The Florida Audio Expo 2020: Sold Out??

It's Friday morning as I write this—the first day of the Florida Audio Expo, which is being held at the Embassy Suites Airport Westshore, near Tampa. As often happens, breakfast ran long, as colleagues and others stopped by for conversation. By the time I got up to attack the show—a little after 10am—someone told me the show was sold out, as in no more room for visitors. Say what? I've never heard of a sold-out audio show.

I spoke to Bart Andeer, one of the show's co-founders, who first pointed out that "sold out" isn't precisely the best word choice for a show with free admission. And then he gave me the skinny.

Using the maximum capacity of each room—think: fire code—and the number of rooms at the show, Bart (with others) calculated the show's maximum capacity, then adjusted that to account for no-shows and walk-ins. They used that estimate to set the maximum number of pre-registrations at Eventbrite.com.

Eventbrite preregistrations have sold out for all three days.

When I walked outside to take some pictures, I heard an attendant telling drivers that the parking garage is full.

If you're in the area, though, don't stay away, even if you're not pre-registered; they're going to keep letting people in until there is serious concern about unsafe conditions, and they haven't reached that point yet (or had not when I walked upstairs to write this post).

Oh, and there's satellite parking across the street.

And there's plenty to see. For a smallish regional show, there are a lot of big names here: MBL, VTL, VAC, a few new companies—and several new product debuts.

Speaking of debuts: Julie Mullins, formerly of TAS, is covering the show for Stereophile. We're happy to have Julie onboard.

COMMENTS
Bogolu Haranath's picture

Julie Mullins is a great audiophile and a great audio reviewer ........ I have always enjoyed reading her audio equipment reviews and her choice of great music ....... I'm glad she is with Stereophile :-) .......

Bogolu Haranath's picture

Florida is famous for oranges ...... May be JA2 was enjoying a glass of 'Tequila Sunrise' with his breakfast? :-) ........

volvic's picture

I look forward to your write-ups and hopefully future reviews. Fun!

JRT's picture

I think it was February of last year that Bill Leebens had mentioned in an article elsewhere that Ammar "AJ" Jadusingh of Soundfield Audio in Tampa (sometimes a participant here in the comments, and elsewhere) was one of the organizers of that earlier show. If he is still involved, then congrats to him as well as to the others on the seemingly very successful show.

AJ's picture

Yes and thanks. I/we thought we needed a show in the SE..and now we know.
Thanks to all who came.

Sal1950's picture

We've badly needed some coverage of the high end audio world in Central Florida for a long time. Thanks go out to AJ and the others that have worked so hard to organize this show for the last 2 years. It has grown from 42 rooms in 2019, to 66 rooms in 2020. There was a lot of buzz and excitement again this year as I visited the rooms and I look forward to the same growth for the 2021 Expo.
Thanks to all the manufacturers and dealers who put all the effort into traveling here, and also to the visitors who joined us for the fun.
See ya'll next year.
Sal1950

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