Discover Boating Showcase to test waters for Victoria

The two-day showcase, staged at the National Water Sports Centre, a 2.0-kilometre-long purpose-built waterway at Bangholme in Melbourne’s south-east and opening the gates to the public from October 9-10, will include on-water boat trials for the first time.

The event’s organisers, the Boating Industry Association of Victoria, said there was a burgeoning appetite for leisure, lifestyle, the outdoors, and in particular, boating.

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“The Discover Boating Showcase will leverage this, and provide a fantastic and immersive event, for new and current boating audiences alike, and be Victoria’s major boating event for 2021. 

“The event will promote and showcase the boating lifestyle to thousands of current and prospective boaters, and be a fantastic community event for boaters, and those looking to become boaters.”

The state has missed out on this year’s Melbourne International Boat Show after a number of boat brands said that with showrooms largely empty in response to a post COVID-19 buying boom, they would struggle to fill a stand.

Boat sales have spiked globally – and particularly in Australia where most of the population lives along its coastline – as people look for new or interesting ways to holiday where they live rather than travel.

The Discover Boating Showcase will include boat displays with on-water trials available by appointment, a "Welcome to Boating" education club, lessons on how to back a trailer and safety demonstrations.

The BIAV said the event also planned to host a marketplace featuring everything from engines, trailers, accessories, equipment, electronics, tackle, marina berths, club memberships, insurance, finance, and “everything else connected to boating”.

“This will be the major boating event in Victoria this year with thousands in attendance,” it said.

“The market is hot and if Auckland [On-Water Boat Show], Sanctuary Cove [International Boat Show], recent 4x4s, and the [Victorian Caravan, Camping and Touring Supershow] are anything to go by, expectations are sky-high for huge crowds and massive interest.”

Crowds have flocked to events in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, with the 2021 Sanctuary Cove International Boat Show, held last month after the previous year's show was cancelled, attracting record numbers of visitors and sales.

Those sales included a new owner for the Horizon RP100, the most expensive new yacht on show at Sanctuary Cove and rumoured to have cost around $12 million.

The Discover Boating Showcase will be an important step for Victoria, which has suffered one of the world’s harshest and most prolonged pandemic lockdowns that also forced the cancellation of the 2020 Melbourne International Boat Show.

Last year was also the time for the BIAV to tweak the traditional boat show format to see what could work in its place; instead of a physical event, the BIAV ran a virtual show.

Because the 2021 Melbourne International Boat Show also was cancelled earlier this year in the wake of the pandemic, the Discover Boating Showcase is shaping up to be the only boat-based event in the state for more than two years.

The next event on the Australian show calendar is the 2021 Sydney Festival of Boating, a scaled-down version of the traditional Sydney International Boat Show that factors in the new COVIDSafe government guidelines for managing crowds at events.

The Sydney Festival of Boating is scheduled to run from July 29 to August 1, giving the state much-needed time to manage its current wave of COVID-19 infections.