Intermot 2020 Has Been Canceled. Sort of.
Rennie Scaysbrook | June 16, 2020
Covid-19 has claimed another, rather unsurprising, victim. The Intermot Show in Cologne, Germany, the second-largest motorcycle industry trade show in the world, will now be a digital-only event.
Run every other year, the 2020 show was set to run between October 6-11, and the organizers have now declared there will be an online version of the show live before the end of the year.
“After conferring with key players from the industry, and with a view to the health of exhibitors and visitors, Koelnmesse and the German Motorcycle Industry Association (IVM) have decided not to host this trade fair in 2020,” a statement by the German Motorcycle Industry Association (IVM), Koelnmesse GmbH, said. “‘An event that depends on its appeal as an experience and event cannot be held in this form at this point in time and thus does not meet the expectations and needs of the industry. Our customers’ resources for 2021 are already under heavy strain as a result of the SARS/COVIC-19 crisis. As an important part of the motorcycle industry, however, and particularly in difficult times, we want to actively support our partners and are now working full steam on a digital format. With the digital INTERMOT news stream, we are creating a communication platform that will provide sustainable inspiration for the industry and the motorcycle community alike. We can then turn our full focus to the event scheduled for 2022.”
Given the scale and number of vendors at Intermot, it will be fascinating to see how the public responds to the digital format. European trade shows are big events, often covering five times the floor space of regular U.S. shows like the Progressive International Motorcycle Shows and putting all that into a screen will be a challenge, to say the least.
However, Intermot’s future will likely be a hybrid format of in-person and digital shows, according to show organizers.
The traditional Intermot Show will not return until 2022.
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