What would it take to lock the doors on a hugely popular boat show?
In Florida, it would take a hurricane. In New York, a blizzard perhaps.
In Seattle, where there never has been a hurricane and where blizzards are as uncommon as a two dollar bill, a football game has prompted sponsors of the Seattle Boat Show to close one day early this season. It’s not just any football game: this one involves the Seattle Seahawks, who will be playing the Denver Broncos in Super Bowl XLVIII in New Jersey Sunday, February 2.
Boat show organizers, heeding the popularity of Seahawks football and sensing that most of their usual customers would choose football on TV over yachts and other boating stuff that Sunday, decided to close the show one day early. They also recognized the obvious: most of the exhibitors would also just as soon watch THAT football game, too.
So, boating fans will have nine days beginning January 24, instead of ten, to visit the show’s two venues – the boats-afloat show at the south end of Lake Union and a dry-land affair which, coincidentally, will be in a conference center at CenturyLink Field, where the football team plays before the noisiest fans in the league.
The show’s nod to football deepens. On all days of the show but January 29 and 30, boating fans who also are Seahawks fans will be allowed to walk out on to the adjoining football field, scuff their toes in artificial turf and vicariously put themselves in Seahawks blue and green for the dramatic end zone play that gave the ‘Hawks a win over San Francisco and a ticket to the Super Bowl.
