sarabande
Well-Known Member
"PBO regrets that we are unable to bring readers our usual show map and standfinder guide"
Hey ho, that's LIBS off the visiting list, then.
Hey ho, that's LIBS off the visiting list, then.
LIBS - show guide
- Thread starter sarabande
- Start date
Twister_Ken
Well-Known Member
Speculation time…
The show organisers don't want to release an exhibitor list/map because there are so few of them?
The show organisers don't want to release an exhibitor list/map because there are so few of them?
wully1
Well-Known Member
That sounds likely..
Supine Being
Well-Known Member
Sadly, that would be my suspicion.
Steve Clayton
Well-Known Member
Steve Clayton
Well-Known Member
"We are unable to bring readers our usual show map and standfinder guide this year in our January issue, following a British Marine Federation decision not to allow third parties to publish a detailed map of the show guide"
Talulah
Well-Known Member
The wording isn't right. It finishes with "show guide" instead of "show". This hints the problem is with the show guide. Perhaps difficulty justifying to exhibitors why they should advertise in them. I don't think it will do anything to increase "show guide" sales. It may lower a peak in PBO sales in December.
I use to look at the floor plan to identify where the 'must see' exhibitors were.
It would be interesting to know why people on here bought the show guide and how long they kept them for.
By not having the guide in PBO the show 'awareness' will be slightly down and the consequence of that will be reduced ticket sales. Unless of course to publish would show a huge gaping hole in exhibitors.
Does anyone know know why the BMF made this decision?
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Wandering Star
Well-Known Member
Oh you cynical sailors! Anyway, since no one apart from myself seems to planning a visit this year, perhaps you'd like to send me your unwanted admission tickets (2 please) and I'll let you know what you missed after my visit.
Cheers, Brian.
Cheers, Brian.
oldvarnish
Well-Known Member
I think the real problem for the boat show organisers is that most of us know already what we'll miss - and that will be very little indeed.
Oh, for the Glory Days of Earls Court (anyone old enough to remember that place?)
Stemar
Well-Known Member
I'll admit to remembering it, mainly for all the little stands selling weird bits and pieces, most of it tat, but the odd thing could become one of those bits of kit that you didn't realise you couldn't live without until you had it.
I've been to Excel once, because I got a free ticket. Hardly any (no?) tat stands apart from the Lifestyle part of the show. I've got a boat, I can't afford another lifestyle! I don't want to spend gazillions on a new boat, nor do I want (can't afford) to rent one, so I can't see me going back.
oldbilbo
...
Wot he said...!
Despite the discomfort, the aching feet, the lousy catering, the queues.... it had a buzz, a Britishness. We met friends there from near and far, we listened to boaty celebs on their sponsors' stands, we were able to ask questions and get answers. We felt part of it.
No more.
London Docklands/ExCel seems more distant and alien than Frankfurt or Paris - and certainly less interesting. Not for me.
Talulah
Well-Known Member
Quite a few on here who would not go back but haven't been back for a while.
I didn't go last year.
Is there anyone on here who went last year and are encouraged to go back this year?
Alternatively, anyone on here who went last year and as a result is put off from going this year?
I didn't go last year.
Is there anyone on here who went last year and are encouraged to go back this year?
Alternatively, anyone on here who went last year and as a result is put off from going this year?
Twister_Ken
Well-Known Member
Where else are you going to be able to buy a vibrating massage chair with a free vegetable dicer?
JumbleDuck
Well-Known Member
The Earl's Court show (at which I first set foot on my boat, thirty one years before I bought her) was a winter reunion for sailors downstairs and a trade show upstairs. The Excel show seems more intended to attract people who are thinking of taking up sailing, mainly by chartering, and has much less to interest people who already have a boat. Certainly the social side just doesn't seem to happen in the cavernous, echoing voids of Excel.
I miss the old Southampton, too. The small, cheerful show where you could buy end-of-season bargains.
I miss the old Southampton, too. The small, cheerful show where you could buy end-of-season bargains.
Sailfree
Well-Known Member
the internet has changed the way we investigate products and buy them.
I suspect that boat shows will reduce in size and be mainly used by manufacturers to showcase their products. As exhibition costs increase the shows will inevitably decline and die!!
Speaking to SIL this weekend that has a shop. Currently getting the internet side working. Discussed hos original plans to open another shop. He says it will cost £250k and add £50k to his profit. He says that this (and the risk) has to be balanced against say £20k on an advertising campaign and will greater internet sales increase his profits by £50k without the £250k gamble!!
The world is a changing!!
I suspect that boat shows will reduce in size and be mainly used by manufacturers to showcase their products. As exhibition costs increase the shows will inevitably decline and die!!
Speaking to SIL this weekend that has a shop. Currently getting the internet side working. Discussed hos original plans to open another shop. He says it will cost £250k and add £50k to his profit. He says that this (and the risk) has to be balanced against say £20k on an advertising campaign and will greater internet sales increase his profits by £50k without the £250k gamble!!
The world is a changing!!
rogerball0
N/A
I went to Excel in 2012, admittedly it was a week day around mid morning and it was dead, absolutely dead. I remember walking into the hall where all the big froth blowers were like sunseekers, princess etc and it was me and literally a dozen other people walking around the place, got embarrassed by sales staff glaring at me so i turned round and headed back out to where the sailboats were. Still got a great deal on winches and other big items so its worth it for that but living 20mins from Southampton i think i'll wait till the next show there. The shows i feel have definately changed in attitude over the years, maybe its me but i get the impression unless you're buying dont think about climbing aboard, i just dont find either excel or soton shows as friendly as they once were, curiously i remember seeing 4x4 stands at excel a couple of times, thought it rather odd really.
I remember Earls Court fondly, it was the days when as a kid the sales staff quite happily gave you sales brochures to drool over, now they tend to look you up and down first. I think it was the '87 show when i first clapped eyes on the Barracuda on Sadlers stand and wanted one, still do if the truth be told; having grown up in the '80's watching a certain Hamble-based soap opera.
I know theres no point in being sentimental over the old days but i used to love all the smaller boat builders like Jaguar, Hunter, Parker etc who would gladly let you wonder all over their boats and give you a brochure. I think it was Southampton '86 when my parents picked my brothers and i up straight from school, we all got changed out of our school uniforms in the back of dad's SD1 and went straight to the show. I was 11 and remember going on my first big boat, a Jeanneau Sun Legende 41. This boat was huge it may as well have come from another planet having only sailed on dad's Macwester Kelpie and a plethora of dinghies; still you could dream.
After what seemed like an eternity whilst dad 'sampled' the Guinness we were all shown what 'proper' boats looked like, yes it was the Westerly stand where a certain David Brooke Smith was their with the Westerly Brokerage, all the while my brothers and i crawled into every conceivable nook on every boat the old man chatted with him the entire time. Six months later in March of '87 we acquired Solway Cloud a 1971 Centaur.
cheers
roger
www.agentlemansyacht.com
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JumbleDuck
Well-Known Member
The motorboat salesmen have always been like that. It's a bit rich, considering that real gentlemen wouldn't be seen dead in that sort of bling.
Daydream believer
Well-Known Member
The fact is - you did not buy anything did you (you being " the public" not a dig at you personally)
You wandered all over boats - took leaflets - wasted salespersons time & costs
That is why no body wants to exhibit at excel
they are not there for fun. They have to make a living
What is the point of Oyster letting a load of paupers wander all over boats with their grubby fingers making greasy marks everywhere
Far better to follow up someone replying to an an advert, send a taxi to the station to collect them, take them for a sail than let the public muck every thing up. Much cheaper & has a higher hit rate.
The small companies with their small stands are not there because they do not exist anymore
I really do miss the Thomas Foulkes of this world, but anything they sold can be bought off the internet ( but not lovingly fondled first) ( If that sounds like an asian wife - sorry)
The friends you met in those days are either dead & gone or cannot be a..s..d to come & see you- excel or no excel - They have better things to do. An exhibition is no longer the novelty it used to be.
if we had bought those Hunters, Parkers, Jaguars & Westerlies ( no not them they had carp management & would have gone bust anyway!!)
they would still be there . As for "proper" boats - You stopped buying them because the bennies & Bavs of this world offered what the buying public wanted or could afford & left the outdated marques in their wake. My hanse is miles better than that contessa 32 with no room, heavy helm, dark cabin, lack of headroom-shall I go on?
Excel as an exhibition site is excellent It is the changing buying public that has messed it up
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Graham_Wright
Well-Known Member
Sob, sob
We won't be there and the reason is cost and the atmosphere. We do just as well at Excel as at Southampton sales wise but we just don't like the place.
If there has to be another show it needs a different venue. NEC is central and much more accessible than Excel but the Sunseekers can't get there - oh dear!
If a second show needs to be on the water, then Liverpool has everything needed and so has Manchester.
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oldvarnish
Well-Known Member
And I was probably there, drooling with you. Those for whom a forty footer these days is their first boat, simply don't know what they're missing.
Getting a 22 footer across the Channel left you feeling like a King.
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