While the show is significantly smaller in scale this year due the Covid-19 pandemic and travel restrictions, there were new equipment launches happening such as the new Avelo System (diveavelo.com) this week at the Image Resource Center (Booth #2327) and Room S227 as well as a full schedule of seminars taking place in various meeting spots on the floor in adjoining rooms.
Especially now that Bonaire is open for tourism and many guests found their way back to Buddy Dive Resort and Belmar Oceanfront
Last year, we told you that there was "no way to responsibly hold an event of this size with people from around the world for the foreseeable future." When we wrote that, we never would have guessed the "foreseeable future" would extend well over a year.
To bridge the gap, we are working on a resource for divers - for you. Information from our exhibitors with videos, specials, new products, travel and more.
The exhibition is an excellent opportunity to connect with divers in Russia and Eastern Europe and widen the adaptive diving community, according to Jim Elliott, founder of Diveheart.
“We believe that everyone should have the opportunity to experience the life-changing power of scuba diving. There really are no boundaries to what we can achieve, and we have seen time and time again how educational scuba therapy has built confidence and transformed the lives of people with disabilities all over the world,” said Elliott.
YES! That's right! In fact, the Grand Guru Award winner will take home a prize bundle worth $10,000 - made up of $5,000 of gleaming SEACAM Silver and thanks to CameraPro, Canon's latest mirrorless EOS R6!
The Five Photo Category winners all receive $500 cash and fabulous product prizes thanks to ScubaPro, Momento Pro and Living Image.
There's A People’s Choice category too!
On Friday 29 Jan and only a few hours apart, we received similar updates from the organisers of the New Jersey-based Beneath the Seas dive show and the Swedish Dive Show, Dykmässen, which in recent years have been taken place in Gothenburg in the Swedish West coast. Both announced that they will be postponing their respective events until next year due to the restrictions being imposed because of the pandemic.
Press Release
"The continuing high level of infection and the fact that the end of the lockdown is not foreseeable for the time being make a resumption of trade fair operations at the end of April appear increasingly unrealistic", states Wolfram N. Diener, CEO of Messe Düsseldorf.
"We have reassessed the situation with our partners and jointly decided to cancel boot 2021 early. Our priority is the health and planning security of our exhibitors, visitors and service providers. All activities will now be focused on the successful staging of boot 2022."
“At the present moment in time, we cannot reliably gauge whether a trade fair can be implemented in January 2021. This is due to current infection rates, ongoing travel restrictions and existing legal provisions which do not permit trade fairs to be held currently. In consultation with our boot advisory board and the associations we have selected the new dates in April with caution," Messe Düsseldorf’s CEO Wolfram Diener writes in a press release.
Message from the organisers:
TEKDiveUSA has been monitoring the evolving situation on coronavirus both in the U.S. and around the globe. Due to the public health emergency, we are currently facing, we believe that it is not possible to move forward with TEKDiveUSA.2020 as planned.
This review comes on the coat tails of the other virtual dive show, Scuba.Digital, which we attended a few weeks prior and the conclusions are just about the same; The conference component in which attendees can listen into a range of webinar-style presentations worked reasonably well.
The rest of it, however, such as networking activities which is an essential part and, to entities like ourselves, the most important aspect of taking part in dive shows, absolutely did not.
