This year´s Monaco Show was bigger and busier than last year, bathed in sunshine and with the associated panache no other show seems able to generate.
There were 90 stunning yachts in the harbour, and even though Mirabella Cinq (as she´s now named in France!) was unable to attend, her absence did not leave a gap in the yacht show. Every major builder had one of their latest vessels on display plus a large selection of older yachts, in beautiful condition, available for sale or charter.
The show area had been extended to incorporate a new Darse Sud, where the old dinghy sailing club was, with the addition of some 50 odd further stands, with the entrance now by the Grand Prix cafe. The stands on the new outer breakwater had been abandoned from the 2003 show and a single air-conditioned exhibition tent constructed at the root of the new breakwater.
I don´t think this was a success either having received feedback from other exhibitors based there.
On set up day, we took a run round to see the stand constructions in progress and it was apparent some serious money had been spent on some very exclusive stands.
There were exhibitors from all around the world, from Sydney to Seattle and Antigua to Antibes.
We have never experienced a show with so many high quality visitors. We actually took direct orders at the show and we ran out of some brochures which is very unusual.
There were also the usual assortment of exotic cars and watches usually associated with Monaco plus the occasional prince to be seen walking the show.
The show is almost too large now. Some visitors were complaining that they could not do it justice in one day.
We launched our new worldwide newspaper service to the yachting industry at the show. We have taken on the agency for NewspaperDirect for the super yacht industry. We are marketing a Yacht Print Station, which allows the yacht to print today´s edition newspapers on board in A3 format.
Overnight we printed newspapers for delivery to the yachts, from our portfolio of over 250 worldwide newspapers and during the day we printed "on-demand" newspapers for anyone with a specific request. We had numerous enquiries and a couple of orders for the Newspaper Yacht Print Station. We even had a call from the Hotel Metropole in Monte Carlo, asking us to print as many Saudi papers as we could and deliver them to the hotel.
We will be repeating this for the Super Yacht Cup in Palma.
All in all, the Monaco Show is an excellent show and is worth exhibiting and visiting if you have the need to see the whole industry in one location over a week.
A number of bars around the show had been inspired by the gossip on the docks to launch a new show cocktail called, "Mirabella on the Rocks"!
For further information contact:
Roger Horner at E3 Systems
Tel: +34 971 404208/400738 email: roger@e3s.com