Is it time to reevaluate the format of boat shows? It couldn’t hurt, https://www.offshoreonly.com/article...-on-boat-shows.

From the OSO home page.

I know a few who have questioned the value of shows. your friend paid 20k for a small spot but that was not what it cost him. if he had to travel and get hotel rooms and transport stuff plus employees to man the booth, etc. his cost is way higher. now figure how much business that show has to create to pay for just the show. add in to that the typical sales at a show. if goes something like this. we sold 15 boats at the show! now of that 7 never call you again, 4 never send a deposit and 3 end up figuring out they cant complete the deal so they want the deposit back so the 15 becomes 1 sale. shows like miami are so general that most of the people there are just looking for something to do. they are the same people that call about my ads on c-list who after 20 minutes of questions tell me if they can come up with some cash they will call me back. smaller shows that target a specific group will probably be the way of the future.

My brother in law was a yacht builder who attended several shows annually. Ft Lauderdale got to be a 500K expense (ONE show). The show costs you money even if you sell nothing but on the flip side if you don't attend the other builders start the rumor mill that you are going out of business! In the boom times it was a cost of doing business, in the bad times it meant no hotel rooms, sleep on the yachts and clean them every morning. They built boats from 68-116 ft and sold them to CEO's to Nascar drivers. The boat shows are a broken model but you never know when the guy with 10 million burning a hole in his checkbook is going to get onboard and become a buyer!

Sell a 10mm boat and get a 5% commission (half of the standard 10%) and suddenly the boat show becomes a 500K lottery ticket win!

The other weird trend in boat shows is the lack of new boats. Even at the small boat level, the vendors frequently show up with used boats, customers boats to show off what they can build. Sure there are new boats there but I think at the yacht level 80% of the stuff is actually used and at the small boat (less than 30 ft) probably 80% is brand new, advertising $229 mo payments (yeah 240 of them or something ridiculous like that).

Interesting observation .
While my first love is HIperf boats .I also love muscle cars mopar 66 to 71.
on my favorite show I constantly see the same cars in different states of the build for up to five years.

IMO, anybody investing in boat shows is totally clueless on how to market and sell boats, and simply wasting a lot of time and money.

'67 Chevelle SS 396