Battle of the Boat Shows - You Choose

by Gerald New on 30 Mar 2007 The resurrected Earls Court Boat Show is predicting around 220,000 visitors for the opening show in November. This compares with 130,000 in January 2007 for the traditional London Boat Show, now at the Excel Centre after vacating the Earls Court hall in 2004.

The organisers of the new Whyte & Mackay Earls Court Boat Show, which is scheduled to run from November 30 to December 9 at London's Earls Court Exhibition Centre, commented:

'Within a week of releasing exhibitor contracts for the Whyte & Mackay Earls Court Boat Show, we have received stand deposits from a substantial number of companies within every sector of the marine industry including some of the largest production manufacturers in the UK,'

The new event will be held just five weeks before the long-standing London Boat Show, which the British Marine Federation (BMF) organises through its National Boat Shows subsidiary.

The Earls Court organizers are billing their first show as the '50th Boat Show at Earls Court' – sound of gnashing of teeth over at BMF.

'Our visitor forecast for the 50th boat show at Earls Court is 220,000,' says Earls Court BS Ltd. 'We believe that this is a feasible target taking into account initial Excel figures at the 2004 show, the number of boat owners in the UK, the number of people involved in water based activities, the pre-Christmas timing, the iconic location and the overwhelming amount of interest and support we have received from the boating community.'

The long running event at Earls Court moved to the Excel Centre in east London (Docklands) after claims of outdated facilities and lack of space at Earls Court. But after an initial burst of enthusiasm the public has voted with its feet and stayed away. Since moving to the Excel Center the number of visitors to the London Boat Show have declined by around 40 per cent over the last four years, from 210,000 people in 2004 to just 130,000 in January 2007.

Apparently, more space did not stack up against the extended travel time to reach Docklands from outside London and a general feeling of lack of atmosphere - you would never starve at Excel, food outlets seem to outnumber exhibits.

The Industry plumped for Excel because of dwindling attendances and logistical problems, now it seems, a significant number are about to do a sharp about turn, and will put up with the logistical problems in return for a halt to the falling attendances.

But, will this be a case of rose tinted glasses (and maybe too many pints of Guinness) and the reality of a moldering Earls Court after the squeaky clean Excel prove that there’s no such thing as the 'good old days'?

The winner, in the short term at least, will be the punter. Both shows will take place, doubling the opportunity for show bargains and if you miss the first offer you can always turn-up for the next one.

How the industry will cope with all this exhibition space in such a short time span has yet to be seen, but at least this winter the 'yachty' will have a choice of shows before commercial reality sets in.

Your Comments :

Peter Cawson . . .

Give me Earls Court any day. You cited a couple of reasons for Excel being unpopular, but I think you've missed the most important one, at least for the sailing community - MASTS. It is simply not worth visiting a stand to inspect a boat if it has a 20 ft stub of a mast and no rigging. How can one imaging how the thing performs or how easily it can be handled? If the show had been moved to the Dome, I would have aplauded. In the early days there were plenty of facilities such as restaurants, toilets, etc, and crucially plently of height. You could have put Valsheda there with her mast up! Opportunity missed.

If the Excel show wants better attendance, maybe a spring exhibition would be more popular, provided plenty of berthing was available on the water - more like Southampton. Also trade magazines should be provided with a much better list of yachts on display - something that used to happen, but sadly no longer.

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