Melbourne’s first virtual boat, fishing show declared a success
Boating and fishing enthusiasts warm to the idea of an online boat show, but it’s no substitute for the real oneOrganisers behind the first-ever Melbourne Virtual Boat and Fishing Show have hailed the event as a big success – although still not a patch on a real-world event.
Last weekend’s Boating Industry Association-run event was pitched as a replacement to last month’s 2020 Melbourne International Boat Show, cancelled in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
BIAV chief executive Steve Walker said the first-of-its-kind event had attracted strong numbers of registered visitors, with exhibitors logging good sales throughout the three-day event.
“For the first of its kind event, we were pretty happy with it,” Walker said.
“We're in the process of surveying all of our exhibitors and also surveying all of our visitors and it'll take a week or two for us to process all that data.
“But anecdotally, we had something getting up to 7500 people register, and we had over 100,000 booth visits.”
Online presentations
The virtual show also included a number of live online videos featuring guest presenters, which Walker said was well-received with almost all visitors to the virtual auditorium providing positive feedback, Walker said.
Walker said the feedback from the first Melbourne Virtual Boat and Fishing Show would help the BIAV to organise a second event – if there was a need for one.
“I don’t think that [the virtual boat show] is a threat to the real one,” Walker said. “It [ the virtual show] was a supplement, and in the future, I’m sure that as soon as we can we’ll get back to a person-to-person boat show,” Walker said.
“It [the virtual show] works well enough that we could do it again, but that just depends on the circumstances.”
Hybrid model
One thing the BAIV could consider was a show featuring both real-world and online elements, but Walker said whether or not it could ever replace a traditional physical boat show was still up for debate.
“We thought about a hybrid-type model [for the 2021 Melbourne International Boat Show] and I could definitely see that happening,” he said. “ But the future has never been cloudier than it is right now.”
Of concern to the BAIV is that parts of Victoria have once again entered stage three coronavirus lockdown, meaning the ability to travel far from home, let alone gather in crowds, is no longer an option for a large proportion of the state.
The extended lockdowns were re-introduced after the number of coronavirus cases in the state exploded as a second wave of the disease took hold in the community.
More events planned
The BIAV is still hopeful that it can organise a pop-up boat show in October, as well as return to Lake Eildon in central Victoria for a second boating lifestyle event to follow on the success of last year’s.
In the meantime, though, the BIAV’s eyes are firmly set on the return of the Melbourne International Boat Show in June next year.
“We’ve already booked the site, so we definitely want to do that again,” Walker said.
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