“BEST YEAR EVER” FOR BOAT SHOW SEMINAR SERIES
Despite a reduction in overall attendance at Strictly Sail Chicago and Strictly Sail Miami and a shorter four-day Strictly Sail Pacific show, cumulative attendance figures for the Sail America Seminar Series was up significantly compared with previous years. Feedback from attendees, exhibitors, presenters, and the new seminar sponsor, Blue Water Sailing, has been extremely positive.
According to Sail America Executive Director Jonathan Banks, there were some key drivers that contributed to the seminar program success.
“New for the 2010 boat show season, Blue Water Sailing Magazine was the presenting sponsor at Strictly Sail Chicago, Strictly Sail Miami and Strictly Sail Pacific. Working with Sail America’s seminar coordinator, Patty Lawrence, Blue Water Sailing added tremendous value to the seminar program, helping attract quality speakers, promoting the seminar series to its readers, collecting speaker evaluation forms and attendee data, and running a sweepstake in conjunction with Gill for ‘his and hers’ sets of high-end Gill foul weather gear worth close to $1,000 each,” he said.
In addition, Banks credits Lawrence who came aboard as new seminar coordinator for several program enhancements. She worked hard to minimize schedule changes and room locations, while improving titles and presentation descriptions. The overall mix of seminars was also a big plus.
“The seminars were scheduled so the public was offered a variety of topics in each time slot,” said Banks. “In addition, topic variety was increased by reducing the number of duplicate seminars, which gave attendees more choices and a reason to attend the show on multiple days. In addition, a racing component was added to the seminar series, which drew nearly 300 participants at Strictly Sail Chicago alone, setting a new record.”
Attendance Analysis
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Perhaps the most telling evidence of success, however, is the overall seminar rankings. Almost all speakers received very high scores with most evaluations in the 7 to 10 range and a large number of 10s. Strictly Sail Pacific received the highest rating with an average score for speakers of 8.9.
“Sail America is very grateful to the seminar speakers and supporting exhibitors for helping create such a successful seminar program,” said Banks. “We’re looking forward to gearing up for an even better year in 2011.”
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