Sunday Jan 04, 2004

The 2004 Schroders London Boat Show was this week heralded as a huge success, with a 45% increase in visitors. In 2003, there were 145,000 visitors to Earls Court and in 2004, the Boat Show had 210,100 visitors to its new home in London Docklands, ExCeL London .

Celebrating its 50th anniversary, the show moved to ExCeL London to make the most of its state of the art exhibition space and dockside, allowing the show to increase in size by 38%, making it the largest exhibition to have ever been held in London. The extra space enabled the Boat Show to host 5 new feature areas and the dockside allowed for big, exciting vessels such as the working navy frigate, HMS Northumberland, tall ships and larger sail and power boats.

ExCeL London also worked with the Boat Show to build a new temporary 11,500 sq m structure to hold the watersports arena, which included a 70m x 30m pool to host the first ever UK Indoor Windsurfing Championships, sponsored by Virgin Radio and seating for 1,700. This proved to be one of the main attractions, with every session a sell out.

Paul Streeter, Managing Director of National Boat Shows Ltd, said: "The 2004 Schroders London Boat Show has been a tremendous success and has justified the move to the new venue. ExCeL London has proved to be a fantastic venue and has easily coped with the record-breaking crowds we've had through the doors. This has been a fantastic way to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the world's best known Boat Show."

Says ExCeL London's Chief Executive, Jamie Buchan: "It has been an honour to host the Schroders London Boat Show, the biggest exhibition ever to be held in London. ExCeL London is the premier environment in which all events of this kind can flourish and this, one of the biggest brands in the UK's exhibition industry, has clearly been a huge success."

Exhibitors across all sectors at the show are delighted. Sales figures are high for the show duration suggesting the industry is set for another profitable year. Figures for 2003 show that the industry grew by 5.2% overall, providing £1,837 million of revenue from both domestic sales and exports.

"Overall the show has been very positive for us," commented Adrian Hart, Corporate Sales Manager for Performance Sailcraft Europe. "We love the new venue and are very encouraged by the quality of visitors here."

New exhibitor to the show, Boards Magazine, has been delighted with the show. Fred Willis, Sales Manager said: "The show has been really good. It's exceeded all expectations. The trade were slightly sceptical about the move but all in the industry are now sold on the new venue. We can't wait for next year."

One of the show's new features, the Waterscape.com Inland Waterways Attraction has also been very popular, with the purpose built pub Fox@Waterside firmly establishing itself as one of the places to drink at the show. Ed Rimmer of Challenger Syndicateships has been delighted with the attraction and the show: "It's the most stupendous show we've ever done in 30 years. We've taken 780 requests for details, the equivalent to what we've taken in the past four boat shows put together, and have taken £250,000 of business. At 4.40pm yesterday afternoon, we had had 14,020 visitors to our stand; on Saturday the 10,000th person was presented with a bottle of champagne"

Joan Porter, a director of Portfolio Marine exhibiting Dufour & Gib'sea yachts, said: "An ExCeL London lent show with sales 33 per cent above our targets. ExCeL London has more space than Earls Court and our customers have reported that it is much easier to make their way around."

"We are delighted and have done better than we have done previously at Earls Court", commented Chris Murdoch of Nauticalia. "We are 50 per cent ahead of last year's sales and this is our best boat show ever."

For more information, please contact Gemma Parkhouse at ExCeL London on 020 7069 4739 or email gemmaparkhouse@ExCeL-london.co.uk