2020 taught me that toilet paper is precious, I’m not cut out to be on a baking show and that people love their boating! Even in the new world that we’ve found ourselves all living in, boating has always been a way of helping people escape and stay at peace amongst the chaos. We knew before our boat dealership became essential by the government, that our industry had been essential all along. Boating is great for social distancing, for our mental health and our physical heath too! Knowing this, we masked up, germ-x what was left of our already 90x washed hands and headed into the Charleston Area Convention Center geared up for our favorite event of the year – the Charleston Boat Show.


With other boat shows around the country being cancelled left and right, we know how truly lucky we are that we get to be apart of such a great event. Last year, the boating industry was in disarray due to the high demand of new and pre-owned boats, along with any boating equipment that was needed to kick off the season. It’s when you walk into Walmart during a hurricane – there’s no milk and there’s no bread. 2020 was our hurricane – no boats and no boat parts. We, our manufactures and our distributors scrambled in order to ensure our current and potential customers got everything they needed in time for boating season.
Boating season came and went and so did the dreadful year, but because of it, we are now prepping for a new age type of boat show; one that takes appointments to look at certain boat models, one with dots on the floor to socially distance in distributor booths, hand-washing stations on every corner and temperature checks at the door. This is our new normal and we prepared for this to continue into 2021. Everyone ensured that safety for shoppers and staff was the highest priority at this event.
But we noticed some things remained the same; people’s eye’s lit up over their dream boat, horns went off because someone just purchased the new model they had been looking for online and families shared love over finding a lifestyle they can enjoy together. We didn’t have to prep for that because we already knew it was coming.