Tampa rv show ‘23

[BayRunner]

Originally Posted by hogdriver

I attended the Tampa RV show on Friday last week. I understand the RV restrictions, but miss the old method. It was more spontaneous and fun. Granted there were numerous buttheads and the trash is not acceptable.

In reference to how the show went. My perception was attendance was better than during Covid but perhaps not like 4-5 years ago. I talked with a Newmar salesman about how they had 8-10 DutchStars all in a row. He said during previous years they had sold all of them by the third day…..this year at day 3 they had sold 2. The remarks were that the high inflation raising prices, the Covid RV buyers stopping their crazy buying, and high interest rates to blame.

I don’t think North Trail presented the Newmars in the best way. They were one of the only RV reps that did NOT display “Show Price” stickers. They only hung the build sheet with the MSRP on small print at the bottom. iMO, not a good approach trying to attract buyers. They also had the King Aires locked up and had to hunt a salesman down in order to see them. Also, the Essex was locked up. They used the high price excuse for keeping the Kings locked, however that didn’t seem to be a problem with Foreteavel or Newell.

[BillJinOR]

Went on the Friday by car. Show was busy and as usual lots of police presence entering. The sales folks we interacted with said it was happily busy but not like before COVID. Many of the gassers we looked at had been sold. We saw deals on the30% off range but remember thats off the rapidly increased price from pre COVID. Trade ins were way off the high offered prices of just last year as used isn’t selling. This according to a sales person so take it what it’s worth. He seemed happy and felt the no interest tire kickers were less and had more serious buyers.

[BayRunner]

While I’m thinking of this, I thought the surprise sleeper RV was the Coachman Encore Glass A. From what I understand, the Encore Class A is a relatively new model and is designed as an entry level diesel pusher. I liked the floor plan and thought Coachman did a good job putting out a $219k DP that looked attractive.

[PanJH]

We went on Wednesday and arrived at about noon. There was a wait to get thru the gates for parking. After getting into the show we found it to be quite crowded, especially the parts/campground accessories vendor areas. Even though we are local to tampa, we hadn't been to the show in 5 years as we usually winter in Key West, so it was good seeing all the new offerings. We did see that many Class B units were sold on that fist day.
We spent time at the Newmar exhibit checking out each of the model line offerings. What struck me was the sloppy ,rats nest wiring that was exposed in the closets for the KIB system. What a mess, looks like a second grader was assigned the wiring task. We did not go back after the first day, so I gave the second day passes to my neighbors who went on Sunday morning and they said that the place was pretty empty... more sales people than customers. Overall, I enjoyed the show and teh opportunity so see many varied RV's