Düsseldorf Boot

[Baddox]

Has anyone else from here been?
We’ve enjoyed a long weekend across at Düsseldorf Boot and still only saw half of what was on offer. There were some clothing bargains but less so for electronics and I could have spent the price of a boat in the art section. Seascapes by Mustafa Gunen were particularly impressive.

Despite the scale and area of the event it was still busy which brought its own problems trying to see some boats. Kudos points to J-boats, Elan and Fountaine-Pajot agents for assisting; my wife is now particularly taken with the sporty J122, I liked the E5. Options that we will look into. The Jenneau reps seemed frazzled by the end of day one and as current owners of a Bavaria we gave up with their winding queues.
Public transport to and from the venue was easy and free with the show tickets, more expedient was a 20Euro fixed fare taxi back to the airport. Leaving on Saturday, we joined the crowds from the show and football match piling onto the trains heading for a night-out in the city – from the atmosphere, I deduce the local team won. Sunday was a little quieter.

 

[st599]

Has anyone else from here been?
We’ve enjoyed a long weekend across at Düsseldorf Boot and still only saw half of what was on offer. There were some clothing bargains but less so for electronics and I could have spent the price of a boat in the art section. Seascapes by Mustafa Gunen were particularly impressive.

Despite the scale and area of the event it was still busy which brought its own problems trying to see some boats. Kudos points to J-boats, Elan and Fountaine-Pajot agents for assisting; my wife is now particularly taken with the sporty J122, I liked the E5. Options that we will look into. The Jenneau reps seemed frazzled by the end of day one and as current owners of a Bavaria we gave up with their winding queues.
Public transport to and from the venue was easy and free with the show tickets, more expedient was a 20Euro fixed fare taxi back to the airport. Leaving on Saturday, we joined the crowds from the show and football match piling onto the trains heading for a night-out in the city – from the atmosphere, I deduce the local team won. Sunday was a little quieter.

Didn't make it this year as I couldn't convince anyone to pay for me to go Electronics shopping for them. :-(

The electronics stands are mainly for showing new gear, but the large warehouses like SVB can usually do package deals. Holiday bargains, clothing and last years stock are normally well discounted. This year there was also a stand for hobbyist makers to discuss projects like OpenCPN.

Fortuna Düsseldorf lost to Werder Bremen on Saturday. You just don't get the aggro you would in the UK, unless you run in to the Ultras, and even then some Ultras (St Pauli) are uber left wing and protest about homophobia and the concept of illegal immigrants.

 

[laika]

I've been for the past 2 years. There's an awful lot of stuff there I'm not overly interested in (diving, fishing, a lot of the water sports, super yacht services and (sorry Baddox) the art hall) but even just the remainder is bigger than excel was at its best. There's generally an English speaker on every stand but occasionally it means waiting longer to speak to someone if, like me, your German isn't good enough for a technical discussion. If you go there for the weekend we found the way to see boats was to make appointments on the saturday for the next day.

The makers st599 refers to were these guys:
open-boat-projects.org – Halle 10 Stand H11 @ boot_2020 düsseldorf
Not selling anything, just there to promote DIY boat electronics. You wouldn't ever find that at excel.

One UK supplier told me that even with transportation of their stuff, travel and accommodation their total costs for Boot were not more than excel, even though they were close enough to London to not need hotels for the London show.

If I could only go to one show in a year it might still be southampton simply because everything will be UK-relevant and you don't have to worry about international shipping or what you can carry home in your luggage. Fortunately, "flygskam" aside we can go to more than one show a year. You can get the train the Düsseldorf from London but not leaving after work on a Friday and getting there the same evening.