AJ,
Are you one of the organizers?
Hi Hugh,
Yes I am. The very abbreviated story:
My ability to travel to shows has been limited to none of late, due to family/work circumstances...so...connected with Wayne Parham after having attended and loved Lonestar Audiofest. With his blessings, spoke with lady at Embassy Suites Dallas, who put me in their system, connected me with Tampa locations, about having Lonestar style show here.
Got the ball rolling, found location, partnered with 3 gents in the Suncoast Audiophile Society, Tampa local audio club, as running this myself would have been impossible. One is a dealer in Sarasota, he contacted a bunch of FL big name manufacturers...who basically said no way if show is that "cheap", like Lonestar. Yep, that's right, gotta love Audiophile manufacturers. So the compromise was..$2.2k for the room, which includes (totally separate) sleeping room. Similar to Dallas...but better. The listening room is 12.5 w x 19' deep. The suite is quite a bit bigger, because the building was built as a condo tower originally.
So we're talking literally 1/2 what a typical show costs, maybe less when factoring sleeping room. Not out of desperation, but each of us has our own income, so this isn't a make as much money as possible show for us like typical. Plus we don't have to go anywehere. There is zero in SE, outside of Lonestar and we're hoping to draw that crowd as well as a few big names. IOW, a cross between a Lonestar and typical bling fest.
The hope is we make it affordable for small fries...and also allow the big boys to have 2 rooms fro price of one, with the hopes that they show more of lineup, maybe some entry level in one, top in other, instead of almost always just top of line stuffed into one room. Better for manufacturer
and consumer, IMO.
We'll see, won't we.
Spread the word...
cheers,
AJ