One hot ticket: Golf Industry Show 2013

 Though GIS attendance numbers dipped, there was still plenty to enjoy for those who made the trek West.

Ask any of the 13,000-plus who attended the Golf Industry Show in San Diego. This was a show not to be missed.

From John Deere’s VIP tour of Petco Park, home of the San Diego Padres, to Valent’s three-hour cruise and Jacobsen’s “orange everywhere” campaign, this year’s Golf Industry Show was one hot ticket.

Numbers were down across the board from last year’s show in Las Vegas, but it was sure hard to see that based on traffic in the aisles. While 14,700-plus attended the last two shows, this year’s show saw 13,192 attendees. Qualified buyers were down from 7,068 in 2012 to 6,018 this year. Exhibitors and the size of the show itself were fairly constant — 517 exhibitors and 172,900 square feet in San Diego compared to 540 exhibitors and 177,300 square feet last year in Las Vegas.

Count Turfco’s Scott Kinkead in that group of people who liked what they saw at the show despite the final numbers.

“We’ve been slammed with people the entire show. There have been tons of guys here to see our new topdresser and new seeder,” Kinkead, executive vice president, Turfco, said. “This has been a really good show. There’s a different level of energy and excitement.”

Here’s some quick-hit coverage of what we saw this year. We’ll have a thorough report on products we saw in next month’s issue.

The Golf Industry Show returns to its most heavily attended location in 2014 when it heads back to Orlando on Feb. 5th and 6th. We’ll see you there.