Cannes 2026: personal lead links for every broker on the stand

The Cannes Yachting Festival 2026 runs from Tuesday 8 to Sunday 13 September at the Vieux Port and Port Canto in Cannes. As in previous years, the Friday is a late one, with opening until 10pm. The festival is organised by RX and owned by the French Nautical Industries Federation, and the organiser says it shows more than 700 boats afloat.

Our representatives will be there for the third year running, this time working with two partners, MC Zero and Explomar. We will be attending, not exhibiting. The lead-capture forms that MC Zero and Explomar use at the show will run on Yachtbase Forms.

That last point is the subject of this article. Not because it is exciting, but because it addresses a problem every team on every pontoon has.

The problem with leads on a pontoon

A broker on a busy day speaks to dozens of people. Some are serious. Some are curious. A few are old acquaintances. Almost all will say, "send me the details," and the details go with the name only if someone writes it down.

The usual methods are familiar, and each has a weakness.

• Business cards. Nice, personal, easily lost, and they say nothing about what was discussed.
• A paper list at the stand. Legible only to its author, and typed up days later, if ever.
• Notes on the phone. Private to the phone, not the team.
• A shared spreadsheet. Better, but awkward on a small screen, and open to everyone's formatting.

The result is the same on the Monday after: a heap of fragments, and a team trying to work out who spoke to whom.

What a personal link changes

The idea is simple. Each broker or sales person on a stand gets their own link to a branded form. They keep it on their phone or a tablet. When someone asks for details, the visitor is invited to fill in a short form, or the broker fills it in with them. Either way, the submission is credited to that person.

Three practical effects follow.

1. Every lead has an owner from the first second. There is no argument on Monday about whose lead it is, and no lead sits in a shared pile waiting for someone to claim it.
2. Every lead lands in the same record. Instead of fragments in five places, submissions arrive in the client records, ready to be assigned, tagged and followed up.
3. The brand stays consistent. The form carries the partner's own branding and can run in several languages, which matters at a show where visitors speak many.

This is how forms work in Yachtbase: branded, multilingual, with a personal link for each team member and the answers mapped into the client records. It is also why the partners' leads are labelled with the partner's business name, so each company can see what came from its own stand.

Designing a form for a show

If you are building your own form for Cannes, spend an hour on it now rather than ten minutes on the pontoon.

Ask only what you need

Every extra question costs a little goodwill. A useful minimum for a yacht business:

• name and company (if any);
• email and, optionally, a phone number;
• what they are interested in (buying, chartering, something else);
• which yacht or type of yacht, if they have one in mind;
• a note field for what they asked and what you promised.

Think about language

Cannes brings visitors from many countries. A form that can be answered in the visitor's language removes a barrier. If you cannot translate every field, translate the headline and the thank-you message.

Be honest about consent

The visitor is giving personal data. Say clearly what you will do with it, who will see it and how to opt out. A short, truthful sentence is better than small print.

Test it on a phone

Open the form on the oldest phone you own, in bright sun, with one hand. If it is awkward there, it will be worse on the day.

The follow-up plan

Capturing leads is half the job. Here is how we suggest the week after Cannes is organised, whichever system you use.

1. Daily, during the show. Ten minutes at the end of each day to review new leads and mark the ones that matter.
2. Within 48 hours of the close. A personal message to every serious contact, from the broker who spoke to them.
3. Within a week. A second pass for those who asked for documents or a viewing.
4. Within a month. Review: how many leads turned into conversations, and from which kind of exchange?

The principle is that the person who met the visitor writes the reply. A message from someone the visitor remembers is read. A message from a team address is skimmed.

A note for brokers

A personal link is a courtesy to the team as much as a tool. It means your leads are yours, and nobody else is likely to contact them accidentally. It also means your results are visible. If you are comfortable with that, it can be a good thing: a broker who can see what came from their own conversations can see what works.

A note for charter operators

At Cannes your leads may be agents, managers, owners and potential guests, and each wants something different. Add a question that sorts them at the point of capture, such as "Are you enquiring about charter, sale or something else?" so that your follow-up is relevant.

What we will be doing

Our own plan is modest. We will meet as many professionals as we can, talk about partnerships and look for inspiring projects. We will work alongside MC Zero and Explomar, and the forms will be one small part of that.

We will write up the week afterwards, without figures or names.

Takeaways

• A lead without an owner is a lead you will lose.
• A personal link gives each broker their own credit and puts every submission in one place.
• Keep forms short, multilingual and honest about data.
• Make the follow-up personal and prompt.