AGNTCon + MCPCon 2026: Dates, Venue, Tickets & Guide
October 22-23, 2026
TL;DR: AGNTCon + MCPCon 2026 runs October 22-23, 2026 at the San Jose McEnery Convention Center, with a kickoff party the night before. Standard registration is $475 through October 7 (early bird closed July 28),...
TL;DR: AGNTCon + MCPCon 2026 runs October 22-23, 2026 at the San Jose McEnery Convention Center, with a kickoff party the night before. Standard registration is $475 through October 7 (early bird closed July 28), late/onsite is $925, academic is a flat $149 (checked 2026-08-24, events.linuxfoundation.org). Backed by AWS, Anthropic, Google, Microsoft, OpenAI, Block, Bloomberg, and Cloudflare as Platinum members of the Agentic AI Foundation.
I track AI and developer conferences the way I track AI tool deals: by checking whether the funder list matches what actually ships in production. On that test, AGNTCon + MCPCon is the rare event where the companies competing hardest in the agent market all signed the same cheque. That is the argument for showing up in San Jose. Not the keynote roster, the roster of people writing the code the keynote will describe.
Why the funder list matters more than a speaker list
Anthropic donated the Model Context Protocol to the Linux Foundation in December 2025. Block handed over its goose agent runtime the same month. OpenAI contributed the AGENTS.md specification. All three landed inside the Agentic AI Foundation (AAIF), which now lists AWS, Anthropic, Block, Bloomberg, Cloudflare, Google, Microsoft, and OpenAI as Platinum members (checked 2026-08-24, events.linuxfoundation.org).
Companies that fight for the same AI budget rarely fund the same infrastructure. When they do, the standard tends to stick, and the event built around it becomes the room where the next protocol version gets argued. That is why I care about AGNTCon + MCPCon more than about the next single-vendor “AI summit” flying in a Nobel laureate for a headline photo.
AGNTCon + MCPCon 2026 dates, venue, and what actually happens on site
AGNTCon + MCPCon 2026 takes place October 22-23, 2026, at the San Jose McEnery Convention Center (150 W San Carlos Street, San Jose, CA 95113). A kickoff party runs the evening of October 21 with a De La Soul concert. The two conference days each carry keynotes, technical sessions, and a Solutions Showcase where vendors and open-source projects demo real implementations, plus an attendee reception on Thursday evening.
AGNTCon covers agentic AI architecture broadly. MCPCon narrows to Model Context Protocol-specific development. Both tracks run co-located, so a ticket gets you both. San Jose sits a short drive from the headquarters of most of the funding companies, which is the point: the platform engineers this event targets are already in the Bay Area or fly in for events like this every quarter.
| Detail | Confirmed |
|---|---|
| Dates | October 22-23, 2026 (kickoff October 21) |
| Venue | San Jose McEnery Convention Center |
| Format | In-person, two co-located tracks plus Solutions Showcase |
| Host | Agentic AI Foundation (Linux Foundation directed fund) |
| Focus | MCP, agent interoperability, goose, AGENTS.md |
Who gets real value from two days in San Jose
You get direct value from AGNTCon + MCPCon 2026 if you are:
- An AI engineer building agents or MCP servers who wants access to the maintainers, not a secondhand explainer.
- An open-source contributor to MCP, goose, or AGENTS.md who wants to influence the roadmap in person instead of filing GitHub issues.
- A platform or DevOps engineer running agents in production and working on evaluation, reliability, or security problems that generic AI conferences skip.
- An engineering leader deciding whether to standardise on MCP internally, who wants the case directly from Anthropic, Google, Microsoft, and AWS in the same room.
If you are new to agentic AI with no hands-on MCP experience, the CFP topic list gives it away: evaluation methodologies, multi-agent systems, agentic payments infrastructure. That is a practitioner program. Send someone from your team who already ships against MCP and have them bring the notes back. This is the same builder audience I flag for AI DevSummit, and the same filter applies.
Registration reality as of August 2026
Early bird pricing closed July 28, 2026, so the standard tier is what you can actually book right now (checked 2026-08-24, events.linuxfoundation.org/agntcon-mcpcon-north-america/register/).
| Ticket | Price | Window |
|---|---|---|
| Standard | $475 | July 29 to October 7, 2026 |
| Late / Onsite | $925 | October 8 to 23, 2026 |
| Academic | $149 flat | Any time, verification required |
The jump from standard to late nearly doubles the ticket. If your team knows it is attending, book before October 7 rather than waiting for a last-minute yes. The only published discount is 20% off for Linux Foundation and AAIF members, requested by email to [email protected]. No partner code, no reader code. I will not invent one to make this guide sound more generous than the site.
Refunds are available for cancellations at least two weeks out, minus a 6% processing fee. Registration is transferable to a teammate. Media access is by direct request to organisers.
San Jose logistics: room block and travel
The Linux Foundation has a discounted room block at the San Jose Marriott, roughly a two-minute walk (about 417 feet) from the convention centre, with rates starting around $289 per night plus tax including Wi-Fi and gym access (checked 2026-08-24, events.linuxfoundation.org/agntcon-mcpcon-north-america/attend/venue-travel/). The block is shared with PyTorch Conference 2026 and closes September 25, 2026. Book through the official venue page before the cutoff.
Norman Y. Mineta San José International Airport (SJC) is closest to downtown. SFO and OAK are the fallback airports if SJC fares run steep. If you are traveling from outside the US, sort the visa invitation letter early through the official event site.
One warning worth repeating from the Linux Foundation’s own page: the organisers will never phone you to book a hotel room. Any inbound call or email offering a discounted conference room is a scam. Book only through the official room-block link or by calling the hotel directly. I have watched this exact scam catch two people at other Linux Foundation events, so treat it as a real threat, not a boilerplate warning.
My honest verdict
Register at the standard rate if your team already builds against MCP, goose, or an agent framework and the CFP topic scope maps to a problem you have shipped or are about to ship. Wait, and pay the standard rate anyway, if you need to see the confirmed schedule land on the official site before committing budget. Skip it if your team has no current agent-building work. This is not a “learn what agents are” conference, and the CFP topic list makes that plain.
For MCP server picks to test before the trip, my MCP server leaderboard tracks which servers are production-ready and which still ship as demos.
AGNTCon + MCPCon 2026 FAQ
How much does AGNTCon + MCPCon 2026 cost right now? Standard registration is $475 through October 7, 2026. Late/onsite is $925 from October 8 to 23. Academic is a flat $149 with institution verification. Early bird ($375) closed July 28.
Are speakers confirmed? The Call for Proposals closed June 7, 2026, with speaker notifications sent July 17 and the full schedule announced July 21. Check the official event site for the current speaker list.
Is there a discount code? Only the 20% Linux Foundation / AAIF member discount, requested by email to [email protected]. No public partner codes exist.