Canadian contributors Glen Wagenknecht, Paul Candy, David Kan, Frederic Beudot covering this show in the past.
When TAVES began in 2011, it was a courageous leap of faith on the part of its organizers and exhibitors. Toronto had not hosted an audio show in in at least a decade. But the resounding success of TAVES put Toronto back on the map as a HighEnd audio destination. That built the foundation for another 6 years of consumer exhibitions. Venue location migrated from the first outings at the King Edward Hotel, remaining downtown over several years at the Sheraton Centre before moving to outskirt locations at the Sheraton Centre Parkway, and finally the Toronto Congress Centre. As the show evolved, it embraced more of a CES style, placing audio in the context of a greater world of technology and art, seeking to entice a wider range of audience as well as recruit fresh blood to the passion of audiophilia. The attendance numbers vindicated the approach but the change of focus also divided the hard-core audio crowd and exhibitors, some of whom would have preferred a venue exclusive to audio. This year a rival show mounted along exactly that line and scheduled within a week of TAVES opening. Ultimately this time table would have split attendees and exhibitors, weakened both events and heightened the level of financial risk to all parties involved. Faced with that prospect, the organizers of TAVES, despite a solid year of intense organizing and finalized arrangements, decided reluctantly to close the show. On behalf of the audio community, I would like to extend my appreciation to the organizers for all their years of hard work and dedication as well as the efforts of designers, distributors and retailers in bringing the joy of music to a grateful audience. TAVES is no more but there will always be fond memories.
Postscript from the publisher. One city, two shows, one week apart? What were they thinking? With TAVES the established players, said thinking—or not thinking—was clearly done by the organizers of the other event. One wonders what their rationale was? Milan has two shows but one happens in the spring, the other in the fall. Spacing two such specialized events one week apart seems unusually… well, one really does feel lost for words…
