Talks, a new Breakout Stage in Hall A6, and the Sustainability Exchange. The organisers say the expanded format reflects an increasing need to connect material sourcing with a broader understanding of technology, legislation and supply chain developments.

For fabric buyers and product development teams, the show — spanning halls A4-A6 over two days — now bundles regulatory and technical briefing capacity directly alongside its functional textile sourcing offer.

Expert Talks centre on bio-based materials

This season's Focus Topic, Bio-Based Materials – From Fiber to Fabric, anchors the Expert Talks. Sessions will examine bio-synthetic materials across the value chain, the transition from fossil-based to plant-based alternatives, and the challenges involved in developing fossil-free performance textiles.

For the first time, Performance Days CEO and founder Marco Weichert will join an Expert Talks panel. In The Road to Fossil Free Performance, he will sit alongside Dominik Fuss of The Natural Laboratory and Satish Tailor of Vollebak to discuss sources of future material innovation and what moving performance textiles away from fossil-based resources will require. Weichert brings more than two decades of experience in functional textiles and collaboration with textile, yarn and finishing manufacturers worldwide.

Further Expert Talks sessions address waterproof performance beyond PFAS, the potential of cellulosic materials, repairability at scale, and the future of European fine wool. The PFAS sessions land as suppliers across the functional textile tier face tightening restrictions on fluorochemistries in key markets.

Trend and design content will also feature, including Forum Insights for Autumn/Winter 2028/29, Performance Colors by Nora Kühnu00b4er — presented by Nora Kühner — plus Bodywear Trend Intelligence and digital colour communication. The latest Performance Award winners and their products will be presented on 13 October.

Breakout Stage targets sourcing-linked technologies

New for the October edition, the Breakout Stage in Hall A6 will use a compact Silent Conference format. It offers focused sessions on innovations, technologies and specialist topics directly connected with sourcing and product development.

Subjects include digital design with CLO Virtual Fashion, textile circularity, cellulose, odour management, wearable technology, electrospinning for PFAS-free textiles, and bio-enzymatic recycling. Performance Days says the shorter format gives innovators and specialists a direct platform for presenting technologies moving from concept towards practical application.

Sustainability Exchange maps EU compliance agenda

The Sustainability Exchange will provide a dedicated space for discussion of sustainability regulation and implementation. Its Sustainability Stage programme covers evolving EU legislation and compliance, biodiversity, circularity, product data and Digital Product Passport readiness, Extended Producer Responsibility, collection and sorting, and approaches to scaling bio-based materials.

The compliance agenda is concrete. Digital Product Passport readiness and EPR obligations are already shaping data flows between suppliers and brands selling into the EU, and the Munich sessions give sourcing teams a direct briefing channel on implementation timelines.

Interactive workshops complement the stage programme, covering human rights due diligence, biodiversity and nature-positive strategies, circularity, and credible sustainability communications. Among them is Navigating EmpCo: Aligning Sustainability Messaging Across the Value Chain, led by Gabriel Arthur of Suston, examining how suppliers, ingredient brands and consumer-facing brands can align sustainability communications as regulatory requirements evolve.

For sourcing and compliance teams, the expanded programme signals where the decision pressure now sits: material selection increasingly depends on PFAS substitution pathways, bio-based scalability, and EU data and due diligence requirements — and Performance Days is packaging those answers next to the fabric sourcing itself.