As one of the vendors, and a boater, I’m with @SteveZ. These events are really good for newbies, or for folks that want to take just a few classes. Example: Nigel Calder and Mike Beemer are teaching the upcoming Seattle event’s diesel class. Those two gentlemen are GOLD in my opinion. But the boat show part is only for builders that can stomach the entry fee compared to the cost of the boat they’re selling. So you won’t be seeing much for under $250k. And the tent vendors can get a better bang for their marketing buck elsewhere. Call it New Math.
Couple of thoughts, based on our attendance a few years ago at Stuart Trawlerfest. Actually, the location was pretty centrally located in Florida, and had the requisite hotel, restaurant and marina in one location.
Most of the seminars were boring, one afternoon class was exciting (Chris Parker's weather class), and one class (electronics repair) seemed to be in a foreign language with too much unknown terminology. In a nutshell, we wasted three days and a long drive, so we agree with Fajah. They suck you in with a lower seminar price if you attend all three or four days, so perhaps that was our mistake.
While it is great that Trawlerfest is occasionally able to land such industry luminaries as Chris Parker, Nigel Calder, and Steve Zimmerman, I'm afraid Trawlerfest's vetting of some of their other seminar instructors is sorely lacking. It was obvious that some of the seminar leaders were there to sell outdated books, and some were there in order to be like the remora fish that attach themselves to whales, i.e. to attach themselves to industry people of solid reputation because they are lacking in that regard.
There were not many trawlers on display, and most were very pricey new boats, except for a couple of over 50' models that we could not afford to maintain. I know it costs more to rent a few extra floating docks for more boats, but maybe the future Florida organizers should consider this. Adding a few easy-up tents for respite from the hot Florida sun would also be helpful. It was brutally hot the day we spent on the docks.
IMHO, a better Trawlerfest would pay more attention to hiring quality instructors, more boats (new and used over a wide price range), many more vendors, plus daily lunch and dinner opportunities open to paying attendees in order to mingle socially with other trawler owners/buyers.
Cheers,
Mrs. Trombley