Salon du Foil returns to Serre-Ponçon with testing and racing

Serre-Ponçon’s second Salon du Foil is set to give riders something more useful than a glossy expo: a single alpine weekend where wingfoil, kitefoil, windfoil, pumpfoil and surf foil all share the same venue, the same conditions and the same competitive pressure. For anyone trying to judge what matters in foil gear right now, the draw is not spectacle. It is the chance to see what survives real testing at the Théâtre de Verdure in Savines-le-Lac.

The event runs June 20-21 in Savines-le-Lac, Hautes-Alpes, with tests, competition, demonstrations and catering built into the program. Saturday opens at 9 a.m., and the official schedule also includes a Surf Foil Tricks Challenge on June 20 from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. near the Théâtre de Verdure, adding another layer of on-water action to a weekend that is clearly built for both participants and spectators.

The biggest competitive signal comes from pumpfoil. The Alpine stage of the Open National Pumpfoil will be staged in Savines-le-Lac, with support from the French Surfing Federation, and that matters because pumpfoil is no longer being treated like a fringe discipline. The federation launched a national foil tour in 2026 to support the growth of foil disciplines, and pumpfoil sits at the center of that push. In practical terms, Serre-Ponçon is becoming a proving ground for where the discipline is headed, not just a stop where riders show up to cruise.

That makes the gear-testing side of the salon just as important as the racing. The local listings say the weekend is designed to bring major foil brands to the lake, so riders will be able to compare boards, foils and setups in a compact format rather than trying to decode brand claims from afar. In foil, that distinction matters. A demo day tells you what looks fast. A race weekend tells you what holds speed, stays stable and keeps working when conditions get messy.

Serre-Ponçon is leaning hard into the setting, and for good reason. The tourism page describes the lake as a reference spot for foil and watersports, thanks to turquoise water, regular breezes and an alpine backdrop, and calls the weekend a “100 % glisse” event that is unique in France. That positioning gives the salon a broader role than a simple product showcase. It is a regional sales pitch, a competition stage and a snapshot of how foil disciplines are organizing themselves around more formal racing formats.

For riders watching the sport’s direction, that is the real takeaway from Savines-le-Lac: pumpfoil is gaining legitimacy, testing is becoming more structured, and the most useful foil events are starting to look less like exhibitions and more like functional laboratories.