London boat show sales staff as bad as estate agents?

Even though there's nothing to comment on Jamesuk's message, this year's London Boat Show had the dearest entry fee that I recall, for the poorest show with many regular exhibitors absent. I don't think I'll bother again.
Did anyone enjoy it?
 
Also went, on Thursday not too busy but saw what I wanted, spoke to who I wanted but missed the forum meet up. Parking expensive at £15 but under the hall and therefore not exposed to the weather. Used two free tickets courtesy of Compass marine after spending with them at SIBS. Good day out.;)
 
JohnMat said:
Even though there's nothing to comment on Jamesuk's message, this year's London Boat Show had the dearest entry fee that I recall, for the poorest show with many regular exhibitors absent. I don't think I'll bother again.
Did anyone enjoy it?
Click to expand...

Yes
 
Hi, had a good day at the show, parking for nothing, 2 minutes away, OAP so only £10 to get in, would have been £17 but the ticket office gave me a number to ring, in turn was given a reference number, while I stood beside the ticket office, gave them the ref and got my ticket took about 5minutes.
On going in turned left walked all the way to the end, got on a couple of £2.4 million boats, had a word with a couple of engine manufacturers, good discounts on the day, walked back passed the entrance to the other end, spent a couple of hours looking at chart plotters and hand held VHF/GPS with DSC, brought a Icom IC-M91D for £190 pounds, which I went to see at the show, really good discount, got additional warrentie so covered for 5years, brought a 40 ltr dry bag from onboard plus waterproof case for iPad, a book and a Imray chart for the river Medway, But overall disappointed, no small cruisers at all, Found the Kemp sails show very good,was able to have a long chat,come away with a estimate for sails for my boat.Found the staff okay, but not many of them, then again it was a small show could walk round in an hour, but I went for a purpose, so it was walk round job done, I remember going the last time 25 years ago, when there was loads to see and do, back then small craft were in demand, for canel and river use. Won't be going again. More interesting going to the woodworking and engineering shows.
 
JohnMat said:
Even though there's nothing to comment on Jamesuk's message, this year's London Boat Show had the dearest entry fee that I recall, for the poorest show with many regular exhibitors absent. I don't think I'll bother again.
Did anyone enjoy it?
Click to expand...

My thoughts entirely. Its just too expensive for a show that gets poorer by the year, with fewer yachts and not many real bargains from the chandlers etc. The only things I thought were good deals were an Odeo LED Flare at £109 and a Smart Gauge battery monitor a few pence les than £120. I would have bought the latter but it was out of stock once checked. When I got home and looked on the net I found the flare on Amazon for less than £100 delivered, and the Smart Gauge from JG for £119.
 
JohnMat said:
Did anyone enjoy it?
Click to expand...
Yes, it was a vast improvement on last year.

My total spend in the show was £15.00. But have come away with a huge amount of information for current and future projects, a list of contacts to follow up and bumped into a few people I know.
 
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Norman_E said:
My thoughts entirely. Its just too expensive for a show that gets poorer by the year, with fewer yachts and not many real bargains from the chandlers etc. The only things I thought were good deals were an Odeo LED Flare at £109 and a Smart Gauge battery monitor a few pence les than £120. I would have bought the latter but it was out of stock once checked. When I got home and looked on the net I found the flare on Amazon for less than £100 delivered, and the Smart Gauge from JG for £119.
Click to expand...

Force 4 are selling (from their website) the Mcmurdo Smartfind 15 AIS receiver with a Banten AIS antenna for £149.95 which seems good value.
 
Norman_E said:
My thoughts entirely. Its just too expensive for a show that gets poorer by the year, with fewer yachts and not many real bargains from the chandlers etc. The only things I thought were good deals were an Odeo LED Flare at £109 and a Smart Gauge battery monitor a few pence les than £120. I would have bought the latter but it was out of stock once checked. When I got home and looked on the net I found the flare on Amazon for less than £100 delivered, and the Smart Gauge from JG for £119.
Click to expand...

Re the bargains- just over 20% off an autopilot, 10% off just about everything from Dubarries to clothing to boat bits just by haggling , Reeds down to £ 35-00 & i am sure i could have got it cheaper if i tried. I got Tom Cunliff's autograph for nothing, did not even buy one of his books, mind you i am not sure that was such a good deal, I am sure a certain boat salesman would have given me £ 15% off his 100K boat if I was prepared to book a test sail
I did not go for bargains I went to compare products ( actually I did not expect to buy a new autopilot but i did) the entry cost £13-00 pre booked- actually the wife paid so it cost me zilch) was saved Ok. We split the parking 4 ways as well
Good day out
 
With free tickets lived with the paking fee which seemed a better deal than train fares for 3. Some helpful stands eg Ocean safety who were source of info plus the various artificial teak suppliers present. Sailing boats were limited but do wonder if the costs of attending merit their time in terms of orders placed . busy early afternoon on the Hanse and Moody stand but by 4 pm crowds had reduced
Dont think I would go again for a couple of years though as not a patch on southampton if looking for choice of boats . One lesson for the SBs though is good choice of eateries at excel compared to dire selection at SBS . It just needs more boats on the water
 
Norman_E said:
The only things I thought were good deals were an Odeo LED Flare at £109 and a Smart Gauge battery monitor a few pence les than £120. I would have bought the latter but it was out of stock once checked. When I got home and looked on the net I found the flare on Amazon for less than £100 delivered, and the Smart Gauge from JG for £119.
Click to expand...

Hence the importance of a smartphone to check prices before you buy the "bargains" and have to carry them around for the rest of the day :)

That said, I really can't blame the chandlers etc for not doing "boat show deals". The whole concept makes no sense - they're paying loads of money for a boat show stand, why would they be able to offer lower prices than someone else who doesn't have that expense? That the "boat show bargain" ever existed, I can only assume was due to the distorted market of the pre-Internet age.

Pete
 
If you'd asked you could have had mine for free!

On the subject of Reeds I never understood why the almanac was available as yearly as September the previous year when they could have waited a few more months and saved themselves having to issue a load of updates. Will no doubt be proved wrong but can't imagine too many people bought them at the Southampton boat show.
 
I really enjoyed it this year. Even spent a long time on the "dark side" with some of the mega motor yachts.

Bought some Dubarrys at a fair discount and met with colleagues and clients old and new all day long.

I thought it was surprisingly good this year.
 
No sure about estate agents but I bought 9 fender lines for £10 from Rota Marine only to find I was given 3 packs of 2. They don't appear to have a web site and no telephone no. Anyone out there have similar experience or can direct me so as to get the balance of what I paid for.
 
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