Anyone Going to the new Washington DC Yacht Show

The big question is how many yachts will attend. Washington DC is roughly 100 miles up the Potomac River. Unless you're cruising there on purpose, it's not "on the way" to anywhere. With the cost of fuel currently, I wonder how many yacht owners, either new or brokerage, will be inclined to make the investment in that trip to display their wares at a new venue.

The property where the show is to be held is reported to be really nice. I sure wish them the best, but the timing for a kick-off on a brand new show is not great.

Sounds like a really bad time for a DC show, and this is not the best time to be adding new shows anyway with the ecconomy the way it is. I think these promoters should be concentrating on building up their existing shows. In the last couple of weeks I've heard (in this forum) about one new show that was cancelled and one that was far from a success. Vendors have been complaining about the NY show for years, I wasn't impressed with Newport this year and I hear AC was so-so. Maybe they need to pick better dates, and charge the vendors less so they can afford to get more spectacular.

One can call the entity putting on the show and ask for a list of boats expected in attendance.

In light of at least a couple of regional boat shows canceling, and given that the Annapolis Show in the fall is considered the show in the area, maybe the sponsors are either optimists or don't read the newspapers.
Case in point: the Palm Beach show, IMHO, has always been the poor stepsister to the Miami & FLL shows both in sales and attendance.

'No-sour-grapes' full disclosure: I have sold a boat in the PB show and have displayed there as well.

Attendance at the 2008 Palm Beach Show was terrible, yet this area (in particular) has seen a tremendous growth in population and affluence. Of course, it always existed on the Island, but the areas immediately north of Palm Beach have seen a huge influx of wealth.

Still, on the opening day of the PB Show, about the only people in attendance were the industry. The 2nd day wasn't much better. As for the weekend... if you were selling drinks on one of the barges, you had a very successful show.

about 30-35 boats on display. 106' Burger but otherwise 43-60 feet made up most of the show. I did not go but a friend had a booth there and gave me the report. Attendance was reported as "none" as of 14:00 Saturday

Dear lwrandall,

I counted 54 yachts in the show website. Some of them are worth seeing; there is a Burger 107, Azimut 70, SeaRay 68, Apreamare 65 and a Vicem 58. Judging from what I read, the property is a recently completed residential/commercial project that happens to have a marina for this event.

As for the attendance, I agree with Loren and NYCAP completely, the petrol prices, the %5.5 unemployment rate and the Dow index dive last Friday will make people think twice about a yacht.

I attended the Miami and the Palm Beach shows this year, although the PB could have been disappointing for the industry, I was able to see the models in a calm atmosphere, with less people around. The drinks on the barges were excellent, but that's another story .

My gf and I were two of about 15 attendees on Saturday between 10:00 and 1:00. The brokers all seemed bored, the VIP lounge was literally empty, and the only "discriminating" yachts were the Burger and maybe the Azimut 62S. Unfortunately, the 3 times I stopped by the Burger to take a look, I was told by the staff that they had a 'full boat' and couldn't take on any more visitors, so come back later. This was strange considering that each time I stopped by, there were only 3 or 4 pairs of shoes on the dock waiting for their owners to deboard. I'm not sure why they felt it wasn't possible to have 6 people aboard a 107' boat, but I wasn't inclined to wait around for them. The temps were running at 99F with 93% humidity, which didn't help, but I have a feeling that based on the poor showing from brokers and utter lack of attendance, this will be the first AND last DC yacht show.

-R