FORT LAUDERDALE INTERNATIONAL BOAT SHOW

The Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show is five days of boats afloat at the end of October and into November, from a Wednesday to a Sunday, across the marinas of Fort Lauderdale: Bahia Mar, the Hall of Fame Marina, Las Olas Marina and Pier Sixty-Six, with the largest yachts moored at Superyacht Village by the 17th Street Causeway bridge, and water taxis, shuttles and golf carts running between them. It calls itself the largest in-water boat show in the world.

In its second year a motor yacht cruised to New England and back carrying the message “Follow me to Ft. Lauderdale.”

The Auditorium

Boat sales lagged in 1959, and the manufacturers and dealers of the town met at the War Memorial Auditorium and “landed on the idea of hosting a boat show”. The first was held there in July 1959: thirteen exhibitors, five of them boat dealers trying to sell off their leftover inventory, and about two thousand people. Exhibitors paid no fees, and admission was free. Robert O. Cox, a former mayor of Fort Lauderdale who had opened Lauderdale Marina in 1948, was among those who got it started.

The second show went to the water, at Pier Sixty-Six, and a local paper called it a “marine wonderland”. In July 1970, as the Marine Industry Association Summer Boat Show, it drew fifty thousand people to Port Everglades.

In 1976 it took its present name, moved from the summer to the autumn, and made Bahia Mar its home. That year Kaye Pearson’s Yachting Promotions began producing it for the Marine Industries Association of South Florida, and did so for thirty years, until it was sold to Skip Zimbalist in 2006.

The association, created in 1961, still owns it; Informa Markets produces it. By 2025 it drew more than a hundred thousand people, to a thousand exhibitors and more than 1,300 boats.

The Marinas

The show covers nearly ninety acres and three million square feet of exhibit space. The Broward County Convention Center is its transport hub, and from there shuttles, golf carts and water taxis carry visitors to Bahia Mar, the Hall of Fame Marina, Las Olas Marina, Pier Sixty-Six Marina and Superyacht Village.

Superyacht Village is at Pier South, Pier Sixty-Six, beside the 17th Street Causeway bridge; the show calls it “the gateway to the Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show”. It holds the largest vessels at the show, and is open to every ticket. In 2025 the 74-metre Amels Casino Royale was moored there.

The yachts are not open to all comers: “Entry to vessels is at the discretion of the exhibitor, manufacturer, or broker.” The Windward VIP pass has a lounge at Superyacht Village and a Cabana Club at Bahia Mar, a VIP tender between the two, and an hour’s early entry each day.

In 2026 it runs from 28 October to 1 November, after a year that saw Pier Sixty-Six fully reopened and the Honours Awards held in Fort Lauderdale for the first time. New this year is a floating pickleball court at Las Olas Marina, with a tournament for yacht crew; the chefs Ryan O’Sullivan and Dave White cook at both VIP sites, and the Goslings Island Bar returns to Bahia Mar.

What to Know

It runs from a Wednesday, the Preview Day, to the Sunday, in the last days of October and the first of November. In 2026 the gates open at noon on the Wednesday and close at seven; at ten from Thursday to Saturday, closing at seven; and at ten on the Sunday, closing at five. The 2027 dates have not been announced.

Tickets are sold online only, with no box office at the show, and all sales are final. A day ticket from Thursday to Sunday costs $48, the Wednesday preview $73, and the Windward VIP pass $459 for one day. The show goes on rain or shine.

The show asks only that visitors dress comfortably for the weather and wear “good walking shoes that are easy to slip on and off, as you may have to do so when boarding the vessels.” Yachting attire, then, with shoes that come off at the gangway.

Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport is about three miles southwest of downtown, and twenty-one miles north of Miami. Brightline runs express trains to Fort Lauderdale, and a shuttle loop runs from its station to the show. The water taxi costs $15 for a day and $65 for all five, and is free with the Windward VIP pass. Stay at the Pier Sixty-Six Hotel and Marina, which reopened in 2025 and holds Superyacht Village.

The mistake is to drive to the marinas. The show’s own advice is to “Park and start your FLIBS experience at the Broward County Convention Center”, where there are more than three thousand spaces, and go on by shuttle or by water.

The Court

The Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show is not the Court’s own. Windward VIP passes, and visits aboard the yachts a member wishes to see, are sought on a member’s behalf, and the Court arranges the whole of it: getting there, where to stay at Pier Sixty-Six, and the table afterward. The Monaco Yacht Show is a month before.

How one becomes a member is set out under Admission.