The London Boat Show was an event held in London from 1955 to 2018, organised by British Marine. First held at Olympia, it was later moved to the

Earls Court Exhibition Centre Earls Court Exhibition Centre was a major international exhibition and events venue just west of central London. At its peak it is said to have generated a £2 billion turnover for the economy. It replaced exhibition and entertainment grounds, ...

, and finally the

ExCeL Exhibition Centre ExCeL London (an abbreviation for Exhibition Centre London) is an exhibition centre, international convention centre and former hospital in the Custom House area of Newham, East London. It is situated on a site on the northern quay of the ...

. The show's cancellation was announced in May 2018, with organisers citing the show as commercially unviable for the industry in its current format.

History

The first London Boat Show was held at Olympia, before moving to the

in 1957. A popular feature of the show during its time at Earls Court was the use of the venue's pool area to host floating boats for visitors' inspection. It had expanded for some years into Chelsea Harbour before being moved to ExCeL in 2004. The inclusion of smaller craft such as

dinghies A dinghy is a type of small boat, often carried or towed by a larger vessel for use as a tender. Utility dinghies are usually rowboats or have an outboard motor. Some are rigged for sailing but they differ from sailing dinghies, which ...

kayaks A kayak is a small, narrow watercraft which is typically propelled by means of a double-bladed paddle. The word kayak originates from the Greenlandic word '' qajaq'' (). The traditional kayak has a covered deck and one or more cockpits, each s ...

canoes A canoe is a lightweight narrow water vessel, typically pointed at both ends and open on top, propelled by one or more seated or kneeling paddlers facing the direction of travel and using a single-bladed paddle. In British English, the ter ...

and stand-up paddleboards, as well as popular watersports such as

wakeboarding Wakeboarding is a water sport in which the rider, standing on a wakeboard (a board with foot bindings), is towed behind a motorboat across its wake and especially up off the crest in order to perform aerial maneuvers. A hallmark of wakeboardin ...

, led to the inclusion of th
Watersports Action Pool
where visitors could watch the craft indoors. The show was usually ten days long, but in 2018 was reduced to five days.

Sponsorship

In November 2014 it was announced that

CWM FX CWM FX was a foreign exchange trading firm located at the Heron Tower at 110 Bishopsgate, otherwise known as Salesforce Tower. Dealing at the firm was suspended in March 2015 following a police raid on the firm and 13 arrests. There have been no c ...

had become the title sponsor for the London Boat Show. Since 2015 the show would be known as the CWM FX London Boat Show. CWM FX was closed in March 2015 after allegedly operating a

Ponzi scheme A Ponzi scheme (, ) is a form of fraud that lures investors and pays profits to earlier investors with funds from more recent investors. Named after Italian businessman Charles Ponzi, the scheme leads victims to believe that profits are comin ...

Attendances in final years

References

External links

Website of the British Marine Federation
{{coord, 51, 30, 27, N, 0, 1, 47, E, display=title Boat Show Boat shows in the United Kingdom

History

Sponsorship

Attendances in final years

See also

References

External links