Surf Expo 2003 is now over. All the booths have been torn down. All the companies have gone home. All the new products are going into production. 2004 will be another great year for boardsports and Wakeboarder.com will try to bring you as much information as we can on these new products during the year.
For those that are in the industry Surf Expo is the place to showcase new products and for retailers it provides them one stop shopping. Retailers from all over the world attend Surf Expo trying to find the items that will set them apart from all their competition. You can’t just walk into surf expo but if you can ever find a way in I would recommend at least making the trip once during your wakeboarding lifetime.
Wakeboards, wakeskates, wakesurf boards, and bindings are usually the main items on display at Surf Expo. Gator boards stepped it up from last year and had a huge display decked out in a style that is true to the Gator image. Check out the photo gallery to see boards on display from all the major board companies and a few new companies trying to break into the Wakeboard or Wakeskate markets.
The next largest group of wake products at Surf Expo would probably be towers and tower accessories. Roswell Wake-Air really stepped it up from last year by taking us ‘back to school’. Roswell created an environment that allowed them to showcase all their new products and ideas that they will be offering for 2004. Look for more information about these products in the near future on Wakeboarder.com. Fluid Concepts has created a new quick-release system that they will be offering in 2004. Lucky Devil design is a new company out of Texas creating products for towers. We hope to have a tour of their facilities in the near future. Monster Towers were also on display at Surf Expo. Keep and eye out for Monster Towers during their second year in business. And while watching the large TV screen in the Wake Design booth I realized that Jason Buffalow was in town promoting his new Delta Sessions video. We will have a review on this video as soon as we can.
This year at Surf Expo definitely had some things missing. Most of the pro riders were attending the Gravity Games and some companies from the previous year did not attend at all. With all the wake related products you’d think I’d be excited about something in our industry but the thing I found to be the high point of my trip was meeting Billy Lane of ChoppersInc.com. Billy just happens to be one of the greatest custom chopper builders in the world. Billy was a class act and also invited Wakeboarder.com down to his place for some riding. Wakeboarder.com will be working with these companies throughout the next year brining you as much information as we can about all the products we saw at Surf Expo.