Trawlerfest was Disappointing

mahal said:

Casey, I get the same treatment at boat shows. For you, It might be because you had your kids with you. I was told that brokers are not too crazy about them boarding boats. They touch things. Not saying that yours do, but just in general. Or perhaps you're a minority, which I am, and suspect might be the reason.

I talked to a broker friend about my lousy experience at my first boat show which I brought my 10 year old son to. He offered that it was likely because I had a child with me and how they don't like that. So, I started going alone or with my wife. But I noticed that I'm still ignored (not necessarily bad) and sometimes the salesmen are short with me when I ask a question. I once started a conversation with a sales rep of a budget brand boat and my wife noticed that the guy was brushing me off. She interjected by making a comment that indicated to the salesman that we own a boat and were looking to move up. He seemed very surprised by this and became polite and happy to talk to us. I had lost interest at that point.

I don't get the snobby treatment at the product booths though. I find the people to be nice and eager to talk about their products.

Btw, I dress just like most boaters when attending boat shows. Khaki shorts, polo shirt and Sperry deck shoes.

Odd that I don't get this kind of treatment when I go to other business establishments. Even shops on Rodeo Drive. But no Sperry's there, I put on Ferragamo loafers. Maybe I should wear them to boat shows.

But there's a positive to this. Now that I'm accustomed to this treatment, I no longer feel guilty of being aboard and no one bothers me when I tour a boat.

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Funny that you would say that about the kids. Interestingly enough I had two broker / reps tell me how well behaved my kids were. (we are very diligent parents when it comes to our kids and good behavior). One even went on to ask me if I had a boat because my kids seemed well behaved and "at ease" when walking around on board. I do agree that this isn't an event well suited for kids in general. On the other hand, a huge influence in our boat buying decision is how well the kids like the boat. After all, they'll be spending much of their young lives on it.

BandB said:

I think all Trawlerfests are not created equal and you see fewer boats in Stuart because you have so many other boat shows in the area.

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That's true, I'm sure each one has its own flavor. All of mine were Seattle area.

Thanks everyone for the input and comments. All well noted and I have obviously chalked my experience up as a "lesson learned". In an effort to explain a few things, I offer this....we brought our kids with us because coming from North Carolina, this was a 3 day trip for us. We turned it in to a mini-vacation of sorts. Had this been a day trip for the wife and me, we would more than likely would have left the kids at home with the in-laws. Also, the kids have never been on a live aboard and I wanted their opinions on the idea of living, at least part-time, on a boat.

As far as the vendors, honestly I got the impression most were bored. Which I totally understand. I overheard one guy at his insurance booth tell the rep at the broker booth beside him, "this is dead, I'm gonna walk around some". He was the only person in his booth so this left it unattended until he returned. I was in law enforcement for 30 years and I guess I observe things differently and see things sometimes that others may not. I can read people very well.

Although disappointed, this event wasn't a total bust for us. We did learn a few things, saw some really nice boats and met some nice people. We'll add all that to our ever growing list of boat buying research.

Thanks again for the input.

Casey6404 said:

Thanks everyone for the input and comments. All well noted and I have obviously chalked my experience up as a "lesson learned". In an effort to explain a few things, I offer this....we brought our kids with us because coming from North Carolina, this was a 3 day trip for us. We turned it in to a mini-vacation of sorts. Had this been a day trip for the wife and me, we would more than likely would have left the kids at home with the in-laws. Also, the kids have never been on a live aboard and I wanted their opinions on the idea of living, at least part-time, on a boat.

.

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I think it was totally appropriate to take your kids and have no doubt they were better behaved than most adults. Just, as you said, they were a rarity there and not what the brokers expected.

Of course, wrongly prejudging potential buyers costs sales too.

Sorry it didn't go well but we went to several in past years and it was great. One thing I'd say is perhaps you were mistaken about used boats because it tends to be a showcase for new trawlers, not that you have to be in the market for a new one but gives you the feel of layouts and priorities . I'd agree about Kadey Krogen, it does seem a bit snooty the way they control access, but they weren't really on our short list anyway. The seminars remain a big benefit and still have a great staff of instructors. I'd agree the variety of vendors has been better in the past...

I don't have anything to say about Trawler Fest specifically - but I haven't been to a boat show in about 15 yrs because of all the reasons given in previous posts. They are just not worth the cost of admission, hassle and parking. I find it lots more productive to contact vendors directly (ie phone their showroom/shop) and ask for 'boat show' prices during boat show times. Of course you loose the 'browse and buy' factor - but if you can research and know exactly what 'boat item' you're looking for beforehand, you can speak to vendors quickly with a product code.

Oh - of course not so appropriate if looking for an entire boat

Wifey B: I go to like a bazillion boat shows a year...all online.

You can see so much of what you once needed shows for in photos, videos, and virtual tours online now. No, you can't get the feel, but you can decide what boats you want to get the feel for.

I went to TFests back in the last century when they were run my Georg K. They were a real festival back then. No new boats only owner boats open for tours. Some may even have been for sale but you had to check with the owner. No signs.

The seminars were hit and miss. Mostly miss. The presenters were not paid so you would drive 4 hours and find the hotel janitor was giving the RADAR presentation because the radar tech rep. got a better deal. Several big-name boat designers were presenting but I think they were beaten and starved before the show. That's the only way they would have gotten an attitude like that. The Coast Guard showed up once and gave a GREAT presentation on fire, MOB, flares - all the safety stuff. They looked great and they were free.

The best presentations were the people at your table for lunch and nightly crab-fest. These TFests were in Solomon Island MD which was worth the trip by itself.

At the Miami boat show, I was impressed we got our shoes back. I guess folks attending boat shows are honest.
Per the one vendor who said he was bored and was going to walk around, when I was in a booth answering questions, at some point I would get bored or tired and needed to walk around to stretch my legs.

OldDan1943 said:

At the Miami boat show, I was impressed we got our shoes back. I guess folks attending boat shows are honest.
Per the one vendor who said he was bored and was going to walk around, when I was in a booth answering questions, at some point I would get bored or tired and needed to walk around to stretch my legs.

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I'm sure they do get board and restless throughout the day but the event started at 10:00 and this vendor took his "stroll" at 11:15.

Casey6404 said:

I'm sure they do get board and restless throughout the day but the event started at 10:00 and this vendor took his "stroll" at 11:15.

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Ah, that is known as an early lunch.

That you perceived a feeling was probably true.

That they were judging your wallet, likely less true. Particularly in the world of boating, I believe sales folks do not judge by appearance of wealth. Just walk through marinas any day, or visit your friends on expensive yachts. Do they dress up? Perhaps some, but most I know do not. I'd actually support the position most buyers/owners are underdressed, as a boat is a far less convenient place to maintain an attention-drawing wardrobe, or even shave and shower.

I believe they assess risk very quickly and are on constant alert for it. Using KK as just one example, the sales folks are acutely aware the boats at the show are not floor plan dealer boats but private boats owned by people they have a relationship with. They can regale you with boat show tales of disappearing items from cupboards or drawers, damaged interior fabrics, flooring and furniture dings. They are responsible for the damage and have to answer to owners.

Your children may indeed be perfectly behaved, they may never pick up an item out of curiosity but accidentally drop it on a new teak floor-- but some less attended child will...and someone fixes the damage and someone pays.

Tiny little colored cloths pins? I though they were odd too- so I inquired about the purpose. But I'm married to some one in real estate who gets inconsolable when a client she has spent many nights, weekends, and days working for ( research, pre screening properties, due diligence , inspections, etc) wanders off perhaps without much thought, and buys a home from another agent. Perhaps not with malicious intent, a client sometimes doesn't see the importance of letting the agent who does the work and supports the client, get the sale. The sales agent may only close a couple deals a year, so yes they are a bit protective of their contacts ( identified by a tiny color pin). It may keep the peace in a small boat builders sales force. Again, I don't believe for a minute it was to establish the builder as being exclusive and I didn't deem it pretentious.

I don't work for any boat builder and I never worked in sales. I've attended too numerous to count boat shows over the decades. All parties are there for a reason- some to learn, some to sell and support a family; some to grow a craft or business. We all benefit from each other- none are there just to serve alone. I've been grateful for the sales folks who spent time with me when I alone knew there was no way I was buying. I've tried to be respectful of their time and needs too.

So sorry if it seems like a lecture; not my intent. However there appeared an irony that the post painting the sales force as judgmental seemed a bit judgmental itself.

Stickman.... pretty accurate if not completely true.

Stickman said:

That you perceived a feeling was probably true.

That they were judging your wallet, likely less true. Particularly in the world of boating, I believe sales folks do not judge by appearance of wealth. Just walk through marinas any day, or visit your friends on expensive yachts. Do they dress up? Perhaps some, but most I know do not. I'd actually support the position most buyers/owners are underdressed, as a boat is a far less convenient place to maintain an attention-drawing wardrobe, or even shave and shower.

I believe they assess risk very quickly and are on constant alert for it. Using KK as just one example, the sales folks are acutely aware the boats at the show are not floor plan dealer boats but private boats owned by people they have a relationship with. They can regale you with boat show tales of disappearing items from cupboards or drawers, damaged interior fabrics, flooring and furniture dings. They are responsible for the damage and have to answer to owners.

Your children may indeed be perfectly behaved, they may never pick up an item out of curiosity but accidentally drop it on a new teak floor-- but some less attended child will...and someone fixes the damage and someone pays.

Tiny little colored cloths pins? I though they were odd too- so I inquired about the purpose. But I'm married to some one in real estate who gets inconsolable when a client she has spent many nights, weekends, and days working for ( research, pre screening properties, due diligence , inspections, etc) wanders off perhaps without much thought, and buys a home from another agent. Perhaps not with malicious intent, a client sometimes doesn't see the importance of letting the agent who does the work and supports the client, get the sale. The sales agent may only close a couple deals a year, so yes they are a bit protective of their contacts ( identified by a tiny color pin). It may keep the peace in a small boat builders sales force. Again, I don't believe for a minute it was to establish the builder as being exclusive and I didn't deem it pretentious.

I don't work for any boat builder and I never worked in sales. I've attended too numerous to count boat shows over the decades. All parties are there for a reason- some to learn, some to sell and support a family; some to grow a craft or business. We all benefit from each other- none are there just to serve alone. I've been grateful for the sales folks who spent time with me when I alone knew there was no way I was buying. I've tried to be respectful of their time and needs too.

So sorry if it seems like a lecture; not my intent. However there appeared an irony that the post painting the sales force as judgmental seemed a bit judgmental itself.

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Thanks for the reply and information. You answered many my questions and cleared a few things up for me. No need to apologize for the "lecture" as I appreciate the honest feedback.

Stickman said:

That you perceived a feeling was probably true.

That they were judging your wallet, likely less true. Particularly in the world of boating, I believe sales folks do not judge by appearance of wealth. Just walk through marinas any day, or visit your friends on expensive yachts. Do they dress up? Perhaps some, but most I know do not. I'd actually support the position most buyers/owners are underdressed, as a boat is a far less convenient place to maintain an attention-drawing wardrobe, or even shave and shower.

I believe they assess risk very quickly and are on constant alert for it. Using KK as just one example, the sales folks are acutely aware the boats at the show are not floor plan dealer boats but private boats owned by people they have a relationship with. They can regale you with boat show tales of disappearing items from cupboards or drawers, damaged interior fabrics, flooring and furniture dings. They are responsible for the damage and have to answer to owners.

Your children may indeed be perfectly behaved, they may never pick up an item out of curiosity but accidentally drop it on a new teak floor-- but some less attended child will...and someone fixes the damage and someone pays.

Tiny little colored cloths pins? I though they were odd too- so I inquired about the purpose. But I'm married to some one in real estate who gets inconsolable when a client she has spent many nights, weekends, and days working for ( research, pre screening properties, due diligence , inspections, etc) wanders off perhaps without much thought, and buys a home from another agent. Perhaps not with malicious intent, a client sometimes doesn't see the importance of letting the agent who does the work and supports the client, get the sale. The sales agent may only close a couple deals a year, so yes they are a bit protective of their contacts ( identified by a tiny color pin). It may keep the peace in a small boat builders sales force. Again, I don't believe for a minute it was to establish the builder as being exclusive and I didn't deem it pretentious.

I don't work for any boat builder and I never worked in sales. I've attended too numerous to count boat shows over the decades. All parties are there for a reason- some to learn, some to sell and support a family; some to grow a craft or business. We all benefit from each other- none are there just to serve alone. I've been grateful for the sales folks who spent time with me when I alone knew there was no way I was buying. I've tried to be respectful of their time and needs too.

So sorry if it seems like a lecture; not my intent. However there appeared an irony that the post painting the sales force as judgmental seemed a bit judgmental itself.

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Great comments.

When I was looking a few years ago, and at decent money boats, I was using a local broker as a buyer's broker who was doing a lot of leg work for us. Including a wasted weekend from Jax to Fort Myers on a fools errand.

We told him we were off to the Miami show and would be hitting a number of boats at the show and at Collins Ave.

He handed us a number of his cards and requested that we make it known to the broker on board that we were working with him. I felt a bit awkward doing this but was respectful and did so.

I met two types of show brokers. Those who said "yep got it," and those who said "you don't need to waste the card by leaving it on the table."

Only little guilty feeling I had (which in contrast to your real estate example) is the fact that the selling brokerage paid a goodly sum of money to position that boat at the show. Whereas a home seller just leaves the house in the soil it was built in!

menzies said:

...
I met two types of show brokers. Those who said "yep got it," and those who said "you don't need to waste the card by leaving it on the table."

Only little guilty feeling I had (which in contrast to your real estate example) is the fact that the selling brokerage paid a goodly sum of money to position that boat at the show. Whereas a home seller just leaves the house in the soil it was built in!

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1. The guys who said ‘don’t waste the card” may be fine working with your broker, and were just telling you they don’t need the card. They don’t care who your broker is unless you want to make an offer.
2. The brokerage company may pay to be in the show, but the boat seller pays a substantial fee for their boat to be there. That seller doesn’t care how many brokers are in the deal as long as his boat sells.

I saw this thread from the spring, and thought it was interesting as we enjoyed going to the recent TrawlerFest in Baltimore. I am also from NC, and find that any boat show around here is pretty much about fishing boats. If you are interested in a trawler or cruiser, there just aren't many boats to look at. So, our trip to Baltimore was part a weekend getaway and part opportunity to go to TrawlerFest.

I enjoyed the event, and there were some good speakers for those of us that are looking to get into cruising on a bigger boat. Having had small boats for most of my life, I am pretty comfortable with a lot of aspects of being on the water, but the speakers talking about maintenance, navigation, and making the move to a boat were all interesting. I will also echo the one comment about meeting Capt. Alyse with Captain Chris boat training....she was so nice and made my wife feel that she could get trained to be capable of operating a boat this size. Quite a compliment!

I asked several attendees if this was a "normal" number of boats, and they said it was a bit smaller than usual. The economy might explain that, as I understand the number of brokerage boats is pretty low, and manufacturers might have enough of a backlog to not go to the event. There were a couple of new boats there, but the larger boats were brokerage boats. All the sales people were very pleasant. No, we didn't have kids and we look to fit the demographic (around 60), so maybe that was it. No, we didn't have to wear anything to get on the Kadey-Krogens, but several did ask us to fill out a contact form. It was pretty casual and a bit after the fact...we were already on the boat.

All in all, I enjoyed the experience but would have liked to have seen a few more of the brands I have been interested it (American Tug, for one) that chose not be be there. I do think for those just getting into the process, it offered an opportunity to see quite a few different boats of a range of sizes that can help define interest moving forward. And there were a lot of people there who seemed to be a similar age as we are, and using the event for the same purpose.

From what I hear, the Stuart location doesn't have a lot else to offer in the way of interest. The Harbor East area was very nice. Clean, safe, and an easy walk to several interesting venues. We went to the National Aquarium, Camden Yards for a baseball game (even though the Os are the worst team in baseball) and up to Little Italy for a meal. All walkable from the host hotel.

Just thought I would share an opinion from a first timer's experience in Baltimore. And on Saturday there were a lot more people on the dock, many with kids.....as you might expect on a weekend.

Mark

I went to the Atlanta boat show once. If you were considering a fishing/bass boat, that is a good show. Even the 'toy section' was a disappointment to me.

I ALWAYS dress in my 'everyday's ie wrinkled clothes when I go to a boat show.
IF a broker wants to judge me by my clothes, so be it. I really doubt if I would ever buy a boat at a boat show when the used market so large.

I guess about 15 years ago I went to the Stuart show, it was small but, still afforded many opportunities for potential buyers. I am told the Stuart boat show has really grown. I do like the Stuart area because everything is 'close' and the 'mom and pop' restaurants are pretty good.

I stopped going to the Ft L and Miami boat shows..... too much walking for my old legs and knees.

Like geoleo we bought our boat at TF last year. The event itself was small 'taters after growing up around the Annapolis shows but we knew that going in. This was last year but the vendors were nice, Capt. Chris and Alyse nice as always and the insurance and broker guys like used car salesmen. Know what you are going to before you go. It's an afternoon hanging around trawlers and some education if you go to the seminars. Take the kids, they will love it. Someone gives you an attitude about having a child with you them make sure you go on their boat.

September 2016 Trawlerfest at Kent Island Marina was fantastic. I came alone, went to all the seminars I could schedule Thursday through Saturday, learned so much from top industry veterans, bought a boat the following summer. Steve Zimmerman's pre-purchase seminar was very influential, and he was gracious in answering my many questions. A boat builder's discussion of construction methods was also influential. Insurance/legal presentation was very informative. Other seminar attendees were so willing to share experiences and preferences. The vendors were so helpful, too.

Trawlerfest is clearly not primarily a boat show, although there were nifty boats present, larger and smaller than what I eventually bought, and the selection at Trawlerfest greatly influenced what I eventually decided to buy. One big improvement they could make - give a huge discount for "the Admirals" who attend. That would raise total attendance a bunch, and put the REAL boat purchase decision exec on board. (As one boat dealer told me, "If the Admiral says a boat is cute, I know I've got the sale!") I plan to go back for more seminars, and will doubtlessly go on board every boat present....never can tell what might happen!

Maybe being a guy alone over 7 hours from home qualified me as a "prospect", or maybe it was the notebook and furious note taking at every seminar and onboard every boat. I will go when one is scheduled for the Chesapeake again, probably take the Admiral this time, as I spent at least an hour every night at Kent Island telling her about the seminars and amazing array of boats (Rosboroughs, Ranger Tugs to Flemings, Kadys, new and used). Stuart, Florida is simply too far from Charlotte NC, and Florida is so uninteresting in every way. Besides, Kent Island has some good crab shacks and Galway Bay in Annapolis is our favorite bar on the planet. (4 hour thunderstorm blocked our exit years ago....wonderful!)

Someday I will go to either the Fort Lauderdale or Miami boat shows, when I'm in a boat show mood, but going to Trawlerfest just to look at the boats would not be a good use of my time.