Chicago Sport Show - No Yarcrafts, Warriors, Tuffy's, etc.

[Sven]

Seemed like 10-15+ dealers showing Lunds, Crestliners and Rangers. There were some Trackers, Smoker & Polar Craft. It wasn't always this way. What has changed?

[1 word]

GENMAR

[Hawg Tracker]

That is not the same show it used to be. We used to go in a very large group...maybe 15 guys...not a single person went this year because it ain't the same show. The Arlington show was the best one with a lot of smaller vendors and reasonable prices. Now with the admission and the parking ripoff...nobody seems interested.

[Rod Holder]

Well...I was able to solve the parking cost problem by getting the coupon out of the Chicago Sun-Times. There were six of us together and we went to the show on Friday. I had the same impression about boats, wondering just exactly where one would need to go if he wanted to see a gathering of decent walleye boats for display. You forgot to mention that there were no Tritons there either. I had hoped that Beckman nets would have a display there where you could check out one of their nets up close and personal but nope. Stowmaster did have a booth so I was able to look at their nets.
Back to boating: I did notice that so many boats have so little space at the console for mounting electronics, locators and GPS units. With a windshield on some, there was just no useable space for locators. I do have to give Lund credit. I looked at a Lund 1900 and the console not only had good space to mount the locators, there is also a rubber centered grommet for running wires to your units. Seemed like they were the only ones really thinking about what is required to make a good boat even better. You would have thought that if Fisher wanted to put their fiberglass multispecies boat (which they got from Starcraft) on display, they might have thought about the millions of folks living in the entire Chicagoland region. So...where do you go to see them all???

[Vikings Fan]

Try the Mlps. Boat show this weekend. What sold the best last year is what you see the dealers invest in and display this year. There is usually a good selection of fishing boats at the Boat show. The Northwest sportshow (in March) will be the biggest Minnesota show and one of the best in the country for fishing boats.

[MarkG]

It's boat dealers that choose to go to the show,not boat manufacturers.As far as the Rosmont show itself,many vendors had left that show years ago because of the high cost of squarefootage, high priced overnight accomadations,lowering attendance because of high cost of parking and admission. Thats why all the smaller alternative shows,the best being Arlington, had sprung up to begin with. Give it a few years,the same issues will evolve,and hopfully some new alternatives will also. I ,as Hawgtracker,also did not go,nor did any of my friends.No one wanted to go back to Rosemont,some just on principle.

[Tourney Fan]

"It's boat dealers that choose to go to the show,not boat manufacturers" Well, that's true but manufacturers like Genmar will reimburse the dealer for showing their boats. Right now dealers for Tuffy, Yar-Craft Warrior don't get those kick backs. At least not the dealers I do business with.


Speaking of the MPLS boat show, they should just re-name the thing to the "RCL Boat Show" It's gotten that bad!

[Sort of]

This is partially true. Some boat companies will pay up to half the cost of a show, if all the hoops are jumped through correctly and the proper requests are filed. The amount of this type of cooperating funds is determined by the amount of $$ worth of product a dealer has purchased. The more dollars worth of boats a dealer buys from a cooperating manufacturer, the more potential cooperating dollars he will be entitled to.
Some Genmar companies do this and some do not. Some non-Genmar companies do this and some do not, as well.

[file the papers]

Sort of

That kills me,SO you need to fill out some papers BIG deal! Money is money ,if I had to fill some papers out to get half my money back I'd make sure it was done! Most boat makers have Promo Dept. that will help you, call them make all the arrangements and file the papers!