Cannes Yachting Festival 2026: a week with MC Zero and Explomar

The Cannes Yachting Festival 2026 closed on Sunday 13 September. Our representatives spent the week alongside MC Zero and Explomar, and the lead-capture forms the two partners used ran on Yachtbase Forms. We attended and did not exhibit. We spent six days between the Vieux Port and Port Canto, and this is our account.

As always, we will keep it to what we can honestly say. There are no figures, no names and no deals here. The conversations belong to the people who had them.

The third year

This was our third Cannes. In 2024 and 2025 we worked alongside WAMA Yachts; in 2026 we worked with two partners. Each year the show has felt a little different, which is partly the show and partly us.

The first year was about learning the geography. The second was about learning what to bring. The third was about trying out an idea we had been working on all year: that every sales person on a stand should have their own lead link, that every submission should be credited to the person who took it, and that each partner should be able to see its own leads.

What the forms were for

Both partners wanted the same thing from the forms: a quick, branded way to record who they met, in a form that a visitor could complete in a minute. The forms carried each partner's own look. Each team member had a personal link, so submissions were attributed to the right person, and the answers went straight into a shared record rather than a pile of cards.

We will not describe what the forms recorded, since that is for the partners to share if they wish. We can say how it felt to watch a tool being used by people who did not particularly want to think about it. That is the ideal outcome: the tool fades and the conversation continues.

What we did

Our days followed a pattern, and we suspect many readers will recognise it.

• Mornings for planned meetings, when everyone is fresh and the pontoons are quiet.
• Middays for walking, looking and chance conversations.
• Afternoons for demonstrations and longer discussions with partners and professionals.
• Evenings for notes, repairs to the day's mistakes and a very late dinner.

We met many professionals from brokerage, charter and management. We discussed partnerships, some of which we hope to take forward, and we discovered projects we had not known about. That is the main reason to attend a show at all: the unexpected conversation.

What the format rewards, again

Preparation

The teams that looked calm were the ones that had done the dull work in August: material loaded on phones, roles agreed, forms tested. The others spent the morning fixing things.

Honesty

Visitors are tolerant of a team that says "I do not know, let me find out and write to you this evening." They are less tolerant of a confident answer that turns out to be wrong.

Consistency

If three colleagues describe the same yacht in three ways, the visitor notices. A short shared briefing each morning, five minutes at most, keeps everyone aligned.

What we would change

An honest recap includes a few things we wish had gone better.

1. Test earlier. A form that works in the office can behave differently on a pontoon with a weak signal. Test in the conditions you will use it.
2. Practise the hand-off. Moving from a conversation to a form should feel natural. A single phrase ("May I take a few details so I can send you the right information?") makes it so.
3. Decide who writes the first reply. The broker who met the visitor is best placed, and should be clear about when it will be sent.
4. Rest. Six days is long, and everyone's judgement dips on the fifth.

For brokers

The most useful habit this week was to record a contact before moving to the next. It takes thirty seconds, and it turns a pleasant conversation into an asset. Add a note about what was promised. If you cannot remember on Monday, you will regret it.

For charter operators

Charter conversations at Cannes are often about relationships: agents who will recommend your yacht, managers who may want to collaborate. Capture them with their interest and region, and add them to your list for the coming season.

For yacht managers

Managers who attended were often looking for suppliers and partners rather than clients. Treat those contacts as seriously as sales leads: record them, assign an owner and follow up.

The follow-up

The work now is the week after the show. The plan we recommend, and are following, is simple.

• Gather every contact into one list.
• Sort by timing and importance.
• Write a personal message to each serious contact, by the person who met them.
• Schedule the second contact before the first is sent.
• Review after a month: what came of it?

A CRM that holds the contact, the conversation and the next step in one place makes this much easier. A spreadsheet will do if it is disciplined.

Thanks

We are grateful to the teams at MC Zero and Explomar for their company and their trust through a long week, and to everyone who gave us a few minutes in a very busy show. Monaco follows within days, and we will be there too.

Takeaways

• Preparation shows: the calm teams were the ones who had tested their tools.
• A personal lead link keeps credit clear and records tidy.
• Honest, consistent answers build more trust than polished ones.
• The follow-up decides the value of the week.