Web Summit returns for its biggest day after the storm

Web Summit is back. After the Portuguese government advised against opening on Wednesday as Storm Charles hit Lisbon, the organisers have confirmed that the final day goes ahead on Thursday 12 November, and they are calling it Web Summit's biggest ever day of content and meetups.

To fit in what was lost, the day starts earlier and runs straight through. Stage talks begin at 9am instead of the usual mid-morning start, carry on through lunchtime and finish at 5.30pm.

Wednesday's programme has not simply been dropped. Web Summit says it is moving talks from Wednesday into Thursday, alongside the content already planned for the day. That means more than 100 speakers attendees might have thought they had missed will now be on stage, on top of hundreds more on the original Thursday line-up.

The meetups have moved too. Sixty-five community and partner meetups have shifted from Wednesday to Thursday, taking the day's total to more than 125. For founders who flew in to meet investors, partners or customers, that is a second chance at the conversations the storm cancelled.

The new times and stages are in the Web Summit app and the online schedule, so check both before heading to the venue. The organisers' advice is simple: arrive early, have breakfast there, and make the most of the longest day of the week.

For the startups that lost their exhibiting day on Wednesday, it is a tighter squeeze, but the message from Lisbon is clear: the summit is not over yet.

Future Feed is at Web Summit and will keep covering the startups we meet. If you exhibited this week and would like to be featured, apply here: https://partner.futurefeed.to/websummit2026