Interbike Moves … and Then Some
So the folks at Interbike announced yesterday that they are moving the industry’s largest trade show from the Sands Convention Center in Las Vegas to the Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim. The Sands has been Interbike’s home for the last 12 years, so this is a big change.
Not only are they moving the location, but they also chose to move the show’s date up—to early August.
It’s a mixed-bag announcement. For entirely selfish reasons, I like the fact that the show is being moved back to California. It’s much closer to home for me and I doubt I’ll miss all the cigarette smoke.
More objectively, Anaheim was the show’s home before it moved to Las Vegas and in the interim the facility has been improved and added to. That should prove to be helpful to the show. My greater curiosity is what this will do to exhibitor costs. If the new/old location proves to be less expensive than Las Vegas was, then the move could help lure manufacturers who stopped exhibiting back into the folk.
Hotel costs are likely to rise for most folks. Vegas has been hurting and sites like Travelocity can lead the frugal to hotel rooms going for less than a half-tank of gas.
The real question the announcement raises is just who will be served by the new, early-August dates. It will certainly help some manufacturers with their introduction of new products. It will be much more convenient to the production cycle for some, though definitely not everyone.
What doesn’t make sense is asking retailers to vacate their stores during one of the 12 most important weeks in the selling season. The further north you go, the shorter the season gets and leaving a bike shop in August (no matter how capable the hands) is like hitting the jackpot on a one-armed bandit and then walking away before the silver dollars spill out.
Even if retailers attend, they can’t afford to leave their shops understaffed, so the number of wrenches attending the show will drop. While this will clear the floor a bit, shop staff are a passionate bunch eager to view the coolest and newest. Smart shop owners have always used their staff as their eyes for new products and trends. Their effective reach will be cut.
I know RKP has a number of readers working in the industry. Whether you’re on the retail or the manufacturing side, we’d love to hear your opinion. To my eye, August seems a terrible decision, but I’m just one guy who can’t be trusted to watch American Idol without my wife forcing me.
Let us know what you think, and which side of the fence you sit on.
