MSPO ran from 8 to 11 September this year, and the organisers had warned everyone about the traffic. Visitor parking was out at the race track in Miedziana Góra, about 10 km away, with a shuttle bus into the venue. By the time I got there, it was full.

There's a hotel across the road from the track, so I walked over and asked if I could leave the car in their car park for the day. They said yes, then refused to take any money for it. Proper Polish hospitality.

I got on the shuttle in a good mood, and one of the best conversations of my week happened on that bus. I ended up next to the founder of a two-person startup. He'd spent years inside the industry, a lot of them watching the big primes take forever to move on anything. Eventually he spotted a gap in his own local market that nobody was going after, and he quit to go after it himself. By the time we pulled up at the gates we'd swapped details, and I walked into the halls more fired up than any keynote would have left me.

It was the 34th edition of MSPO and the biggest so far, with over 1,200 exhibitors from 43 countries and Canada as Lead Nation. There was a new hall this year too, and PGZ used it for the largest display it has ever brought to the show.

The stand I kept talking about afterwards was WB Group's. They'd lined the outside wall of the pavilion with light installations based on border infrastructure, a reference to East Shield, Poland's programme to fortify its eastern border. The whole stand was built around one line: Technological sovereignty. Poland's security. Inside there were more than a dozen premieres, including the Warmate 8X and an uncrewed boat. It's rare for a defence stand to say anything, and this one made its point before you'd even stepped inside. It won the Top Design award for best stand.

Estonia had a good showing too, with the Estonian Defence and Aerospace Industry Association behind the national pavilion. Anuna is headquartered in Tallinn, so I'll admit it felt good to see the flag in Kielce. There's some seriously good technology coming out of a country that size, and I left thinking a lot more people outside the Baltics should be hearing about it.

And then there was the Flamingo. Fire Point brought a full-size mock-up of its pink FP-5 cruise missile to Kielce, and behind it was the screen that's become a bit famous since Eurosatory, running footage of recent and ongoing strikes inside Russia. Whatever you think of putting combat footage on a trade stand, it's very hard to walk past. Coming into defence from gaming myself, I also can't help liking that Fire Point was started by a group that included game designers.

I spent a lot of the week with smaller companies as well, startups and scaleups a few aisles from firms that have supplied the Polish army for decades. They're chasing the same buyers on a fraction of the budget. A few had great stands, but plenty looked finished the night before, with videos that undersold what the company actually builds. I get how that happens. When you're taking a product from prototype to production in a few months, the booth is the last thing anyone has time for.

Walking back past the big stands, I kept thinking about the guy from the bus, and what companies like his could do with even a slice of that attention. If you've got a show coming up and your stand or film still feels like a placeholder, write to us at hello@anuna.cc.