European Rotors · 2026

Agoris analysis · updated October 2026

Key takeaways

• European Rotors is the European professional trade show for helicopters and vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft, combined with a safety conference: the organiser presents it as Europe's leading vertical flight trade show and safety conference.
• The 2026 edition, the sixth according to the organiser and the first in France: exhibition from Tuesday 1 to Thursday 3 December 2026 at Eurexpo Lyon, hall 4, preceded on Monday 30 November by the EASA Rotorcraft Symposium. The full event therefore runs from 30 November to 3 December.
• A touring trade show: Madrid in 2023, Amsterdam in 2024, Cologne in 2025, Lyon in 2026, then Milan (Fiera Milano) from 29 November to 2 December 2027 and Cologne (Koelnmesse) from 6 to 9 November 2028. In the published calendar, Lyon hosts only the 2026 edition.
• Organiser: European Helicopter Association (EHA), owner of the event, with European Rotors GmbH, a German company based in Munich, which manages it and contracts with exhibitors. The European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) supports it and describes itself as a co-organiser on its own page, Vertical Aviation International (VAI) backs it, and the Union Française de l'Hélicoptère (UFH) is the host organisation for the Lyon edition.
• Annual frequency since the launch in 2021.
• Results of the 2025 edition in Cologne: 5,478 attendees, 266 exhibitors and 23 aircraft on display. For Lyon, the organiser announces more than 200 exhibitors.

Who exhibits

Typical profile

The exhibition covers the whole vertical flight value chain: tier 1, tier 2 and tier 3 manufacturers and equipment suppliers, avionics, maintenance, training systems, safety products and operational support services. Drones and advanced air mobility players sit alongside helicopters. The 2026 directory also includes insurers and brokers and logistics providers.

What sets the trade show apart is its aircraft on display: helicopters arrive by air and are installed in the hall. For 2026, a flight operations guide provides for a temporary helicopter landing site in Eurexpo's yellow car park P8, with aircraft flown in from Lyon-Bron airport on Saturday 28 November.

Notable exhibitors

The 2026 exhibitor directory listed about 250 entries on 10 October 2026, including a few organiser service spaces. The four supporters shown on the Exhibit page, Airbus, Bell, Leonardo and Safran, are all listed. Boeing, Robinson Helicopter Co., Hélicoptères Guimbal, Enstrom, RTX, Thales AVS France, HENSOLDT, Teledyne FLIR Defense, Patria and StandardAero also appear.

The French and regional anchoring of this edition is visible: the Aerospace Cluster Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, the helicopter operators' trade union SNEH, SEGULA Technologies, Nicomatic France, Héli-Industries and Avincis are registered. The list changes until the opening.

Quality of the audience

The audience is that of an industry trade show: operators, manufacturers, regulators, suppliers, training organisations, drone and advanced air mobility companies, and the next generation. Ticketing also provides a reduced rate for operators, pilots and engineers. The presence of EASA, which holds its own symposium at the opening, sets the trade show apart from purely commercial events: the European regulator is on site.

The 2025 edition drew 5,478 attendees, up 17.5% on 2024. The figures are the organiser's, with no published third-party audit.

Events & community

Conference programme

Monday 30 November is devoted to the EASA Rotorcraft Symposium: safety, certification, operations, training and future technologies. EASA has chosen “Together” as the theme of the 2026 edition and published the agenda on 2 October 2026 on its dedicated page.

From 1 to 3 December, the organiser announces conference sessions, technical workshops and training, as well as EASA's Rotor Safety Zone, presented as a hands-on space. In 2025, it offered safety demonstrations in Cologne. The 2026 educational programme page on the official website did not yet show detailed sessions on 10 October 2026.

Career Day

On Thursday 3 December, the last day of the trade show, the Career Day is due to bring together students, young professionals and employers for half a day, with company desks and 20-minute presentations on stage. The 2026 edition is sponsored by FlySight. Companies can book a desk from €900, or a full package at €1,450.

Community & networks

The trade show is run by the European Helicopter Association, which represents the helicopter community in 13 European countries and of which the UFH is a member. The UFH explains the choice of Lyon by the region's historic role in aerial work and mountain rescue.

On the press side, RotorHub International is the official media partner and publishes the Show Daily distributed at the trade show. Vertical Magazine and HeliOps Magazine are listed in the exhibitor directory.

For a general aviation exhibitor who also targets light aircraft pilots, France Air Expo takes place at Lyon-Bron airport, the very airport from which the helicopters on display at European Rotors depart.

On site: what you need to know

The trade show occupies hall 4 of Eurexpo Lyon, boulevard de l'Europe in Chassieu. Tram line T5 serves the Eurexpo Lyon stop from Grange Blanche. Lyon has three TGV stations (Part-Dieu, Perrache and Lyon Saint-Exupéry). By air, the organiser cites Lyon Saint-Exupéry international airport and Lyon-Bron airport.

The exhibition is open on Tuesday 1 and Wednesday 2 December from 10:00 to 17:00, and on Thursday 3 December from 10:00 to 16:00; the EASA Rotorcraft Symposium takes place on Monday 30 November from 9:00. Badge pick-up is open on Monday 30 November from 7:30 to 17:00, on Tuesday 1 and Wednesday 2 December from 8:00 to 17:00, and on Thursday 3 December from 8:00 to 16:00. Entry is paid. For the three-day exhibition-only ticket, the standard rate rises from €235 for regular registration (17 September to 29 November) to €260 on site; the reduced rate for operators, pilots and engineers rises from €95 to €120. The four-day ticket, including the EASA symposium and conferences, costs €285 (€140 at the reduced rate) for regular registration. All rates include 10% VAT. Day tickets and a student rate are available, and an invitation letter can be requested for visa applications.

How much it costs to exhibit

Planning your visit

For the exhibitor

• Book via the Exhibit page: the space is sold bare, without partitions, carpet or electricity, which are ordered separately.
• Booking today is a firm commitment: the general terms and conditions no longer provide for cancellation for convenience after 14 September 2026.
• For an aircraft on display, read the 2026 flight operations guide: recommended arrival at Lyon-Bron on Friday 27 November, flight into position on Saturday 28 November (Sunday 29 as a fallback), and prior helicopter landing site authorisation to be obtained from the French authorities.
• Plan for set-up from 28 to 30 November, from 8:00 to 19:00. Dismantling starts on 3 December at 17:00 and must be finished by 20:00 on 4 December, with no early dismantling.
• Ignore offers to sell visitor lists: the organiser has published an alert stating that it neither sells nor rents any attendee or exhibitor data.

For the decision-making visitor

• Register before 29 November: the on-site rate is higher.
• Come from Monday 30 November if the focus is regulatory: the EASA symposium is included in the four-day ticket and in some day tickets, not in exhibition-only tickets.
• Keep Thursday 3 December for recruitment: it is the day of the Career Day.
• Prepare your meetings in the online exhibitor directory, which shows stand numbers.

Policy & CSR initiatives

Neither the trade show's website nor those of the EHA and VAI publish a page of environmental commitments or ISO 20121 certification for the event. Sustainability appears as a programme theme (sustainable propulsion, reducing the impact of operations), which is conference content rather than an organiser commitment.

The venue, however, is certified: Eurexpo Lyon holds ISO 20121 certification, like the Lyon Convention Centre and La Sucrière, which are also managed by GL events. The exhibition park works with Valdelia on furniture recycling and with Ecovalim on recovering catering bio-waste, and has been testing exhibitor waste sorting since 2024.

How the trade show has evolved

The trade show was launched in 2021. The 2021 and 2022 editions are not in the table because no published results were consulted.

Trajectory analysis

European Rotors has established itself in a few years as Europe's annual helicopter gathering, with a formula that sets it apart from large general aerospace trade shows such as the Salon du Bourget: a single industry, operators in large numbers and the European regulator on site. The 5,000-attendee mark was passed as early as Madrid in 2023, and Cologne took the latest published result to 5,478 in 2025.

The touring format is deliberate. After Madrid, Amsterdam and Cologne, the trade show settles in France for the first time, hosted by the UFH, before Milan in 2027 and the return to Cologne in 2028. For a French manufacturer or operator, the Lyon edition is a chance to meet the European industry without leaving the country, a configuration that the published calendar (Milan in 2027, Cologne in 2028) does not repeat before 2029 at the earliest.

The challenge for Lyon is to confirm, for a first edition in France, the momentum of previous editions. The organiser announces more than 200 exhibitors, a threshold below the 266 of 2025, and the online directory already listed about 250 entries in early October.

All data that does not mention its source comes from the organiser's website.

Unless otherwise stated, all factual data in this listing comes from the organiser's official website (europeanrotors.eu).