2016 Miami Boat Show - Discussion Thread

I took some customers down to the Collins show on Friday with their boat. They had a good time and a lot of foot traffic. I tied up along some of Show Managements spare floating docks while waiting for them. I didn't notice any water taxi service to the collins location. Seemed to be a good amount of boats there, although a little less than previous years. Seemed to be a pretty good amount of foot traffic.

Went to the boat show on Friday. Opted for the parking option in Virginia Key, bad idea. Coming from South Miami saw a lot of traffic to get into the Key (Coconut Grove streets were closed for some stupid festival...) and not less than 30 minutes for the bus to do the 2 miles from the parking lot to the show entrance...
Good variety of boats on display on land and water.
Food was awful, too little options for too many people. Very inadequate seating and resting areas.
On the way back, instead of just turning left towards the parking site, the shuttle goes to back to the mainland to make the u-turn and then comes back, yeah, it goes both ways over the Rickenbacker Causeway ... idiotic. At least I didn't get stuck on the water taxi.

That's why I can't bear to go to the Miami show and the Admiral and I are done with the Miami Beach show as well... even if we do get to say hi to Judy. Looking forward to the Palm Beach show.

I've never liked the Miami Show. It's just too spread out and takes way too long to go between the Collins show and the Omni/Sea Isle which is now the Miami Marine Stadium and even further.

It will probably never move from the Miami Beach location due to the hotel business it attracts, but it would make a lot more sense to do Miami Marine Stadium and either Marina's in the Grove or Sea Isle, but then the problem of large boats....so maybe Miami Beach Marina.....then it would be a very quick water taxi ride, instead of an hour cab ride.

I went several times back when I was working for Viking- and that's the last time I'll go after reading reviews like these...

Hi all. Feeling much better. Wish I could say that for our fearless leader. Hit Miami for only one day, Sunday, and that's all I needed for my annual fix. Docks on Collins on Sunday were much quieter than in years past. Working on photos from there and the Island Gardens marina. Here's a teaser for now, it's Benetti's superyacht "11/11".

Anyone notice what the price is "boat show special" on a new 25' Boston Whaler outrage while they were at the show? I have a client looking for one.

I happened to see this on another popular web site in a thread about the Miami boat show. "I looked at a few of the whaler "boatshow" prices at theMiamiboatshow. The new 280outrage= $242,000, 285 conquest = $250,000, 250outrage= $164,000..."

Thank you, that's what I needed. I'm guess it's with the fiberglass hardtop.

That's Outrageous!

On a positive note, Tom Serio is burning the midnight oil for those of you who missed the Miami Show. I'll take his coverage live in the morning.

All of the center console prices are outrageous these days. Funny thing is the 28' Outrages sell for about the same price as the 25's when they're 3 years old, yet look at the difference of the new price.

Tom Serio's coverage of Yachts Miami is live, here...

http://www.yachtforums.com/threads/2016-yachts-miami-beach.26048/

Enjoy a digital stroll down Collins!

As always outstanding photography Tom! Many thanks, we really appreciate it.

I attended the shows in Miami, staying downtown for another meeting. We took Uber everywhere which was not only efficient and economical, it obviated the whole parking mess. Parking was difficult and expensive at all venues. Collins Avenue was really fun, and I thought very accessible once you got there. I appreciated the fact that there was some grouping--they had all the cruising trawler types in one location. The new Outer Reef 58 looked about perfect to me--open layout, three staterooms, inside access to a standup engine room, great flybridge accessible from the inside, midship master, etc. Did not care for the Trident. Several nice Krogens, no Selene at all, one Nordhavn, a couple of Grand Banks. The brokers seemed to think the traffic and sales were fairly tepid.

The Miami Boat Show could be fixed by moving almost all of it to a convention center, like they do in Seattle, and only have the bigger boats on the water. Convention centers are made for that sort of thing. We looked at the Marlows out there, but mostly there were a million fishing boats which could be, as there were many there, inside. The fact that the indoor and on-water venues are separate in Seattle doesn't seem to hurt that show. They have 50 footers indoor in Seattle, and the bigger ones on the water. It seems to work well.

I wonder a bit about the future of boat shows in general. The virtual boat show afforded by a computer may be supplanting what has to be an extremely expensive and logistically challenging production. I doubt that someone in the market for a boat costing from one million to a hundred million doesn't already know everything about that vessel already. Does a show drive enough purchase decisions to justify its cost? I hope they stay around--it is great fun, but they must not be difficult to access.

NMMA reports attendance up by 4% at 2016 Miami Show?

http://boatingindustry.com/news/2016/02/18/miami-show-attendance-up-4-percent-over-2015/