GemGenève 10th Edition Draws Global Diamond and Gem Buyers to Geneva

At Palexpo, GemGenève did more than stage a jewelry fair. Its 10th edition turned Geneva into a concentrated view of the diamond and gem market, with roughly 240 carefully selected exhibitors, more than 5,000 visitors and a crowd that ranged from professionals to connoisseurs and private buyers.

The scale mattered, but so did the mix. Gemstone dealers stood alongside heritage jewelry houses and gemological institutions, a combination that made the fair feel less like a showroom than a working cross-section of the trade. Registration and ID checks kept the atmosphere controlled and distinctly high-level, reinforcing the sense that this was access, not spectacle. The fair ran from May 7 to May 10, 2026, and its official program folded commerce into education with lectures, industry seminars, round tables and Touch & Feel workshops.

That structure is part of GemGenève’s appeal. Founded in 2018 by Geneva dealers Ronny Totah and Thomas Faerber, the fair was conceived to fill a market gap and was built, in effect, by the exhibitors themselves. That exhibitor-driven model has helped it attract serious names while keeping the tone intimate enough for buyers who want to inspect stones, settings and provenance with more scrutiny than a typical public-facing luxury event allows.

The numbers tell their own story. The 2025 edition set a record with 253 exhibitors and 4,970 visitors, and the 2026 edition pushed even farther into the market’s center of gravity, drawing more than 5,000 visitors. In a year when collectors are watching supply, sourcing and value with unusual care, that kind of turnout suggests that Geneva still commands attention not just as a destination, but as a place where the trade comes to test demand.

That matters in a city that has hosted major jewelry auctions since the late 1960s. GemGenève has increasingly been framed as part of the machinery that keeps Geneva at the top of the jewelry map, not merely because it gathers stones in one place, but because it links dealers, labs, houses and buyers in a single room. For a market built on trust, connoisseurship and the ability to compare one emerald, diamond or signed jewel against another, that is the real intelligence the fair offers.