After the demise of the Sandown show and the debacle of the Wembley show and the debacle of the Earl Court show, I like to think BBplayed a part in getting the show brought back to life in 1998.

At the time, it was announced the show would be run "as a service the industry" and would benefit from a benign accounting policy. I believe £30k was the value of this service to the industry.

So how come the show is no longer a service to the industry?

And why didn't the retail sector turn up? After all, NBS had the very best in advice from a Steering Committee that included David Lewin, David Coleman, Peter McLuskie and Peter Steinberger, all old hands in the retail business. And if these guys couldn't come up with a reason for the retail sector to attend the show, who can?

So did NBS put enough resources into the show?

Mercator Media runs Seawork. It has a permanent staff of four, led by Jane Wilson. The day after the 2004 show finished, they were selling the 2005 show.

Now we have the situation where Mark Dowland is boosting his own show to two days. And he's running seminars. And he's offering stand space to non competing product lines from other companies that want to reach the retail sector.

And who knows - maybe other distributors will run their own shows.

But aren't we missing something here? Didn't we - until last month - have a marine trade show that was meant to enable manufacturers and distributors to show their wares to the retail sector?

It's all a bit of a mess, isn't it?