Three fairs, one spring: Sensiblue at IFAT Munich, ChangeNOW and Aqua Nederland
The spring 2026 trade-fair season took Next Sensiblue across three of the most relevant stages in European water and impact technology. Between mid-March and early May, we exhibited at Aqua Nederland in Gorinchem, ChangeNOW at the Grand Palais in Paris, and IFAT Munich — the world's leading environmental technologies fair, and the main event of our spring calendar.
IFAT Munich — 4 to 7 May 2026, booth C4.339
IFAT is the technical centre of gravity for our sector. The 60th anniversary edition welcomed around 3,400 exhibitors from roughly 60 countries and approximately 142,000 visitors across 300,000 m², a record for the fair.
For Sensiblue, IFAT delivered the strongest commercial signal of the spring: we met more than 200 people at the stand, generated 130+ leads to follow up with from approximately 40 different countries, and sold 5 S4 demo-units during the fair itself. The booth also served as a face-to-face touchpoint with our distribution network and new potential business partners, where conversations went from the German regulatory partners, to new use-cases of our product to connecting with several people from as far away as New-Zealand. We will return to IFAT in 2028.
ChangeNOW, Grand Palais, Paris — 30 March to 1 April 2026
ChangeNOW sits in a different register: less technical fair, more global impact summit. The 2026 edition hosted more than 40,000 participants from over 140 countries, including around 1,200 investors, all gathered under the glass nave of the Grand Palais. Sensiblue was selected as one of the Change100 and drew significant attention for the projects we are realising in Uganda — where we have provided safe water to over 10,000 children — work that began at the ChangeNOW 2025 edition,
The outcomes were tangible: over 80 qualified leads spanning more than 20 countries, three S4 units sold directly from the floor, and a 90-second Impact Report interview filmed on-site. ChangeNOW also opened concrete conversations on water access financing models that align well with how schools in our reference markets already pay for services.
ChangeNOW is unlike the technical fairs: the audience mixes founders, investors, NGOs, municipalities and policy-makers. For a cleantech company in build mode, that audience composition matters as much as the lead count. We will be back in 2027.
Aqua Nederland, Gorinchem — 17 to 19 March 2026
Aqua Nederland is the national meeting point for the Dutch water sector, covering wastewater, drinking water, process water and urban water and sewer management. The 2026 edition brought together more than 310 exhibitors at Evenementenhal Gorinchem, where Sensiblue was invited onto the stand of our partner VDH Watertechnology B.V. GWW Construction
For Sensiblue, this was the home-market conversation: presenting the S4 to Dutch water boards, drinking-water companies, municipalities and consulting engineers. We closed the three days with 48 substantive contacts from 4 countries. Topics that came up repeatedly were the KIWA and CTGB pathways, and biofilm and Legionella control — areas where our work with KWR and KIWA is directly relevant.
What the three events together tell us
A few themes recurred across all three fairs.
The regulatory clock is real. Sensiblue is one of the very few chlorination devices currently going through, or already meeting, the most rigorous European biocidal, drinking-water and building-code approvals. That makes it not only one of the easiest disinfection methods to deploy, but also one of the most thoroughly regulated.
Biofilm and chlorine dosing strategy is increasingly evidence-led. The Chen et al. (2025, Water Research) finding that free chlorine at 0.1 mg/L outperforms monochloramine at 0.4 mg/L for biofilm control is reshaping conversations we have been having for years on dosing.
The reception was striking. Visitors repeatedly remarked on how smart the technology is, and colleagues from countries that need our device most were genuinely thankful that we have stayed the course in developing it over the last 25 years.
In total, the three fairs put Sensiblue in front of more than 250 qualified contacts across roughly 60 countries, with 8 units sold directly from the floor.
Looking ahead — autumn 2026
Our thanks to everyone who visited the stand in Munich, Paris and Gorinchem, and to the partners who shared the floor with us. The S4 medium ships from stock; the S4 large version begins delivery this summer. We look forward to continuing the conversations started this spring — and we are planning our next international exhibitions in Asia and the Americas to support our distribution partners in those regions. We will share the confirmed calendar closer to the date.
