By Heneage Mitchell

With a new owner, and on a new floor in Singapore’s centrally-located SUNTEC Exhibition Center (6th floor from the previous 4th floor), ADEX 2008 was not the universal success its new owner might have wished it to be.

Critics pointed to the lack of carpeting, the wider passages between booths and, particularly, to the vast open spaces on the floor that might have easily been disguised with the simple placement of some screens. The event looked poorly attended by default regardless of how many people actually showed up (as of press time, no figures have been supplied by the organizers). The tiny conference room, 4m x 4m of floor space surrounded by flimsy booth walls, was plagued by the noise emanating from the lavish stage the organisers decided would be the centerpiece of this so-called regional wholesale show, where equipment was auctioned off on behalf of environmental groups in front of a handful of visitors throughout the show.

DAN staffers wondering who to talk to next

“I will complain to the ADEX organizing committee for failing to meet their promise to provide us with a stage for the seminar. Instead, they only gave us a room in the corner of the exhibition hall which practically missed the visitors` attention," complained Betty Anita, Coordinator of the Indonesian Delegation to ADEX 2008, quoted by ANTARA News. "How could people be interested in visiting the room? They would be more interested in stages easily found by visitors as they often passed them," she said.

"This is a business forum while the seminar is expected to present government policies and strategies on the tourism sector," added Roby, a senior researcher at the Indonesian Ministry of Culture and Tourism. A good point, and one of several that the show’s organizers clearly failed to grasp 

The sudden appearance of hordes of school children on the first day of the show, which was supposed to be a trade-only day, highlighted the new organiser’s lack of understanding of this seminal diving exhibition. And just how many “Try Scuba” participants were they really expecting to sign up for a free scuba try-out in the pool on the trade-only day?

The number of exhibitors was down on previous Singapore shows, and singularly lacking were equipment manufacturers. We counted four, a wetsuit manufacturer, a technical diving equipment maker and two compressor companies, both Singapore-based. Other equipment was certainly on show, and there were several equipment manufacturer’s representatives on hand, but these were on the booths of local Singaporean distributors who were essentially conducting fire sales at their booths at the front of the hall, one of the major impediments ADEX has yet to overcome if it truly wishes to earn the title of a regional wholesale rather than local retail event. 

Thailand's booth

In fact, as many observers have been pointing out for some years now, ADEX has long since failed in that respect, but it is a reasonably effective, if extremely expensive, local retail show.

Several exhibitors, some of whom had clearly invested a lot of money in their booths, complained that they were forced to change location, and, in some cases, layout, at the last minute to make way for late-comers. Those at the rear of the half-empty hall felt that many visitors on the public days simply stocked up with cheap dive gear at the retail outlets at the front of the hall and were thus too over laden to make a circuit of the rest of the exhibitors. 

Training agencies and some equipment manufacturers were among the most displeased at the event, but quite a few resorts that participated were happier than we have noticed in recent years. Some sales were made, deposits taken and in general the view among dive centers that participated was that the show was better than recent ADEX outings in Bangkok and Singapore.

ScubaGlobe shared a booth with InDepth

The new owner, Herman Ho, claims to be an ardent environmentalist. At least he claims not eat shark fins, which is all well and good. But hosting a dive exhibition is about more than touting environmental awareness among visitors, most of whom did not actually make it to the rear of the hall where a few exhibits and experts were on hand to educate anyone willing to listen on the deplorable state of the oceans we love. Divers, particularly professional divers, are well aware of the issues involved, and many feel that the money they invested in attending and exhibiting at ADEX might have been better spent elsewhere.  Dive operators attend dive shows to attract new business. While some operators claimed to have done ok, in general, the consensus was that the show still has to face a steep learning curve if it wishes to win back the kudos the original ADEC shows earned. Remember ADEC? It was conceived by a diver for divers. Over the years, the direction has been lost and the focus blurred. Many in the industry feel that ADEX has not lived up to its mandate for many years, and fewer still believe it is now heading anywhere functional for the regional industry as a whole. 

In which direction ADEX is actually headed now is uncertain, but, regardless of its focus or relevance to the regional diving industry, according to Ho, it isn’t going anywhere further than Singapore ever again, despite rumours circulating before the show that it would be held in Macau alongside a boat show in 2010.

The baseball teams never showed up…

Ho is also adamant that ADEX will topple the growing number of local retail shows, such as Deep Indonesia and TDEX, in the future by providing a better focus for exhibitors and visitors alike. Unless, that is, you happen to be Indonesian, Malaysian Thai, Filipino or Australian, or in fact from anywhere else except Singapore, in which case the chances of you attending an ADEX show as anything other than an exhibitor or trade visitor are, let’s face it, zero. And, given the high price of an ADEX booth, particularly when compared to the other regional dive shows, it is hard to see how Ho’s vision of regional dominance is likely to prosper. 

And, on the strength of it, the chances of  dive professionals  attending another ADEX as a trade visitor or exhibitor are also seemingly declining too if the ever-decreasing number of paid-for floor space and booths at the show is not turned around with some erudite management decisions.

As has been pointed out by many in the industry, if it wasn’t for PADI’s support of the show, with its huge footprint hosting many PADI Dive Resorts and lavish displays over the last several years, ADEX would most likely have folded years ago. It remains to be seen if Ho and his team are able to win back some support from the key players in an Asia Pacific dive industry that for many years has been increasingly, and largely remains, widely disenchanted with ADEX and its continuing failure to live up to its mandate as the region’s leading dive exhibition. 

See you at TDEX in Bangkok next May!

PADI Awards night-did the free beer have anything to do with the attendance

Wide spaces between booths and minimal carpeting made the show look emptierthan it might have been