A Guide to Eurosatory for First-Time Exhibitors
Eurosatory is the world's leading exhibition for land and air-land defence and security, and the next edition runs 19–23 June 2028 at the Paris-Nord Villepinte Exhibition Centre. It has been held every second year since 1967 and is organised by COGES Events, a subsidiary of GICAT, the French land-defence industry association. The 2024 edition drew 2,032 exhibitors from 61 countries, more than 300 official delegations and over 75,000 professional visitors.
Two things are worth knowing before you plan. The 2026 edition expanded into Hall 4 and covered more than 185,000 square metres, so the show is larger and more spread than exhibitors who last came in 2022 or 2024 will remember. And Eurosatory is professional-access only, with badge accreditation and, for build crews, identity checks a commercial fair does not run — which pushes several deadlines earlier than you might expect.
Who Exhibits at Eurosatory and Who Walks the Floor
The floor runs from prime contractors and vehicle manufacturers through subsystem and component suppliers to SMEs, start-ups and homeland-security specialists. Alongside hardware you will find optics and sensors, communications, cyber and electronic warfare, protection and mobility, medical and logistics support, and a growing cluster of robotics and unmanned systems.
The visitor is not a general-public attendee. Eurosatory draws armed and security forces, government procurement officials, official delegations, integrators and specialist press — people who specify, buy or influence acquisition. Two consequences follow for the stand. First, capability and country of origin need to read from the aisle, because a delegation walking a hall has minutes, not hours. Second, the serious conversation happens in a room, not at a counter, so private meeting space earns its floor area here more than at almost any other show.
The Division of Responsibility, in Detail
This is the part that makes a defence stand different, and it is worth setting out plainly. SOL Germany builds and delivers the stand: the structure, the graphics, the plinths and load-spread flooring, the power distribution within the stand, the meeting rooms, the AV mounting and the storage. We handle the organiser paperwork for the build — the electrical order, rigging permissions and crew passes — and we install and dismantle with our own crew.
What stays with you is the regulated equipment itself. Its transport, its import or temporary-admission clearance, its export licensing and its custody on the floor remain with you or with a cleared freight and licensing agent. We do not take title to, move, or clear controlled defence goods — weapons, ammunition whether inert or deactivated, dual-use electronics, optics, or anything covered by an export licence or end-use undertaking. That is a deliberate boundary, not a limitation: keeping the controlled chain out of the stand builder's hands is what keeps your compliance clean.
In practice this means the two workstreams run in parallel and meet on the floor. We design the plinth and the power to receive your unit; you arrange for the unit to arrive, cleared and documented, once the structure is up. The one thing that goes wrong when this is not planned is a stand ready and waiting while a licence or a carnet is still being processed — which is why we ask about the equipment, and who is clearing it, at the first conversation rather than the last.
Stand Size: Choosing at a Defence Show
Nine to eighteen square metres suits component, subsystem and service suppliers whose product is small, or is essentially a capability and a conversation. You get a counter, a back wall and standing discussions. What you cannot do at this size is bring a vehicle or hold a genuinely private meeting.
Twenty-four square metres is the point at which an enclosed meeting room becomes practical alongside a display — and on this floor that room is usually the reason to take the space. Thirty gives you a proper private briefing room and still leaves a working display.
Forty-eight square metres is the working threshold for a vehicle or a live demonstration position: enough floor for load-spread flooring, a drive-on route and a walk-around, plus a room off to one side. From 50 m² upward you move into flagship and pavilion territory, where a double-decker adds meeting and briefing capacity without consuming the ground-floor area a platform needs — and on a defence floor that ground-floor area is exactly what is scarce.
What a Eurosatory Stand Costs by Size
Ranges below are all-in for design, fabrication, graphics, intra-EU freight, install and dismantle. They exclude the floor-space rental you pay COGES, the electrical and rigging orders placed with the venue, and — always — anything to do with the controlled equipment itself, which is not ours to price.
- 9 m² modular: €4,100–€8,700
- 18 m² modular: €4,800–€10,100
- 24 m² custom with enclosed meeting room: €11,500–€15,000
- 30 m² custom with private briefing room: €15,000–€19,000
- 48 m² custom with vehicle plinth and load-spread flooring: €19,000–€26,000
- 80 m² premium or double-decker: €34,000–€48,000
Common Mistakes, and How to Start
The most common mistake is treating the regulated equipment as the stand builder's problem; it is not, and assuming otherwise is how a licence or a carnet gets started too late. The second is underestimating a vehicle's weight and access needs, so the floor build has to be reworked on site. The third is leaving crew accreditation to the last week, when a defence show wants names and documents earlier. The fourth is designing an open hospitality stand for a floor where the real conversations need a door. The fifth is planning from a pre-2026 hall memory, when the footprint has grown into Hall 4.
To start, send your stand size, your hall and stand number if COGES has issued it, whether you are bringing a vehicle or a live demonstration, and — separately — what controlled equipment you plan to display and who is clearing it. You get a 3D design and an itemised, all-in quote for the stand, at no charge and with no obligation.
Because Eurosatory is biennial, the two-year gap makes a reusable system frame a sensible purchase — the structure stays in our Frankfurt warehouse between editions and the next show costs a graphics refresh rather than a rebuild. Our modular exhibition stands are built for exactly that pattern, and pair well with a custom vehicle plinth when you need one.
