Open letter from Annette Roux
On Sunday, September 10, 2017, two days before the opening of the Cannes Yachting Festival, Annette Roux, president of the Cannes show, but also former president of the Nautical Industries Federation and the Bénéteau Group, published an open letter (see full text at the end of the article) denouncing the attitude of the organizer, Reed Exposition. While the dispute between Reed Exposition and FIN Annette Roux, who is currently before the courts for the organization of the Cannes Yachting Festival, draws a parallel with the situation encountered by FIN 40 years ago with the former organizer of the Paris Boat Show. She especially protests against his non-invitation to the gala evening that will be held with the exhibitors to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Cannes event. She criticizes the "inelegance" of Reed Exposition and its "indifference towards the women and men who made this show". Although she no longer has an operational position at the FIN, this statement is not made to calm the relations between it and Reed Expo.
Response from Reed Expo
Contacted by BoatIndustry, Michel Filzi, president of Reed Exposition, said he regretted the situation, while confirming that he had not invited Annette Roux: "I thought the war of communiqués was over and I note with great regret that it is not. Apart from an attempt at destabilization, I do not understand the objective of such a letter on the eve of the event. Mrs Roux mixes the history of the Paris show and the one of Cannes. Moreover, there is no statutory presidency, contrary to her communiqué. This year, the honorary presidency has been given to Jacqueline Bourey, the founder, with the objective of bridging the gap with the 40 years of the Cannes Yachting Festival. On our side, we are concentrating on the opening of the show, totally separating the organization of the event and the legal dispute with the FIN.
A foundation for the future?
We prefer to retain, in the interest of the nautical professionals and leaving aside the conflicts, the second part of this sentence of the open letter of Annette Roux, describing the past to foresee the future: "This period was violent: the exhibitors were under influence, indisposed by legal actions, communiqués of some and others, but this crisis will lay the foundations of the future The violence of the words is unfortunately already there, it remains to lay the foundations...
Full text of Annette Roux's open letter
History is definitely repeating itself!
Forty years ago, the magazine Industries Nautiques wrote: "... the numerous problems relating to the relationship between the Federation and the technical organizer of the show (in Paris) ... give the impression to the profession that it has less and less control over the event, even though paradoxically it is the legitimate owner of the show, which some people still ignore. We know the origin of this malaise: the denunciation of the contract binding the Federation to its contractor... The Federation, by showing the intention to withdraw from this contract, was under the threat of a scorched earth policy..." [1]
We were in 1976/77.
So 2017 is indeed an anniversary year!
The professional federation that is the FIN was born to defend the interests of its members and promote boating, first at boat shows.
Because boat shows are a "necessary evil" in our business for reasons we all know. Not to be there is to no longer exist. But their cost must remain affordable for all.
To reach its objectives, the profession, at least for Paris and Cannes, has called upon organizers and service providers from the outset.
But then, why this anger in 1977 of the President of the FIN, Michel Nivelt, leading him, after agreement of his Council, to denounce the contract of the technical organizer - the SPODEX - that it had chosen itself? Because he had noticed that SPODEX, directed by Jean Dayné, was getting rich at the expense of the profession [2]
This period was violent: the exhibitors were under influence, indisposed by legal actions, communiqués from one side or the other, but this crisis will lay the foundations for the future.
Jean Dayné will transfer to OIP, founded by Jean-Pierre Jouët, his client files, his expertise and his main collaborator Jacqueline Bourey.
Jean-Pierre Jouët loves the profession above all. As a builder himself, then founder and first President of the FIN, he shares the same ambition and values as the Federation.
Perfectionist and fearing that OIP would not be able to carry out our two shows, Paris and Cannes, he graciously ceded the organization of the latter to Jacqueline Bourey, who created her own company, SEPA.
The Nautical Industries Federation will then have two great professionals to develop its shows. But as time goes by, they will have to "hand over".
OIP will then become Reed-OIP, and SEPA, Reed-SEPA. The personal and trusting relationship that FIN and the organizers of its shows have built up will continue until 2016, when it will be broken and the current crisis will be born.
The Reed company, which organizes this year's Cannes Show, has chosen to invite the exhibitors to a prestigious evening to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Show.
On the grounds that it is in conflict with the Federation of Nautical Industries, it dismisses it from the organization of this event and simply forgets to invite me, while I remain statutorily the only President of this Show.
Beyond the inelegance, I see in it the expression of an indifference towards the women and men who made this exhibition.
To commemorate is to remember without pretense, in truth and humility.
In its current version, the Show is the result of a fruitful exchange between the Mayor of Cannes, Bernard Cornut-Gentille, and the leaders of the FIN, Michel Nivelt, its President, Claude Deburaux, its Vice President in charge of the Cannes Show and Stéphane Flachon, President of the Mediterranean Trade Chamber.
The project of the FIN was to create a show complementary to the one in Paris. While the city provides its support and takes charge of the technical organization of the show, the Federation administers, presides over and animates the show, its admission committee and its organizing committee. It is the Federation that proposes to the city to take SPODEX as marketer.
It is thanks to them, to their successors and to their collaborators that we owe the success of this show. In addition to Jacqueline Bourey, whose professionalism we have always underlined, for the city we must salute the action of Georges Charles Ladeveze and Anne-Marie Dupuy, Mayors of Cannes, of Georges Dufour their deputy, of Jean Pierre Odéro, and more recently that of Bernard Brochand and David Lisnard, whom I had the pleasure to welcome last year.
For the Federation, I want to recall the action of Claude Deburaux, continued by Jacques Girardin, vice-president of the FIN and city councillor of Cannes and delegated to the nautism. I also think of Michel Richard who inaugurated it six times as President of the FIN, as well as of Tibor Sillinger and Nic Johansen, who animated its Organizing Committee, notably at the time when I was myself President of the FIN.
To deny today, as Reed does, the decisive action of all these professional leaders and officials is not only an untruth, the mark of a profound ignorance of what our industry is, but also an insult to the past, present and future.
