DEMA Show 2026 Opens in New Orleans With a 50th Anniversary, a New Apeks Fin and SSI Overhead Courses

HEAD Watersports, which now sits over Aqualung, Apeks, Mares and the SSI training agency, has the week's most visible hardware story. Its Apeks RK4 technical fin, announced on 19 October, goes on display at Booth 1629. The Scuba News reports a one-piece rubber fin with two adjustment points and stainless-steel spring straps so a diver can switch between wetsuit boots and drysuit footwear, buckles designed to reduce snag points, and a stated focus on controlled movement and reduced silting rather than raw propulsion. The outlet is careful to say those are manufacturer claims it has not tested, that no price was given and that North American availability is simply "coming soon".

What SSI is launching at DEMA 2026

On the training side, SSI announced on 21 October that two new programmes, Cavern Diving and Limited Mine Diving, replace its Extended Range Cavern and Extended Range Mine courses, The Scuba News reported on Sunday. Both sit inside daylight-zone limits and are framed as the introductory step of a progression that runs on to Cave Diving and Full Cave Diving on one route, and Mine Diving and Full Mine Diving on the other. SSI's stated point is that finishing an introductory overhead course does not qualify a diver to go further into a system, which is the kind of plain sentence the overhead world has learned to repeat after this year's cave fatalities.

Travel operators use the show for reveals too. Aggressor Adventures told Divernet in October that it will unveil a new destination at Booth 2827 during the show, with chief executive Jay Roberts saying only that the company had been working on something special. Bookings timing and the location are being held back until the floor opens.

Why a trade show in New Orleans matters to divers

For a reader who will never set foot in the hall, the practical read is this: the gear launched or priced this week reaches dive shops over the winter, training agencies use the show to brief instructors on standards changes, and the travel deals that resorts sign with wholesalers become the packages on sale by spring. The anniversary gives DEMA a story to tell about continuity, but the exhibitor list tells the sharper one. One group, HEAD, now owns a large share of the equipment brands on the floor and the agency that certifies many of the people buying them. How the rest of the industry positions itself around that will be visible by Friday evening.

This article is journalism, not instruction. Cavern, mine and cave diving require specialist training with a certified instructor and agency, and no product on a trade-show floor changes that.