Big doors help Reno land houseboat industry show

A Houseboat Expo in Reno's desert climate? Yes, you've heard it right.

The lack of water nearby isn't a big deal to organizers of the show.

But the ease of getting large houseboats into an exhibition hall can be a deal-maker.

The expo coming to town at the end of the month features luxury houseboats, some of them large as 18 feet wide and 75 feet long.

Some have 10-foot ceilings, king-sized beds in a master bedroom with several other adjoining bedrooms, kitchens with granite counter tops and state-of-the-art media rooms.

Reno may not be a houseboating hot spot, but organizers found good reasons to choose the city as the venue for the West Coast debut of the Houseboat Magazine's boat show.

For the past seven years, an East Coast show in Louisville, Ky., has been the industry's sole national event.

The proliferation of houseboating in the West over the past few years had the event organizers mulling a show on the West Coast.

Houseboat Expo's director,Mitch Brian, says the largest concentration of Houseboat Magazine subscribers is in California.

And there are hundreds of avid houseboaters in Utah,Arizona, California, and southern Nevada, all of them boating on lakes such as Powell, Havasu, Shasta,Mead and Trinity as well as the California Delta.

The West, Brian says, is perceived by the manufacturers as a good market for growth.

"They have done a lot of their growing in the East and Midwest and are moving to the West, seeing that they can grow there."

Louisville, Ky.-based Sumerset Houseboats, for instance, will bring a luxury boat 18 feet wide and 75 feet long to the expo Oct 28-30.

This year alone, Sumerset has sold 10 boats to California customers and nine more in Arizona.

Reno was chosen for the show for a couple of reasons, Brian adds.

Travel to Reno is easier than travel to California locations, and Reno is accessible by short drives from all of the lake areas in the surrounding states.

"And Reno has some attractions like Las Vegas at a bit of a lower price," he says.

The Reno-Sparks Convention Center had its own peculiarity to get the nod, says Brian.

Its doors are big enough to get large houseboats into the center.

When the event was held in Nashville Tenn., a few years back, Brian says, there was trouble in getting the boats into the show.

Of about 25 houseboat manufacturers nationwide, Brian expects about 15 will bring boats to Reno.

Others will bring only displays and literature.

Either way, it's a rare opportunity for consumers to compare houseboats side by side, says Nancy Rimas, Sumerset's vice president for marketing.

Houseboat Expo, in cooperation with Houseboat Magazine and Action Media, is investing "well over six figures to put up a show like this," says Brian.

But the expectations from the industry's first expo in the West are modest.

Brian says organizers don't expect the first show in the West to produce big profits.

But they think it will become profitable as it grows in coming years.