Last week’s Ocean Business show at the National Oceanography Centre (NOC) in Southampton saw the number of visitor up 29%, taking attendance to 4589 visitors.

Versha Carter, Group Director for Ocean Business commented, “We are absolutely thrilled at the success of Ocean Business. It has once again surpassed expectations and we have had a flood of positive feedback, with many telling us it was the best show they have ever attended.”

The international exhibition presented technologies from nearly 350 companies around the globe. This was matched by a presence of international visitors which formed 38% of total visitor numbers.

Graham Sloane, Commercial Manager at Planet Ocean, commented, “Pound for pound the best trade show in the industry. Quality event, Quality leads, Quality Business.”

Alan Cameron, General Manager at GSE Rentals, called it “the best show in the industry calendar“, while Christopher Wallace, Sales Manager at Hydro Group, eulogised its success during a difficult time in the oil and gas industry, saying, “Breaking the oil and gas trend, Ocean Business has given us lots of business leads, we’ll definitely be back in 2017.”

Ocean Business’ format, which includes three days of training and demonstration sessions for hands on product testing in test tanks, on vessels, on the dockside or in classrooms was exceptionally well attended with nearly 2200 individual sessions booked, Ocean Business noted.

Cheri Arvonio, Ocean Business’ event manager, believes the show has become an unmissable event for the industry and this was reflected by important associated industry events held at the show; “We’re proud to have hosted some really high profile events - these ranged from a one day seminar on the Blue Economy, to a Maritime Autonomous Systems Workshop hosted by The Society of Maritime Industries and seminars chaired by the Canadian High Commission. These organisations see that we are bringing important decision makers together and it simply makes sense to coincide their events with Ocean Business which is a priority in diaries.”

Ocean Business will be revealing information about dates and stand sales for Ocean Business 2017 in the next few weeks.