Fishing Shows in Japan: What Can We Expect There?

This year’s Yokohama fishing show, officially called the Fishing Festival, was held from the 19th of January, 2024 for three days. And the Osaka fishing show will open from the 2nd of February until the 4th, in 2024.

Looking back at the Yokohama show, there were 35 thousand visitors and 49% increased compared to 2023. Some of the big differences from the previous year was that there was no online event and that exhibitors could sell their own original items at their booths.

The Yokohama show had not allowed each exhibitor to sell products at their booths, and the organizer's dedicated booth was the only place allowed. This was changed this year, and some said that it contributed to the increase of visitors. Many of these products sold there were exclusive items that were not possible to buy anywhere else. 

But what does it mean? What is the significance of an exhibition in the fishing industry?

In this article, I will review some of the exhibition shows globally, firstly. Then the cases in other industries will be referred to, to think about the current status of Japanese shows.

Fishing tackle exhibition shows all over the world

On the contrary to the Yokohama show, the counterpart in Osaka has been offering the selling opportunity for end consumers, and counted the visitor numbers of 45 thousand in 2023.

In the United States, the biggest show is ICAST. This show is for the business-to-business and not for the end consumers. And naturally, there is no outlet function to sell to users. Though, it had 13 thousand visitors. In the fly fishing segment, there are the Fly Fishing Show, in 7 states. For example, the one in Colorado counted about 7 thousand visitors. They are not selling tackles there. There are many expos all over the country but it appears that most of them are mainly for exhibiting and not focusing on selling.

In the U.K. they have the Big One Show. It has the exhibitors of brands as well as retailers. And end consumers can visit and buy products there. The number of visitors recorded 17.5 thousand in 2014 (referred to this Angling Times’ page.) The Northern Angling Show is holding the booths for brands exhibition and retailers, and is open to the public. It had 15 thousands visitors with 180 exhibitors in 2019. And the Essex Carp Show is also held in the similar style, with 200 exhibitors, presumably having nearly the same number of visitors as the Northern Angling Show.

In France, the biggest exhibition show is the Clermont Ferrand show, correctly saying the Carrefour National Pêche et Loisirs. It has only exhibitors and does not have any retailers. The number of visitors is 22 thousand, with 100 exhibiting companies of 340 brands, in 2023. 

In Italy, the Pescare Show is holding two exhibition events, one in Vicenza and another in Napoli. The Vicenza show is said to have 20 thousand visitors in 2018 with 220 exhibitors according to this article, while presenting the products not selling.

In Germany, there are no outstanding sized shows, however there are some big expos. Fish & Angel has about 20 thousand visitors with 40 companies including the retailers. Angel Expo is holding the show with 30 exhibitors and 4 thousand visitors. Both of them and many other exhibitions in Germany are mainly focusing on selling and end consumer visitors are expecting to buy good offered products.

In the Netherlands, the biggest show is the Zwolle Carp show (currently named as Carp Den Bosch.) As the name tells you, it is the carp show but it has a significant size as an event. While this carp show moved from Zwolle to Bosch from 2024, it boasted 150 booth stands to welcome 16 thousands visitors. This show is a mixture of brand exhibitions and retailer outlets. 

In Europe, other big shows are in Russia and in Poland. 

In Russia, the Hunting & Fishing show is held twice a year. The spring event is important in fishing. While it is exhibiting the related equipment for both hunting and fishing, including boats and vehicles, the visitor count hits 55 thousand, with over 700 exhibitors. It is a mixture of exhibition only booths, handmade goods sellers and retailers.

In Poland, Rybomania has organized three events and their total visitor count is 60 thousand, approximately 20 thousand for one event. It has retailers listed in the exhibitors as well as brands.  

In Brazil, the famous show is the Pesca & Companha Trade Show. In this show, there are 100 exhibitors and retailers on top. It is clearly a mixture of exhibition and selling. It is said that the visitor count hit 20 thousand, according to this site.

In China, there are 4 big shows, Beijing show, Tianjin show, Weihai show, and Shanghai Lure show. Among these four, the show for the business trade is the Beijing show or China Fish. In this show,  there are 500 suppliers and 1500 buyers from all over the world. The Tianjin show focuses on the selling of the products, and more on the domestic atmosphere. Domestic does not mean small, and it is said that it attracts 5 thousand fishing tackle industry people and 200 thousand people visited in 2023 (source link.)

The city of Weihai is the center of fishing tackle production, and this Weihai show, CGC Weihai Expo, holds the show twice a year. Each event has 35 thousand visitors with over 800 exhibitors, including brands and retailers (source link.) Shanghai Lure show, or Shanghai International Lure Fishing Show, is getting 37 thousand visitors with over 600 exhibitor companies (source link.) It emphasizes the communication among the lure related people in the industry.  

In the South East Asia region, there are shows like these. Thailand Fishing Expo, in Vietnam, Vietnam International Fishing Equipment Exhibition. They are not significantly large event in the global perspective.

In Korea, the fishing show called Kofish is the biggest. It had 132 companies enrolled and had 436 booths, to receive over 55 thousand visitors. It has both the booths from brands and of sellers. 

In Australia, they have the AFTA Tackle Show, they have business days when only the industry business people can enter and a day open for end consumers. They have over 3 thousand user visitors and about 400 buyers visited the show (source link) with 200 booths of brands.

Exhibition in other industries in Japan

The Japan Mobility Show, formally Tokyo Motor Show, is exhibiting the motorized vehicles, to have attracted 1.1 million people in 2023. Exhibitors are not selling in the show, as you can imagine. This motor show is the biggest show in Japan, held once every two years.

The second biggest is the Osaka Food Exposition, which has 0.6 million visitors, held once every four years. It is exhibiting the food industry and visitors can enjoy the free trials and paid meal. And the next ranked exhibition is to introduce Japan's local speciality food and festivals, to get 0.3 million visitors. The event following this in the 4th ranking is the Osaka Motor Show, which had 0.25 million people. In the 5th position, the Tokyo International Gift Show is placed with the visitors of 0.2 million people. This gift show is a business to business exhibition.

It seems that the exhibition which can provide entertaining or intelligible soft contents is able to attract people without any material purchase or materialistic benefit. The Japan Mobility Show may be considered as a mixture of museum and entertainment, and it attracts so many people. The Osaka Motor Show is run by a TV broadcaster and it has more of an entertainment taste and it results in a good visitor count. On the contrary, the food related exhibition is attracting people with the benefit people can get physically. The gift show is a B to B exhibition which is in significant size in terms of number of exhibitors as over 2,000 companies.

Categorize the fishing exhibitions

If you categorize these shows, you can group them like below.

1. Pure B to B exhibition
2. B to B + B to C, put emphasis on B to B
3. B to B + B to C, more focus on B to C
4. Prioritize the B to C 

As the number of exhibitors is very high, ICAST is sustainable as a pure B to B show.

The more you go for the consumer driven direction, the more likely show organizers are to offer something to buy. It is like the Russian show  and the Tianjin show in China. 

And another possible deciding factor to select the category of the show is the availability of goods in the market. If the market or shops are not filled with enough products or new products, then the shows are demanded to be an outlet as well as the exhibitor of novelties.  

From my experience, I feel that, presently, China is moving to B to C but it is not because of the lack of availability (China has much improved logistics system nationwide now), but because of their branding, storytelling or entertainment aspect. Chinese brands are starting to tell their stories in their own languages, replacing the messages from outside such as the western countries or Japan.

Position of Japanese show and its future

In the past, the Yokohama show was focusing on the exhibition for end users, or they did not sell anything in the show. But they had a lot of visitors. At that time, users were excited to see new products and there were many star anglers whom fans wanted to see. In other words, it functioned as good entertainment which was worth paying for the entrance fee.

As described in the beginning of this article, the Yokohama show is now opening the door for exhibitors to sell their products. 

As a hypothesis, it could be a case that the users are experiencing entertainment in different media, namely SNS. Marketing activities are done on SNS, and especially young anglers are already entertained by them. Therefore, their drive to go to the show cannot be pure entertainment anymore. Additionally, the sold goods are show exclusive items and it is the case that the lack of availability drives their desire to buy at the show.

In other words, now the Japanese shows are facing the world beyond conventional entertainment. They need to do something more than conventional show presentations. These could be events which connect or merge the virtual world, real world & people, and products. New forms of interaction, the new ways of product development with using the technology, these could be the thing to come in the future.