The Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada has run its annual convention long enough that PDAC has become shorthand across the global mining industry for the single largest annual gathering of exploration and mining professionals anywhere. The 2026 edition runs March 1 to 4 at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, with recent editions drawing 27,000 to 30,000 attendees from more than 125 countries and 1,100 to 1,300 exhibiting companies.

An Exploration-Focused Gathering

PDAC's core audience is weighted toward exploration and junior mining companies rather than established production operations — a distinction that matters for equipment suppliers, since exploration-stage companies are typically evaluating drilling and geological survey technology rather than the heavy production machinery that dominates shows further downstream in a mine's development cycle.

The convention's investor programme, running alongside the exhibition floor, connects junior mining companies with the capital markets financing that Canada's Toronto Stock Exchange has long specialised in for the resource sector — a financial infrastructure that has made Toronto a natural home for this kind of event regardless of where the actual mining activity is happening.

What's on the Floor

Exhibitors span geological survey and exploration technology, drilling equipment, mining software and data services, and increasingly the heavier equipment categories as exploration-stage companies plan ahead toward eventual production.

Quick Reference

Where Equipment Suppliers Fit In

For mining and drilling equipment suppliers, PDAC's exploration-heavy audience makes it most useful for building relationships ahead of production decisions rather than closing large equipment orders on-site — the junior companies filling much of the exhibitor and attendee list are typically years from needing full-scale production machinery.

That said, the sheer international breadth of the attendee list, spanning more than 125 countries, makes PDAC one of the more efficient single trips for mapping which mining jurisdictions are attracting exploration capital in a given year, information that shapes longer-term equipment sales planning.