28th Annual Underwater Sports Diver’s Fair

June 24th, 2006

Underwater Sports is having their 28th Annual Diver’s Fair the weekend of July 28th. I thought I’d drop some info about it here since last year I made out like a bandit with all the deals they offered. I missed the Diver’s Fair a few years back and when I got home from diving in Southeast Asia all my buddies were sporting new gear and I told myself that I’d never miss it again if I could help it.

Here’s the basic info regarding the fair:

3 days long: July 28, 29, 30
The largest SCUBA sale in the country
27-year tradition
Over 100,000 items available
Incredible instruction discounts
Reps from just about every manufacturer on site to help
Underwater photography contest

Now y’all already know that I’m biased toward Underwater Sports in the first place, since they’ve always done me right in getting me all the best gear. But, this is honestly, hands down, the best time and place to gear up - especially if you’ve recently got into scuba. Perhaps my favorite part about the Diver’s Fair is that all the reps from the biggest names in scuba gear are on hand to answer questions and to show you the newest and greatest stuff. Usually I have to spend hours on the web researching equipment and getting secondary information from other divers, but this is the one chance I get per year to hear it from the horse’s mouth on just about every piece of gear imaginable.

Basically, the manufacturers’ reps all get together and there’s a huge tent encompassing the Seattle Underwater Sports Flagship location. There are divers from all across the country who come to this event. The prices on just about everything are so good that I’ve known divers to start waiting from around February to buy at the fair instead of through ‘normal’ discounts they might get during the rest of the year. Last year my buddy Patrick and I went to town, buying up almost 2K worth of gear each that normally would’ve cost well into the mid 3K range. They practically give away all the small accessories like masks, fins, hoods, gloves, booties, etc.

I talked to my buddy Doug, who manages the Bellevue location, and this year looks to be even more insane than last year. I have a number of friends who just did their Open Water certifications and you can bet that I’ll be bringing them down to scrape together entire diving setups at a fraction of the cost they’d normally be able to piece together online or elsewhere. The best part about this, especially for new divers, is that you can try all the gear on and make sure it fits (which is the one major disadvantage of buying online). This is especially important for things like BCDs, dry suits, wet suits and fin/bootie combos. For big(er) ticket items, they’ll have over a thousand models each to choose from: regulators, suits, computers, plus hundreds of tanks. Throw in the fact that you’ll have all the support from the reps and that all products there will carry original manufacturer’s warranties and you’ll think you’ve died and gone to heaven.

Major brands being showcased by reps at this year’s Fair:

For more info, see the Underwater Sports page about the Diver’s Fair.

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