Sydney boat show

[Noelm]

Just got back from the boat show, can't say it was great, not bad, but certainly not spectacular, had a bit of a bad experience with the Raymarine stand, tried twice to get someone to help, but had no luck. Plenty of mega trailer boats there, Edencraft were pretty flash, as were a few others, to me, it was almost a two part show, mega bucks boats, or small cheaper boats, the "normal" boats seemed to be lacking, the floating marina display was pretty small I thought, probably getting bent over and taken forcefully for parking was the lowlight, but then, it's Sydney.....

[catshark]

same , went there a few years back and the gap between affordability and mega was big. seemed they merely catered to the big end of town, i think the smaller competitors get charged a fortune to display and as for the parking, and i think they charged entry, well i left with a full wallet, disappointed at how i couldnt get customer service info about fish finders..

[Andy56]

Just got back from the boat show, can't say it was great, not bad, but certainly not spectacular, had a bit of a bad experience with the Raymarine stand, tried twice to get someone to help, but had no luck. Plenty of mega trailer boats there, Edencraft were pretty flash, as were a few others, to me, it was almost a two part show, mega bucks boats, or small cheaper boats, the "normal" boats seemed to be lacking, the floating marina display was pretty small I thought, probably getting bent over and taken forcefully for parking was the lowlight, but then, it's Sydney.....

I learnt from two years ago. I took a train in at the melbourne show.. This year i knew what i wanted but thought it was out of reach. I was tempted by everything but stayed focused. Its harsh to say its ho hum boring but lets face it, only so much new that we will experience. Nothing at the boat show we havent already seen. Always a chance of a bargain but how much of the no name tackle is of any quality anyway? Still I go every year, lol.
It must be a killer financially to be there with a large display too. The hustler dealer/seller is there in force. Soon as the shit canning of etecs started and only yamaha was the bees knee, they lost a sale. If they concentrated on the deal rather than the opposition, I may have bought a different boat, lol.
Its what you come to expect.

[Noelm]

The fishing tackle stands were just full of "stuff" that appeared to be aimed at the impulse buyer, had a bit of a look at the dive section, was sadly disappointed in that, one thing that I think kind of shocked me was an alloy boat, that kind of resembled a Barcrusher with motorised wheels called Sealegs, been around for years, but, I asked the guy the price, and I'm pretty sure he said 375 grand, I was stunned, and thought maybe I didn't hear what he said, but was dazzled by the number and just wandered off, I sure hope that's not what he said!

[Noelm]

I forgot one big highlight, the Bream comp guys have their Sydney round to coincide with the boat show, it was pretty good seeing lots of high powered, low profile Bream boats tied up, a metre away from huge Bream being hand fed hot chips by tourists, and knowing they can't fish there, must be tempting to just dangle a line in and hope to get away with it!

[RayLamp]

I went last year and the big value for me was being able to compare all the boats in the segment I was looking to buy in. Didn't regret it as seeing them all in the flesh is much better than online/brochures. Happy with my purchase too.

I don't know about this year, however I saw all ranges of boats from cheap, mid and expensive. They were spread over the two floors and some you had to search for. Some were outside on the roof too.

If I lived in Sydney I might have gone again this year, just for fun. But not worth it without a specific purpose.

[Noelm]

Pretty similar, except nothing on the roof, just the two halls, and the marina, add to that, the dive expo that took up quite a lot of space, I think it was just average, the big Sailfish cats were pretty impressive, but expensive, a couple of the multi engine US boats were fun to look at, but way out of the reach of the "man in the street" the Tohatsu man was so busy telling everyone that his motors were Hondas that I got sick of it in 5 minutes, the 7 Marine V8 outboard was fun, but never heard of anyone actually buying one, so it too, went in the "so what" basket, but, it's done now, I went, I saw, I was not impressed.

[Dirtyfuzz]

I noticed at the Sanctuary cove show there is a big push to get the American style center consoles into our market,


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[chocolatemoose]

so i was up in sydney for the set up days for a collueges exhibit. sydney weather was amazing and having on water in that weather is amazing "coming from a seasoned melbourne boat show exhibitor i was very very jealous"

Some insight, We recently had our post melbourne boat show review with the BIAV where "actually only 4 buisnesses and myself turned up to hear the results of the survey and give feedback"
two interesting numbers from the surveys that came back

18% of people went to the boat show to buy stuff
and 15% of people saw what they wanted to see at the boat show

so a few things to take away from that... as exhibitors its EXTREMELEY!!! expensive to go there, so its very very very unlikley you will be there without the plan to sell, other than coorperate stands "who are.. in a way stil lselling product" can afford it....
That is somewhat out of touch of what the majority of show goers said to be.. with only 18% saying they were actually planning on buying.

Feedback "on the street" here in melbourne is that dealers, builders and brands are taking their 30k-80k and spending it on other marketing... instead of shows........

Boat shows are what you make it for sure......im all for shows being longer than they are... but im an owner director, so for me working 1 hour or workin 10 days is much the same, but obviously paying staff etc for that time frame is costly.

A question i should ask is... do people here attend "field day" shows?.. smaller regional shows?

Moose

[Noelm]

Strangely enough, our local dealers used to have a show, they held it in a park, right on the water with a boat ramp, it was well attended, but it just seemed to fizzle out, these caravan, camping, 4X4, fishing, boat, anything else you can think of shows are a waste of time (well to me anyway) I have worked at the boat show in the past, and it's long days, big money for what can be little return.