Comparable Notes, Not Brochures: A Twenty-Minute Method for London’s 2026 Show

At a show that places a 30-metre yacht, a light jet and a pre-war sports car within a few minutes’ walk of one another, the risk is not lack of choice. It is loss of thread. Each stand speaks its own language: naval architecture and berth availability on one side, runway slots and management contracts on another, provenance files and storage arrangements somewhere else. By mid-afternoon, the visitor who has collected a bag of brochures often has little more than a headache and a set of impressions that cannot be compared.

The twenty-minute rule is a response to that problem. It is not a claim that a yacht can be understood in twenty minutes, nor that a jet or a car can be. It is a way of giving each stand enough time to yield useful answers while preserving the same framework across all three. The aim is to leave with comparable notes, not a carrier bag.

Set the clock before you set foot on the stand

Before entering the hall, decide how many stands you will genuinely inspect. Three asset classes and six stands is a realistic day; three asset classes and twenty stands is a tour, not an inspection. Allocate twenty minutes per stand and ten minutes between stands for notes and movement. Put the schedule in writing, even if it is only a list on a phone.

Carry one notebook or tablet and use the same page structure for every asset. A simple grid works: asset type, stand, earliest delivery, price basis, infrastructure requirement, next step, open question. The grid matters more than the prose. If a sales representative offers a brochure, accept it only if you can annotate it with the stand name and the date; otherwise photograph the specification page and leave the paper behind.

Five questions that survive the category jump

The temptation is to ask different questions of each asset class. In practice, five questions can be adapted to all three, and asking them in the same order makes the answers comparable.

First: what is the earliest realistic delivery or handover window, and what has to happen before a contract is signed? For a yacht, this may involve build slots, survey and flag registration. For a jet, it may involve completion, registration and management arrangements. For a car, it may involve provenance checks, servicing and transport. The answer should be a date range, not a headline.

Second: what is included in the quoted price, and what is routinely excluded? VAT, berthing, crew, hangarage, insurance, storage, servicing and delivery are the usual candidates. Ask for the exclusions in writing. A figure that excludes the cost of keeping the asset in London is not a London figure.

Third: what does the asset require from London infrastructure? A yacht needs a berth and a crew plan; a jet needs a base, slots and handling; a car needs secure storage, servicing and perhaps a registration strategy. The show floor is a good place to test whether the seller understands the local constraint rather than only the global specification.

Fourth: who owns the next step, and what evidence will they provide? For a yacht, that may be a survey or a title check. For a jet, a pre-buy inspection and a maintenance review. For a car, a provenance audit and a mechanical inspection. The answer should name a person, a document and a deadline.

Fifth: what are the three assumptions behind the headline figure? Utilisation, resale horizon and maintenance are the usual suspects. A yacht priced for charter use, a jet priced for a set number of hours and a car priced for concours condition are not the same as assets priced for private, low-use ownership. Ask which assumptions the seller has made and which ones you would need to change.

Twenty minutes in three acts

The first five minutes are for orientation, not persuasion. Ask for the specification sheet, note the stand and the name of the person you are speaking to, and resist the opening pitch until you have the document in front of you. The middle ten minutes are for the five questions. Record the answers in shorthand, using the same words where possible. The final five minutes are for one concrete next step and one red flag. A next step might be a sea trial, a cabin visit, a demonstration flight, a storage inspection or a document pack. A red flag might be an evasive answer on exclusions, an unclear delivery window or a claim that cannot be supported by paperwork.

This structure protects against the most common show-floor error: allowing the most polished stand to set the terms of the conversation. A twenty-minute box is long enough to be polite and short enough to be disciplined.

A single page for three different assets

Use one page per asset class, with the same rows. Under yacht, note berth, crew, flag and survey. Under jet, note operator, management, hangar and slots. Under car, note storage, servicing, registration and provenance. The categories differ, but the rows do not: delivery, price basis, infrastructure, next step, assumptions.

At the end of the day, spend thirty minutes on triage before leaving the venue or the nearest quiet corner. Mark each asset as clear, unclear or closed. Clear means the next step is defined and the exclusions are understood. Unclear means a specific question remains unanswered. Closed means the stand has not provided enough to justify a follow-up. Send the follow-up messages the next morning, while the notes are still legible.

The twenty-minute rule is not a substitute for proper diligence. It is a way of making the show floor produce a shortlist that deserves proper diligence. In a market where yachts, jets and cars are increasingly presented as a single luxury conversation, the visitor who keeps the same clock and the same five questions across all three will leave with something more useful than enthusiasm: a record that can be compared.