Fall show season is like Christmastime for the boating industry. All kinds of new boats and products show up wrapped in beautiful packages. Everyone gets together to take care of business, have some fun and make life feel a little bit merrier. The mind can overflow with ideas and hope for the upcoming year.
It’s a welcome feeling, especially amid continuing industry struggles rooted in flagging consumer confidence, stubborn inflation and other macroeconomic challenges. And the good news is that heading into the packed industry schedule from October through December, exhibitor bookings and preshow ticket sales are up on both sides of the Atlantic. Quite a lot of industry professionals are moving with purpose toward a bigger and better future.
Here’s a look at what to expect this fall at the International BoatBuilders’ Exhibition & Conference, the Fort Lauderdale and Newport boat shows, Metstrade and Dealer Week.
IBEX
This year, IBEX will be held Oct. 6-8 at the Tampa Convention Center in Florida. Show director Mary Velline says that as of May, organizers weren’t sure how things were going to shape up, but by late July, there was a waiting list for exhibitor space.
“The headlines are scary, but we’ve got a strong renewal base and some great new companies, and right now we are sold out,” she says. “Even our attendance is pacing really well. It’s looking really strong, and I really hope that even though it is tough and money is tight and it takes an investment, this is a great place to come and try to figure it out, to talk to others about how they’re navigating.”
This year’s conference will have expanded educational programming, with 10 tracks featuring the American Boat & Yacht Council, the National Marine Manufacturers Association, the American Boat Builders & Repairers Association and the National Marine Electronics Association. A new participating organization this year is the International Association of Marine Investigators.
“That’s fascinating stuff,” Velline says. “One of the topics they’re bringing to us that’s been confirmed with marinas and yards around the country is that there’s a lot of theft going on right now. There’s organized crime happening with boats being stolen, so they’re coming in with that kind of content.”
Also new this year will be programming that the State of Florida approved for continuing education credits. “This is really going to benefit surveyors, adjusters and others in that space that need these credits to maintain their work. It was a hard process with the state, working with the government on those approvals,” Velline says, “but now we’ve got it, and people will be able to get some of their licensing needs met at IBEX.”
The main stage is moving to the third floor of the convention center near the main exhibit halls, where there will be free educational programming, including topics of interest to company leadership. The Sustainability Pavilion has been repurposed as Next-Gen Power and Performance, to include renewable components, electrification, foiling, artificial intelligence and more. And there’s going to be a three-day program for emerging leaders that’s new this year.
“We’ve done programming here and there in the past, but this year we’ve opened up a room for all three days of the show for emerging marine leaders,” Velline says, noting that Soundings Trade Only is participating in this effort, as well as the Women in Marine programming.
IBEX will also include programming for first-time attendees, “so if somebody is walking into IBEX for the first time, they don’t feel overwhelmed,” she says. “If it’s your first time, and especially if it’s your first trade show, it’s a lot to try to understand.”
Fort Lauderdale and Newport boat shows
More than 1,300 boats are expected to be on display at the Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show, which is scheduled for Oct. 28-Nov. 1. Andrew Doole, president of U.S. boat shows at Informa, says that so far renewals from last year are going strong. “We’ve got a lot of brokerage inventory out there, so there are a lot of brokerage companies booking early for the show,” Doole says. “It’s not necessarily people getting out; it’s also people moving up to larger boats, so that’s good.”
New-boat inventory also appears robust, with bookings stronger than last year. “Whilst the small-boat market has been suffering, we have a lot of things looking up,” he says. “The convention center is filling up. Bahia Mar is looking good. The show’s bread and butter is 50 to 80 feet, and it’s looking good, too.”
Tariffs are not nearly the issue they were last year, he says, and builders such as Viking Yacht Co.of New Gretna, N.J., are putting as many as 20 boats in the show. The superyacht presence is increasing at Pier Sixty-Six, where demolition is planned for some older buildings adjacent to the marina. “We’re going to take over that space, which is about 50,000 square feet,” Doole says. “That will give us a lot more exhibitor booths. We’ve got strong interest from shipyards that want to take a booth and be adjacent. Maybe they don’t have a yacht to display, but they want to have a presence there.”
Heading into early August, advance-ticket sales for FLIBS were running about the same as last year, he says, with VIP packages selling faster. Doole says early bookings also looked normal for the Newport International Boat Show, which will run Sept. 17-20 in Rhode Island. “We expanded in-water and a little bit on land,” he says. “We’re adding a new fishing section, also. I think we’ll see an increase in the number of boats, the size of boats and the quality of boats.”
Overall, he says, Informa is looking toward a continuation of the good start that some exhibitors experienced earlier this year. “We’re confident,” Doole says. “Boats have been selling at shows. We had a fantastic Palm Beach show with a huge amount of sales, and we’re hoping to repeat that with the next two shows.”
Metstrade
The RAI Convention Center in Amsterdam will once again host Metstrade, with this year’s dates set for Nov. 17-19. Show director Niels Klarenbeek says an exciting element of this edition will be the Italy and Netherlands pavilions joined in one hall, bringing together the two largest superyacht-building countries at the show for the first time.
“The preshow visitor registration is going really well,” Klarenbeek says. “We have opened it more early than we’ve done in the past years, and we see that there is already a spike on visitor numbers. We anticipate a very large edition. Looking at it from the exhibitor perspective, it has never been this big before.”
While macroeconomic challenges persist worldwide, he says, the conditions for Metstrade remain strong. “The superyacht section is something that is really growing, and the importance of the show in the marine supply chain is very, very big, so we do see that customers make selections on which show they go to, and if they need to prioritize, they always tend to select Metstrade.”
From the United States, he says, the National Marine Manufacturers Association and the U.S. Superyacht Association will have a presence.
Klarenbeek recommends planning for at least two days at Metstrade, given the show’s size. “The beauty of Metstrade is that it serves so many different parts of the industry,” he says. “Whether it’s construction material, the marina and yards pavilion, we have a special section for marina operators, marina designers, the superyachts, marine dealerships — they all meet here in Amsterdam.”
A trend he expects to see more of this year is integration of systems to create a seamless experience for the boater. “The boater wants one interface, one user experience, all integrated into one system,” he says. “That’s definitely the trend in the industry.”
Dealer Week
The Marine Retailers Association of the Americas will host the Dealer Week Conference & Expo Dec. 6-9 at the Tampa Convention Center in Florida. Mike Davin, MRAA’s vice president of industry relations, says that while the conference is still a ways off, a record number of exhibitor spaces have already been sold.
“That’s been the trend since 2019, growing the number of exhibits each year,” he says. “We’re going to be at the Tampa Convention Center, where we’ve been in the past, but we’re going to be opening up more spaces for people to participate. We’ve had to announce that we were sold out in the past. We’ll have the full expo hall with our educational classrooms upstairs in the convention center, but there will additionally be more workshops, education and exhibits on the first floor.”
Dealer registration opened in mid-July, and so far, Davin says, those numbers are looking good, too. “There were some real headwinds in the industry last year. Those haven’t all gone away, certainly, but our experience has been that people are excited and wanting to invest in being at the event,” he says.
This year’s show theme is “New Fundamentals,” which means all the things dealerships need to be able to do in order to compete in today’s marketplace. “That means there’s going to be a lot this year on AI,” he says. “Dealers know they need to be using AI. They’re not against using AI. They’re not afraid of AI, but they don’t fully know where to get started.”
Returning favorite speakers on other topics will also be part of the program, Davin says, including some who specialize in enhancing the customer experience. “Customer expectations have really evolved and changed, and our attendees need to understand what they’re competing against,” he says. “People expect convenience and a certain level of service. Part of what we consider the new fundamentals is how you bring that into a dealership. How do you use AI in a way that enhances things and makes things easier for folks, but isn’t creepy or detracting from that experience? There are certain things you can offload, and certain things where you need a human touch.”
Changes are occurring so quickly with the technology, Davin says, that dealers can have a hard time keeping up on strategic thinking. “Some of the best practices from six months ago are no longer considered best practices,” he says. “It’s evolving and changing. Dealers asked for a roadmap of how to navigate this, so that’s one of the big focuses of the conference this year.”
Dealer Week will also have more opportunities for exhibitors and attendees to have what Davin calls meaningful interactions. “Some of the feedback we’ve gotten is that they love the formal sessions, but they get a lot out of peer-to-peer conversations with people who are facing the same challenges they are,” he says. “So we’re bringing back roundtable discussions, and last year we did a women’s networking event that we’re bringing back and expanding this year. We’re trying to find ways to encourage people to interact and have meaningful conversations with their fellow dealers.”
This story originally appeared in the September 2026 issue of Soundings Trade Only.
