Agreed, but this is how the IMS has been going for quite a while. Triumph didn't even bother showing up this year (unless I missed them), last year they were just a single pop up tent and three bikes, kind of like the almost non existent Yamaha presence this year with a single bike.
There were a lot less customs and all of them were pretty much cruiser or cruiser esque so I didn't even bother voting on any of them.
The surprising highlight for me came from Indian in the form of the FTR1200S. Very sharp bike and surprisingly comfortable the gauge cluster is interesting and it has CRUISE CONTROL!. I told the guys working the booth that nothing that Indian had done up to this bike has even remotely interested me. The 15.5k price tag means one will never grace my garage at least in new form.
Kind of weird not seeing a KLR in there at all.
Suzuki is really bringing nothing new to the table other than the Katana which was pretty neat looking. But I was more attracted to the old Katana they had sitting there
It was nice to see the SV650 back on the floor.
Harley is bringing nothing new to the table other than retro paint jobs it seems.
Honda seems to be doing pretty well with retro models and updating what they already have.
The Vendor area was a circus as usual.
I haven't been real impressed with the IMS for many years even when I was living in Cali and going to the Long Beach show it was eh.
If I didn't live this close to it I wouldn't go out of my way to go. I rolled out of there by about 1300ish and was back home in time to do some tinkering on the Jeep before I took over watching the kiddos from the wife.
Only person I ran into was Lobby on my way out of the entry doors.