Earls Court Boat Show

Norman_E

Norman_E

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Set for 1 - 9 December 2007, with Excel apparently to follow it a month later. What a dumb idea, two boat shows within a month, and the only guarantee is that both will be failures because they will divide up the available visitors.
 
Agree - recipe for both shows to fail. People seem to have forgotten what a disaster Earls Court had become - just simply out-grown.
 
uh-oh, has nulabour socialism already taken effect?

um, competition isn't dumb. Competition is good, drives up quality and drives down prices. Twenty years ago there were almost THREE times as many company startups as today, and there should be far moe boat-related companies and magazines in the UK given island nationand so on.

The admission price of £14 for exel is high given that the exhibition space is also priced highish, so that entry fee might be expected to fall. So more visitors.

Likewise with another show needing to attract nw exhibitors, stand space costs will also fall, special deals and so on. So more exhibitors.
 
[ QUOTE ]
If exhibitor costs at EC could be kept down, maybe it would become a dinghy/small boat/niche boat/chandlery show.

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree, it is not too hard to imagine the real boaty stuff going on at Earls Court with all the big brash stuff a month later; being seperated by Christmas would make them very different shows.
 
Me too - I hope it manages to recapture the part of LIBS that seems to have been lost in the move to ExCeL - smaller boatbuilders, chandlers, specialist service providers, in other words the stuff that impoverished yotties like me can actually relate to.

I'd still go to LIBS to look at the boats I can't afford and all the equipment I may one day own - they are still of interest, regardless whether you'd buy them now or in 10 years time on the secondhand market. But I bet I'd spend my cash at Earls Court if they got the formula right.
 
I'd go to EC if it's only to talk to people and look at things I could actually afford. If it turns into another glossy bigger is best show then what's the point.
 
Can't see how an event that has filled the capacity to its limit, and has so many visitors its a crush can be described as a disaster!

Bet the smaller Raggie companies adopt the new exhibition, as I am aware of at least 1 smaller boat company that could no longer afford to exhibit at LIBS..... and if that happens and there are lots of visitors, sure as day follows night, the big guys will turn up the following year
 
competitive forces

Market segmentation at its very best.

On the one hand, bright modern comfortable surroundings with plenty of seats and nice places to eat.

and the other a cramped, fetid, dated smelly place with all if the facilties of a Crewe railway station on Sunday night.

You'll probably guess which will get my attendance and I can get there on a boat.
 
Re: uh-oh, has nulabour socialism already taken effect?

Competition is a good thing, and if you read my other posts you will see just what I think of NuLabour. The idea of two London Boat shows a month apart is not competition, it is stupidity. It will only work if they play to entirely different markets. I for one will not be going to Earls Court, the place is well past its sell by date and in need of demolition.
 
There is absolutely no room for a second London Show and certainly not one a month before ExCell. This idea is a disaster. The best that could happen is that it would collapse long before coming to fruition. The worst is that both shows will fold.

I personally prefer ExCell to Earls Court, but if the industry and visiting public decide they want to return to Earls Court so be it. But to set up a second show is crazy.

I don't know James Brooke but I am sure he runs a great sea school and was a competent Royal Marine Coxwain. But how and from where he is going to get the financial backing and organisational team to run a major international boat show I have no idea.

If the reports are true, he is planning to run at a loss for several years so he is obviously intending to operate in competition with ExCell. But this in practice means putting National Boat Shows out of business because the industry will not support two shows. Visitor numbers are not the only issue, more damaging would be the cost of running two shows in quick succession in addition to finding staff, money and product to supply the already overlapping Paris show in December and Dusseldorf in January.

Will Mr Brooke force ExCell out of business on a time scale his backers would tolerate? Would ExCell exhibitors give up their space there for the cramped surroundings of Earls Court? Would the public attend a show at the height of the build up to Christmas? If it became a small boat/dinghy show, what would happen to the Dinghy Show at Alexandra Palace in March which is already the biggest of its kind in the world?

It may give NBS a jolt but it won't work
 
I totally agree. Personally I think that he will struggle to get exhibitors to commit attend yet another boatshow (pretty well 3 shows in 4 months)

If he wanted to set up in serious competion to the existing shows he should choose a more appropriate time (how about April?)

There could be scope for a show that was primarily entertainment rather than sales focussed - so organised for the benefit of the attendees rather than the exhibitors
 
Jousting about the venues aside, it seems to me that there are two clear market segments to fill here. One, the XL version to cater for the high tech/ high spending market, another, the mooted EC version to cater for people that do want to spend the cash or are looking at the more *traditional* approach to the sport. Provided the the EC mob don't decide to go head-to-head with XL there may be room in the market for a different type of show.

FWIW, the few stand occupiers I spoke to had a similar story of fewer but more knowledgeable visitors and less tyre kickers. One put it down to impact of the info on the internet which made customers more savvy and the venue being far enough out of town to discourage the husband doing the show whilst better half bought out Harrods. The net effect being that he had taken more orders from fewer enquiries.

So perhaps the EC version could work with higher visitor numbers spending less cash per person. However, it would have to be very careful as to the type of customer it targetted otherwise JJ's doomsday scenario might follow.
 
JJ,

You may well be right, but it is a free market.

The boating public has no obligation to preserve NBS. Maybe competition will force them out of business, maybe it will force them to up their game, maybe both ventures will fail and someone else will fill the void.

That's (capitalist) life.
 
As someone who believes Margaret Thatcher was a bit pink, I tend to support the free market. Brooke is quite entitled to have a joust, and no doubt NBS will put pressure on its members to hold the party line. But if they really do go head to head both will lose, as will the boating public.

Arguing that the show can be split into small or large, traditional or modern, power or sail etc is fairyland. Equipment companies would have to attend both but they won't and without them there is no real show.
 
Only counter argument that I can make JJ is that I am aware of at least one manufacturerv at the budget end of the market that couldn't afford to exhibit at Excell.... the charges mentioned to me for a stand were extraordinary (assuming he wasn't inflating them slightly!)

I think the lack of competition has made LIBS organisers complacent on the fundamentals.... attempts to re-invigorate the show with new carpets, fake seagull sounds and large knots as seats looked pretty thin to me.... although I will admit that the anchor demo was pretty good.....

From a raggie perspective, the show looked quite average really..... lots of big flash mobos, but nothing really below about 30 feet on the sailing front.... if you had walked into the show as a family man with £30k in your pocket to buy a new sailing boat you would have been sorely dissapointed..... I remember shows where it was near impossible to see everything of relevance in one day.....
 
Lets not forget that NBS is owned by the British Marine Federation that works hard for its members ALL year round which intern deliver the products that both you and I use on a daily basis.

If NBS were to fold (which it wont) then the implications are far wider than just "loosing" one show they will loose huge revenues which are used to support and grow the industry FACT.

Earls court will never work as an International Boat Show unless NBS go back which is unlikely well not before 2010 if ever. It may work as an extension to the caravan show or even a small leisure show but will never work as a stand alone show.

We dont even know how much this man is taking, is it EC1 and 2 or just 1 is he taking all the venue, I doubt it very much as the boat show was the only show to use every available bit of space at Earls Court.

On top of that most boat builder range is so big now it wont fit in, not relevant to most I hear you say but big boats require big workforces and I think we should be proud that the Braithwaites of this world employ over 1000 people in the UK and choose the London show to showcase their flagship model.

As you rightly said there are also less bargains in the chandlery section again this is down to the internet and peoples prefered method of purchase, so expect this to area to reduce over the coming years.
 
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