Nevertheless, visitors still travel hopefully. As an industry, how long can high-end audio continue to disappoint them? If shows are an opportunity for audiophiles to reaffirm their interest in, commitment to and the value of high-quality music systems, exhibitors need to be making a much greater effort to demonstrate just that, while show organisers need to factor that into their choice of venue. Sound-quality matters, so the prerequisite for any B2C show should be to show what audio can do, whether it’s a case of a good system or an individual product. As soon as that becomes the guiding principle, then the solution becomes obvious: B2C events need to be smaller, not bigger. Rather than a third-party organisation setting up a for-profit event and trying to attract all and sundry with a hundred rooms that mostly sound bad, regional shows should be organised by local dealers (either on their own or in partnership). They should consist of a small number of rooms where the emphasis is firmly on performance and which feature the products offered by the organising dealer(s). In this way, the return on investment comes not through selling space at the event, but in the sales generated at or after it – sales that go (for the most part) to the organising dealer(s).
Not only do such shows exist, but they are spectacularly successful, both in terms of sound-quality and ROI. Perhaps the best example I’m aware of is the Ultimate Sessions Extreme events in Portugal, organised by the energetic Ultimate Audio, a dealer/distributor with stores in Lisbon and Porto. https://gy8.eu/blog/ultimate-sessions-extreme-2/ At the last one I attended, UA had booked out the entire conference suite at the Porto Sheraton Hotel for the weekend, with system installation on Friday afternoon and evening. This not only afforded five really decent sized rooms, in which they’d set up a selection of genuinely ambitious systems, well supported by representatives from the different manufacturers featured, it allowed them to leave empty rooms between the active ones, minimising interference between what were universally full-range set-ups, running the gamut from Wadax Reference and Avantgarde Trios (plus SpaceHorn subs) to a full Burmester set-up driving the Diptyque Reference loudspeakers. Attendance across both the Saturday and Sunday was enthusiastic and relaxed, with plenty of time and space for visitors to enjoy the rooms and return to their favourites. Anyone who questions the financial logic of such an event only needed to glance at the beatific smile on the face of Ultimate Audio’s Miguel Carvalho come Sunday evening – and that despite being faced with the show breakdown!
Nor is it any coincidence that, while so many shows in the UK stutter into existence for a few years before then disappearing without trace, the Bristol Show, organised by the Audio T chain of West Country dealers, hasn’t missed a beat for 37-years! For most of those years it has been the best attended show in the UK too. Interestingly, although it is now run by Audio T, it started out as a three-way cooperative effort, between competing local dealers. Did that lead to the inevitable falling out? Far from it: all three businesses are now combined under the (ever expanding) Audio T umbrella…
