OOH in Rude Health: A Record Year - the Road to Warsaw

Global Out of Home has never been in better shape. Revenues have climbed to US$54bn, WOO’s London Congress broke every record in the organisation’s history — and the momentum now carries to Warsaw, where WOO returns to Central Europe for a landmark Regional Forum in the heart of the Polish capital, bringing together Out of Home leaders from across the region from October 21st to 23rd.

When WOO President Tom Goddard opened the Annual Congress at London’s Park Lane Hilton in June — the industry’s first global gathering in the city since 1989 — he described an Out of Home industry in rude health, and the numbers bore him out. Global OOH revenues reached US$54bn in 2025, 15% higher than the year before, measured across 85 territories accounting for 95% of global GDP. APAC led the way with growth of just under 30%, the Americas and EMEA followed in single digits, and Digital OOH — now 47% of all OOH revenue — stands on the verge of overtaking Static for the first time in the medium’s history.

A landmark Congress

London 2026 was WOO’s most successful Congress ever, attracting a record 807 delegates from 55 countries. Industry legend Jean-François Decaux, Co-CEO and Chairman of JCDecaux, delivered the opening keynote, and three days of sessions ranged across WOO’s four strategic pillars — creativity, sustainability, data and measurement, and regulation — alongside deep-dive breakouts on AdTech, audience measurement, retail media, AI, DOOH and hardware. Crucially, the client side was in the room too, with senior marketers from PepsiCo and Lloyds and the World Federation of Advertisers sharing an unvarnished view of what brands need from the medium.

The Congress also marked a structural step forward for WOO itself: the organisation is recruiting its first Chief Executive Officer, with Goddard moving to a more ambassadorial role focused on members and advocacy as the organisation continues to grow.

The work ahead

Success has not bred complacency. Opening the Congress, Goddard set out four priorities the industry must tackle to keep its momentum — themes he has pressed all year, including his warning in Barcelona that competing proprietary tech stacks are costing media owners billions that shared platforms could save, and that automation is the industry’s “open goal” for winning market share.

Next stop: Warsaw

Every one of those themes now travels to Central Europe. From October 21st to 23rd, WOO returns to the region for the first time since the 2015 Budapest Congress with a landmark Regional Forum in the heart of Warsaw — its first Central European Forum — bringing together leading industry speakers from across the region, representing every part of the Out of Home ecosystem, for three days of insight, debate and networking.

Organised in conjunction with trade body OOHlife at the Radisson Collection Hotel Warsaw, the Forum opens with an invitation-only National Associations Meeting and welcome drinks on the Wednesday, followed by a day and a half of presentations on the Expanding World of Out of Home from media owners, buyers, tech suppliers and clients, finishing at lunchtime on the Friday. The agenda picks up London’s threads directly: growing the sector and the role of National Associations, maintaining OOH’s competitive advantage, driving growth through audience measurement, creativity, sustainability, data, automation and programmatic buying, the increasing impact of AI, and the rise of retail media.

The setting could hardly be better chosen. Poland is now the 10th biggest OOH market in Europe, and its capital offers a fitting stage for a region whose moment has arrived — before attention turns to Singapore, host of the 2027 Annual Congress next June.