The World's Largest Boat Show

Every autumn, Fort Lauderdale hosts a spectacle that no other city can match. The Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show is the largest in water boat show on Earth, and it has grown into that title steadily since it was first held in nineteen fifty nine. The show sprawls across nearly ninety acres and some three million square feet of exhibit space, spread over marinas and lots stitched together by shuttle boats and floating docks.

In a typical year it draws more than one hundred thousand visitors, displays over one thousand three hundred boats, and gathers more than one thousand different boat and equipment brands in one place. This is where the world comes to see and to buy superyachts, the enormous private vessels that can cost tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars. The event is managed by the Marine Industries Association of South Florida, and it pours well over a billion dollars into the regional economy in a single week.

It is no accident that this show landed here. Fort Lauderdale had already made itself the yachting capital, with the boatyards, the crews, the brokers, and the deep protected water to float the biggest hulls afloat. The boat show is simply that industry putting itself on display.