DEMA Show Recap

The 2012 DEMA Show ends today and here are some of my impressions….

The show floor itself was smaller than in years past, probably due to the economy and the fact that many manufacturers chose not to attend. Some of the big names were conspicuously absent, and some had very small booths, like DUI drysuits and Dive-rite. In fact the show was in the smaller north concourse rather than in the much larger south concourse.

PADI had a very large presence as did Oceanic and Aqualung. Some new products bring introduced, especially in the rebreather arena with PADI introducing their new recreational rebreather courses and Oceanic showing their new Explorer rebreather. They also were showing some new dive computers from their Hollis line. A new BCD is coming out in the spring and will be a jacket style with an attractive price point. Aqualung will be coming out with some redesigned regulators, BCDs and computers in late December/early January. A new line of super lightweight bags for both local and traveling divers were on display and will be available from them in the same timeframe. DAN had a nice section of the show floor and during my Instructor Trainer update talked about the new consolidation of courses from 14 to 8, eliminating duplication and combining course content where appropriate. They are also revising their materials to support the new courses.

In terms of travel destinations, the Bahamas and the Cayman Islands had the largest areas with the Philippines and Malaysia and Indonesia close behind. Lots of travel specials going on for the show but nothing particularly earth shattering.

There are always smaller manufacturers and distributors at the show and some had interesting products to offer, like the underwater metal detector that us in the shape of a long wand about 4 feet long. Probably the most popular booth was the GoPro area. Every day of the show there were crowds of people around their HD televisions watching the sample videos. At 3pm every day they would hold a raffle giving away some of their camera systems, hats, t-shirts and other prizes.
After the drawings were completed, they would bring out a beer tapper and serve free beer to anyone who wanted some. The lines to buy things from them sometimes were 50 people long.

So next year’s show will be in Las Vegas a week later than this years’.