2021 Sydney boat show scaled down, Brisbane bypassed

While the July 29-August 1 Sydney International Boat Show will go ahead in a scaled-down format and wearing a new name – the 2021 Sydney Festival of Boating – the Brisbane show won’t go ahead at all, the Boating Industry Association of Australia has announced.

“The Boating Industry Association Ltd is pleased to present a new-format, COVIDSafe Sydney show in 2021,” the BIA said.

“The Sydney Festival of Boating will be held at the International Convention Centre [Sydney] between July 29 and August 1, 2021 and will occupy the upper-level halls, together with undercover exhibitor displays on the event deck. 

“The festival will also feature a marina in Cockle Bay which will accommodate larger on-water displays and the promenade leading to Tumbalong Park with feature festival activations and displays.”

The scaled-down show is similar to a format rolled out by organisers of the 2020 Sanctuary Cove Boating Festival, introduced after the cancellation of the 2020 Sanctuary Cove International Boat Show.

The Sanctuary Cove Boating festival was run in November last year as a prelude to this year's event, which is still scheduled to take place in Queensland from May 20-23.

But while the Sydney show is still a goer, the Brisbane show has fallen victim to the same circumstances that forced the Boating Industry Association of Victoria to skip the 2021 Melbourne International Boat Show – people are buying too many boats.

It said with local boat makers and importers struggling to either ramp up production or ship in more product as recreational boat sales continue to boom, many exhibitors lacked stock to put on display.

The same issue was behind the cancellation of the 2021 Melbourne International Boat Show earlier this year, with the Boating Industry Association of Victoria finding little support for the event due to a lack of boats that exhibitors could use to lure in buyers.

Just like the Melbourne show, the BIA said "staycationers" – the people looking for family experiences at home rather than interstate or overseas – were behind the cancellation of the August 20-23 event.

“Boat retailers in Queensland have just enough stock on the shop floor or on order to address demand for the immediate future,” the BIA said. 

“However not enough available stock to create a meaningful showcase at this year’s planned Brisbane Boat Show.”

The BIA said its efforts will now go into planning next year’s Brisbane Boat Show, scheduled for late August next year.

It said it would continue to work on state-based education and infrastructure programs with regulators such as Maritime Safety Queensland “to support the increased interest in boating”.

The BIA announced early this year it would hold over the Rosehill Trailerboat Show and the Adelaide Boat show until next year in the wake of COVID-19 restrictions that have included strict border closures limiting interstate travel.

The BIA had planned for the Brisbane and Sydney shows to be the crowning events in an Australian boat show circuit hit hard last year by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The aim with both Sydney and Brisbane events is to celebrate the boating lifestyle, to build upon, and continue to stimulate, Australia’s booming interest in boating,” the BIA said early this year. 

“We will do this by creating a festival atmosphere around boating through exhibitions, presentations, demonstrations and entertainment to engage the entire family.”

The pandemic has hit the BIA hared, with the group rolling out a restructure last year designed to help it “adapt to disruptions and changing business and consumer needs”.

“COVID-19 and the resulting disease control measures have led to a paradox,” BIA president Darren Vaux said. 

“The boating industry is experiencing record levels of interest and sales for boat builders, brokers and retailers as Australians rightly opt for boating as an outdoor leisure activity of choice, while the association’s traditional source of revenue from events such as boat shows has evaporated due to severe limitations on gathering.”

Vaux said the measures, which included four redundancies, were “in the best interest of our members”.

Meanwhile, organisers behind the 2021 Sanctuary Cove International Boat Show, scheduled for mid-May, said while they expected the size of exhibits to be down on previous years due to the post-pandemic rush of buyers, interest in the show was still strong.

"There is a real stock shortage in the trailer boat segment at the moment, however, things are trending really well for our show and trailer boat display space is filling up fast," SCIBS sales and partnership manager Domenic O'Brien said.

"There may be overall less products across the floor, but we still anticipate selling out all of our available space."