Audio Shows — Next Up

Just booked my travel arrangements for AXPONA in Chicago (March 8-10th). Looking forward to a quick visit to the Windy City and meeting up with the rest of the TAS team. Not sure if I’m actually going to be covering the show for TAS or not, but either way, choice bits will end up here. I’ve been hearing some rumors about a new loudspeaker from Volti Audio and some new amps from Purity Audio, so this should be interesting.

After that is Salon, Son et Image (aka, SSI — March 21-24th). I’d love to go to this show (Montreal is one of the most incredible foodie towns in North America), but it’s a short two weeks after AXPONA and doing both seems a bit brutal. I’ve yet to bang out a show coverage in less than a couple of weeks, so this schedule just seems like a painful way to overload the site for way too long. Yeah. And given how lazy I am, this amount of work sounds unpleasant. Okay ….

Following SSI is the New York Audio Show (April 12-14th). Looks like a done deal. TAS has offered to make this one happen, so I’ll be up there representing them.

High End in Munich, Germany (May 9-12th). This is most expensive of all possible options for me to target this year. Flights are really expensive … and then there’s the hotel. Oh, and food. All told, I’m guessing it’ll be $2,500. On the plus side, it’s a huge expo and there are vendors there that I’ll never be able to see or hear (or meet) at any US-based audio show. It’s also Germany. I like Germany! On the downside … the flight itself will wipe two full days off the calendar. I suspect I’ll be pretty much useless for the day that I arrive. Oh, and it’s 3x the cost of the trip to any other audio show. Ouch. I want to go. You all want me to go. But … ouch.

T.H.E. Show in Newport Beach, CA (May 31st – June 2nd). This is an awesome show, and was my favorite of the crop from last year, and yes, that included RMAF … but in all fairness, RMAF kinda got FUBAR’d for me, so that’s probably not a good comparison. So, anyway, yes — Newport was an awesome show and I had a fan-tab-ulous time. Which is why I was so bummed to find out that they’d moved the show up a week or two this year! Okay, they didn’t, it just caught me by surprise … I’d already booked a week at the beach with the family the week prior. Oops.

So, here’s where we’re at. SSI is out. AXPONA and New York are in. Which leaves Munich and Newport! So, the dilemma: do I head out to Germany, come back and write like a madman, and then head out to the beach — and miss Newport? Or do I skip Germany this year entirely — and leave the beach early to head to Newport? Of course, option #3 is to blow off both, but that doesn’t really complicate my life in any interesting way, so where’s the fun in that?

More seriously, I don’t think it’s fair to my family to do both — run the risk of carrying write-up work into the vacation time (I do all this on my nights and weekends as it is due to “the day job”) and ditch early on family time. Sorry — love you all and love this stuff, but … yeah. Anyway.

So, here’s the issue — if it can be only one, which would you choose?