Navexpo · 2027

Agoris analysis · updated November 2026

Key takeaways

• Navexpo is the professional trade show for maritime innovation afloat: a marquee erected on a quay in the port of Lorient, extended by pontoons where boats, surface drones and underwater robots are put in the water. This is its signature feature, named the "Expo Dynamique".
• Dual positioning: shipowners, ports, maritime works, fishing and marine energy on one side, the French Navy, state action at sea and military diving on the other.
• Next edition: the 9th, from Tuesday 25 to Thursday 27 May 2027, at Port de Lorient Centre, on the Quai du Péristyle. Open from 9:00am to 5:30pm, and until 4:30pm on Thursday.
• Organiser: Le Bureau Naval S.A.S, a Lorient-based company whose general commissioner is Gildas Bernard. No co-organiser.
• Annual frequency. Founded in 2016, the trade show has held eight editions: 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2022, 2024, 2025 and 2026. No edition in 2020 (the one scheduled for 1 to 3 April was swept away by the pandemic), nor in 2021 or 2023.
• Results of the last edition, in June 2026: 120 French and international exhibitors, 1,200 professional visitors, more than 25 boats, drones and pieces of equipment on demonstration, 15 conferences and round tables. Four areas on the quay: stand marquee, conference area, Expo Dynamique and a café-restaurant overlooking the roadstead.

Who exhibits

Typical profile

The trade show organises its offering into eight families: drones, digital solutions and artificial intelligence; naval construction and engineering; onboard equipment; marine environment measurement; port infrastructure and equipment; safety equipment; commercial and military diving; maritime services.

The common thread is professional use of the vessel: nothing here relates to leisure boating. What is sold here are working boats, onboard systems, underwater robotics and services, to buyers who operate a fleet. This specialisation explains the trade show's modest size, which the organiser openly describes as a human-scale event.

Notable exhibitors

The official website does not publish a named list of exhibitors: the "Exhibitors" tile on the homepage does not link to any directory, and the only entry point remains the 2027 exhibitor pack request form.

The companies present in 2026 are documented in an interview with Gildas Bernard published by Theatrum Belli on 26 May 2026: Zodiac Milpro, partnering with SeaOwl, unveiled the SRA USV there, a rigid-inflatable boat combining autonomous and piloted modes; Seair presented its FT80 foiling rigid-inflatable; the Couach shipyard its Magellan surface drone; SIREHNA, a Naval Group subsidiary, a new small surface drone. Underwater robot demonstrations were provided by Delair, Lorient-based RTsys, Ema-Tech and DSV. The organiser also cites Sillinger, JFD and SRS-Strategic Robotic Systems.

Visitor quality

The trade show targets operators, buyers and decision-makers. The segments listed are specific: defence and security, port services, maritime and inland waterway mobility, the naval sector, ports and local authorities, maritime and underwater works, hydrography, offshore energy, merchant shipping, fishing and shellfish farming, offshore racing.

The most visible shift concerns defence. In the same interview, Gildas Bernard reports a significant increase since 2024 in visitors from this sector, citing FORFUSCO, the Groupe des plongeurs démineurs (the minehunter diver group), the Direction générale de l'armement (the defence procurement directorate) and the Agence de l'innovation de défense (the defence innovation agency), as well as Customs and the Gendarmerie.

No OJS certification or third-party attendance audit is published: the figures available are those communicated by the organiser after each edition and picked up by the maritime press.

Programme & community

Conference programme

Conferences and round tables are held in a dedicated area, with free access for visitors. The 2026 edition featured fifteen of them over three days, following a consistent logic: giving operators the floor to discuss their needs, then letting companies present their technologies through use cases.

The 2026 programme gives a sense of the institutional level reached: a delegation of Canadian companies led by the Canadian embassy on maritime and port decarbonisation, the Fédération Française des Pilotes Maritimes (French Federation of Maritime Pilots) on renewing the piloting fleet, the Pôle Mer Bretagne Atlantique and AMIAD, the Ministerial Agency for Defence AI, on artificial intelligence applied to naval defence, AUDELOR on the economic impact of Lorient's ship repair industry, the Fondation Tara Océans on the Tara Polar Station's sea trials.

The third day was entirely devoted to the Journée de l'Innovation Maritime (Maritime Innovation Day) run by the ministry responsible for the Sea and the DGAMPA, focused on wind propulsion, with Neoline, Oceanwings, Windcoop, Sailcoop, Louis Dreyfus Armateurs, AFNOR and Bureau Veritas Marine & Offshore. The 2027 programme had not been published at the time of writing.

The Expo Dynamique

This is the trade show's reason for being, and the organiser presents it as unique in the world. Four types of demonstration coexist on the water: civil and military maritime drones, surface, underwater, remotely operated or aerial, demonstrated in the port's waters, in a 25 m³ diving pool and above the roadstead; fast craft afloat, with onboard visits for rescue, surveillance, interception and works operations, and sea trials including at high speed; professional boats featuring an innovation, foils, electric, hybrid or hydrogen propulsion; wind propulsion solutions, with sailings in the heart of the roadstead.

The 2026 edition was due to feature an operational partnership with FORFUSCO, announced a week before the trade show: scripted demonstrations, prepared in advance, to allow French Navy operators to assess drones and diving equipment away from the stands. No post-event report explicitly confirms that they took place.

Community & networks

The trade show is held with the support of the Brittany Region. Its listed partners are the ministry responsible for the Sea, GICAN, the Cluster Maritime Français, the Pôle Mer Bretagne Atlantique, AFBE (the French electric boat association), Wind Ship, the City of Lorient and Lorient Agglomération. Naval Group has been a partner since 2018, after sending around twenty engineers and buyers to visit.

On the press side, Mer et Marine has covered the event since its beginnings, alongside Le Marin, Marine & Océans and RIBs Only.

The organiser takes a complementary stance: its stated ambition is to make Navexpo an operational offering that complements the major institutional defence trade shows, in the manner of Euronaval or the British DSEI. The two logics do not replace one another: one gives access to international delegations, the other to a sea trial in front of the operator who will use the equipment.

On site: what you need to know

The trade show is held at Port de Lorient Centre, on the Quai du Péristyle, equipped with a large pontoon, facing the roadstead. The setting is part of the appeal: military shipyards, the French Navy, maritime works shipowners and wind-propulsion equipment manufacturers are all nearby.

By train, Lorient is served by direct TGVs from Paris, taking around three hours, and by direct TER trains from Nantes. From the station, the city's electric shuttle takes twelve minutes to the Péristyle stop, 150 metres from the trade show; a taxi takes eight minutes. By car, take the Lorient exit off the expressway, then follow the direction for Lorient Ports and the trade show signage. By air, access is via Paris and a direct TGV, or via Nantes and Rennes. By sea, the pontoon is reached by passing the Citadelle de Port-Louis and then the Lorient channel.

The trade show is open from 9:00am to 5:30pm on Tuesday 25 and Wednesday 26 May 2027, and from 9:00am to 4:30pm on Thursday 27 May. The official website also offers a Hotels page. An official photographer and videographer covers the event: attendance implies consent to the use of images. Contact: salon@navexpo.com.

How much it costs to exhibit

Preparing your visit

For exhibitors

• Decide early between marquee-only presence and presence afloat: the number of pontoon berths is limited by quay length, and that is the scarce resource.
• Schedule the delivery voyage several months in advance if the vessel is coming from another port.
• Prepare sea trials as a sales exercise: time slots, people on board, demonstration scenario, safety briefing. This is what the buyer comes for.
• Aim to speak at a conference: on a trade show of this size, it reaches a significant share of visitors at once.
• Approach the organiser in advance for targeted meetings with defence players, which sometimes require a confidential setting.

For decision-making visitors

• Come for the Expo Dynamique, not the stands: comparing equipment in operation, in the water, on the same day, cannot be found anywhere else.
• Book sea trials in advance with the relevant exhibitors, as the number of outings is inherently limited.
• Use the conference area, with free access, for regulatory topics where public authorities speak directly.
• Plan suitable clothing: quay and pontoons, outdoors, late May in Brittany.

CSR policy & initiatives

Maritime decarbonisation is at the heart of the trade show's content: wind, electric, hybrid and hydrogen propulsion. This shows in the listed partnerships, which bring together AFBE and Wind Ship, and in the third day of 2026, entrusted to the ministry responsible for the Sea for an entire session on the wind-propulsion sector.

This content should nonetheless be distinguished from an organisational commitment. Neither the trade show's website nor its organiser publishes a formalised CSR policy, a carbon footprint report or ISO 20121 certification: the menu has no Commitments or Sustainability section, and Le Bureau Naval, a small-scale structure, does not publish a group-wide programme. The format is not neutral for all that: vessel delivery voyages from other ports and sea trials are emissions items specific to this trade show, which are not covered by any published figures.

The venue offers no documented guarantee either: unlike an exhibition park operated by a certified operator, the Quai du Péristyle is a public quay fitted out for the occasion, with no event operator publishing a site-specific approach. The local roots remain verifiable: the City of Lorient, Lorient Agglomération and the Brittany Region support the event, and a multi-year agreement with Lorient Agglomération had been signed as early as 2018.

How the trade show has evolved

Trajectory analysis

The raw figures do not trace an upward line. The 2019 edition, the last before the pandemic, recorded 138 exhibitors and 3,800 visitors counted, a record at the time; the 2026 edition recorded 120 and 1,200. Everything points to a change in counting basis rather than a decline in attendance: in 2019, the trade show was held at the open site of Lorient La Base, where the naming ceremony of a trawler alone drew 400 people. In 2026, the organiser only counts professional visitors with a decision-making profile. No source explicitly confirms this change of method, but the contrast between the two site formats strongly suggests it.

The rebuild involved a search for a site. After the 2020 cancellation and a three-year pause, the trade show restarted in 2022 with 80 stands, then reached 120 exhibitors again in 2026, up 10% on the previous year, changing quay three times over four editions: the Rond de Keroman in 2022, the Quai TCD in Lanester in 2024, then the Péristyle in Lorient since 2025, presented as the location now settled on. Moving around was not a matter of principle, and the city centre seems to have settled the question.

The most structural shift is the partial pivot towards defence, dated to 2024 by the organiser and made tangible in 2026 by the partnership with FORFUSCO and the arrival of specialised manufacturers. A trade show that originally served fishing, maritime works and passenger transport is becoming a testing ground for public-sector buyers of autonomous systems. For a maritime drone manufacturer, it is one of the few places in France where an institutional prospect sees the equipment working before drafting a specification.

The dates for the 2028 edition had not been announced at the time of writing.

All data without an explicit source comes from the organiser's website.

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