Cityscape Global has launched Capitals by Cityscape Global, an enhanced platform connecting investors with developers, masterplans, and investment opportunities across Saudi Arabia and international markets, the show’s Riyadh-based organiser Tahaluf said on June 23, 2026. The new programme extends the Institutional Investor Programme that brought together 173 senior leaders at the 2025 edition. Those leaders represented USD 6.1 trillion in real estate and infrastructure assets under management, a base the 2026 launch is built to widen.
The launch is the clearest signal yet that Saudi Arabia’s real estate market is opening beyond the institutions that led the early wave. Capitals adds investment banks, sovereign wealth funds, pension funds, family offices, ultra-high-net-worth individuals, asset owners, master developers, and government stakeholders to a network that previously centred on the world’s largest asset managers. The stated goal is to match capital directly with opportunities in housing, hospitality, mixed-use destinations, infrastructure, and urban development. Tahaluf will run the new programme in the run-up to the November 16-19, 2026, exhibition at the Riyadh Exhibition and Convention Center in Malham.
A Platform Built on a $6.1 Trillion Foundation
Cityscape Global 2025 set the baseline. The Institutional Investor Programme drew 173 senior leaders from BlackRock, Brookfield, UBS, PGIM, King Street, Hines, and more, alongside sovereign wealth funds and family offices. Tahaluf said the 2025 senior-leader cohort was an 85% increase year-on-year, a growth rate Capitals is being launched to sustain.
That cohort produced 474 curated one-to-one meetings and four private site visits to major developments including NHC, Diriyah, and New Murabba. The headline number from the wider show was bigger still: USD 63 billion in strategic deals and property transactions signed onsite across four days. The 2025 edition drew 164,000-plus visits from over 120 countries and 206 developers, 82 of them international, drawn from 42 countries. The format that delivered those numbers is the operational template the broader 2026 programme is meant to scale.
Brian Higgins, founder and managing partner of King Street Capital Management, and Rachel Sturgess, senior vice president of Tahaluf, are the two named voices on the announcement. The pair covers the global asset-manager angle and the organiser’s view from Riyadh. Their public framing is what the launch is being positioned around.
The 2025 numbers do the talking. The 85% senior-leader growth rate is the pace Capitals is being launched to sustain. The 474 curated meetings and the four private site visits to NHC, Diriyah, and New Murabba are the operational template. The 2026 shift is the participant list, with 173 senior leaders from 2025 now set to share the room with a wider pool of capital.
- USD 6.1 trillion in real estate and infrastructure AUM at the 2025 edition
- 173 senior leaders from global asset managers and sovereign wealth funds
- 474 curated one-to-one investor meetings in 2025
- USD 63 billion in deals and transactions at the 2025 show
- 164,000+ visits from 120+ countries
- 85% year-on-year growth in senior-leader participation
Who Now Gets a Seat at the Table
The 2025 programme was anchored by global asset managers such as BlackRock, Brookfield, UBS, PGIM, and King Street. Capitals by Cityscape Global broadens participation to include investment banks, sovereign wealth funds, pension funds, family offices, ultra-high-net-worth individuals, asset owners, developers, master developers, and government stakeholders. The shift moves the platform from an institutional gate to a wider investor market.
That is a wider door than the Institutional Investor Programme ever opened. Family offices and UHNW investors have always bought into Saudi real estate, but they have not had a curated channel inside the country’s largest real estate show. The new platform offers concierge-led introductions, curated meetings, private site visits, and targeted matchmaking, the same toolkit that the 2025 programme used for the world’s largest asset managers. The toolkit is now extended to a more diverse pool of capital with different ticket sizes, timelines, and decision processes.
Investors from 24 countries participated in 2025, a number Tahaluf expects to climb as the door opens to pension funds, family offices, and UHNW individuals who previously engaged through private channels or local brokers. The official site reports 80% of professional attendees are purchasing decision-makers, a figure that frames the new platform’s commercial intent.
- Investment banks and sovereign wealth funds
- Pension funds and family offices
- Ultra-high-net-worth individuals and asset owners
- Developers and master developers
- Government stakeholders and policymakers
The Voices Backing the Push
Two named voices anchor the public case for the launch. Brian Higgins, founder and managing partner of King Street Capital Management, has featured on the Cityscape Global site as an endorser of the show since the 2025 cycle. Rachel Sturgess, senior vice president of Tahaluf, is the public face of the platform’s launch and the most-quoted voice in the 2026 announcement. The two endorsements cover the global asset-manager angle and the organiser’s view from Riyadh.
Cityscape Global is like Davos for real estate.
Brian Higgins, founder and managing partner of King Street Capital Management, in a published testimonial on the official Cityscape Global visit page and the June 23, 2026, announcement from Tahaluf.
Sturgess, whose Tahaluf role makes her the public face of the show, framed the 2026 launch in pointed terms. “Investors are no longer asking whether Saudi Arabia represents an opportunity,” she said. “They are actively seeking access to projects, partners and markets across the country.” She added: “Capitals by Cityscape Global has been created to help connect global investors with the people, projects and opportunities driving growth today.” The level of engagement, she said, reflects the growing appetite for investment across Saudi Arabia’s development, infrastructure, and hospitality sectors.
The two statements make a paired claim. Higgins compares the show to a gathering that moves global markets, and Sturgess describes how the investor audience is moving in response. The launch release positions the new platform as a response to that shift, rather than an attempt to create it.
Money Leads Day One of the 2026 Programme
Cityscape Global 2026 runs from November 16-19, 2026, at the Riyadh Exhibition and Convention Center in Malham, under the theme “The Capital of Real Estate.” The Main Stage opens with investment at the top of the agenda, a signal that the 2025 deal total will be the benchmark the 2026 show is built around. Registration is open on the official site, and the 2025 attendance figure of 164,000-plus visits and the USD 63 billion in onsite deals set the standard the show is being measured against. Our coverage of last year’s Riyadh launch tracked the build-up to those numbers.
Day one will examine capital flows into high-growth markets, infrastructure-led development, and the evolving role of sovereign wealth funds and institutional investors. Sessions on data centres, digital infrastructure, and technology-enabled real estate will run alongside discussions of real estate finance, demand-led investment strategies, and secured asset opportunities. The aim, per Tahaluf, is to give attendees a clear view of where capital is moving and how it is being deployed across global real estate markets. The framing positions the 2026 show as a market-direction event as much as a deal-making one.
The official site lists 450-plus speakers confirmed for 2026, four dynamic stages including the Future of Living Summit and the DnA (Developers and Architects) Stage, and a G2G Co-Lab for government collaboration. A Cityscape Innovation Challenge, a Future Leaders’ Hackathon, and a Buyer Guide for homebuyers round out the 2026 programme. The 2025 figures, 91% of attendees rating the show an important industry event and 89% of professional attendees identifying as strategic business leaders, are the metrics Tahaluf will measure the 2026 edition against.
- November 16-19, 2026 at the Riyadh Exhibition and Convention Center in Malham
- Theme: “The Capital of Real Estate”
- Day one of the Main Stage leads with investment
- 450-plus speakers across four dynamic stages
- G2G Co-Lab, Innovation Challenge, and Future Leaders’ Hackathon on the 2026 programme
The Saudi Projects Drawing the Capital
Capitals does not match investors with abstract opportunity. The 2025 programme staged four private site visits to NHC, Diriyah, and New Murabba, three of the kingdom’s largest masterplans. NHC, the National Housing Company, is one of the country’s biggest housing developers. Diriyah is the historic-adjacent giga-project on the edge of Riyadh, and New Murabba is the downtown-sized mixed-use district at the centre of the capital’s next phase. These are the concrete projects the new platform is built to funnel capital into.
The new platform expands its focus beyond real estate and infrastructure to include hospitality, mixed-use developments, and large-scale urban projects, an explicit nod to the giga-project pipeline that has been the public face of the kingdom’s diversification push. Vision 2030, the national transformation plan run out of the Council of Economic and Development Affairs, is the policy backdrop, and the organisers describe Cityscape Global as a cornerstone of Vision 2030 in their own materials. Tahaluf itself is a strategic joint venture between Informa PLC, the Saudi Federation for Cybersecurity, Programming and Drones (SAFCSP), and the Events Investment Fund (EIF), with Sela, a Saudi-owned event production company, set to join the partnership. The Cityscape Global show is one of nine major events the joint venture runs, alongside LEAP, DeepFest, Money20/20 Middle East, Black Hat MEA, and LEAP East in July 2026. The platform’s reach is part of why the 2026 launch is being staged as a platform expansion, not just an event update. The Vision 2030 programme frames the broader national context.
The Trade-Off Behind the Wider Door
More categories of capital mean more competition for the same set of Saudi projects, higher entry barriers for the developers the new platform is meant to serve, and pressure on the curated-meeting format that defined the 2025 Institutional Investor Programme. The broadening is deliberate, and Tahaluf’s own framing in the launch release hints at the trade-off. The kingdom’s real estate pipeline is one of the largest in active development anywhere, and the 2025 senior-leader cohort already grew 85% in a single year.
Sturgess’s claim in the launch release, that “the level of engagement we are seeing reflects the growing appetite for investment,” is a forecast rather than a settled fact, but it is grounded in the 2025 numbers Tahaluf has on file. The wager the platform is staking is that demand is broad enough to absorb a wider pool of capital without diluting the per-meeting value that brought BlackRock, Brookfield, and King Street to Riyadh in the first place. The 2026 show will be the first scheduled test of whether that bet pays off.
The widening of the door is also a test of the toolkit. The concierge-led introductions, curated meetings, private site visits, and targeted matchmaking that worked for the world’s largest asset managers are now being applied to a more diverse group of investors with different timelines and decision processes. Tahaluf’s own framing positions the November 2026 show as the first scheduled test of whether the format scales. The 2025 edition’s USD 63 billion in onsite deals and 85% senior-leader growth set the bar the 2026 platform is meant to clear. The numbers Tahaluf reports in late November 2026 will be the first hard test of whether the new platform can hold the institutional standard while widening the door.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Capitals by Cityscape Global?
Capitals by Cityscape Global is the expanded investor platform that Tahaluf, the organiser of Cityscape Global, is launching for the November 2026 edition of the show. It builds on the 2025 Institutional Investor Programme and adds investment banks, sovereign wealth funds, pension funds, family offices, ultra-high-net-worth individuals, asset owners, master developers, and government stakeholders to the participant list.
When and where is Cityscape Global 2026?
Cityscape Global 2026 runs from November 16-19, 2026, at the Riyadh Exhibition and Convention Center in Malham, Saudi Arabia, under the theme “The Capital of Real Estate.”
Who can participate in Capitals?
Capitals broadens participation beyond institutional investors. The platform is open to investment banks, sovereign wealth funds, pension funds, family offices, ultra-high-net-worth individuals, asset owners, developers, master developers, and government stakeholders, with concierge-led introductions, curated meetings, private site visits, and targeted matchmaking as the entry mechanisms.
How does Capitals connect investors with projects?
The platform uses the same toolkit as the 2025 Institutional Investor Programme: curated one-to-one meetings, private site visits to major Saudi developments, and targeted matchmaking. In 2025, the programme arranged 474 curated meetings and four private site visits to NHC, Diriyah, and New Murabba, contributing to USD 63 billion in deals and transactions at the wider show.
