The 90th anniversary motor show in Geneva in 2020 was supposed to start hosting guests on Monday, March 2 – it was on this day that the award ceremony for the best cars of the year in Europe COTY was appointed. The next two days – March 3 and 4 – according to the schedule, known for another six months, were supposed to be traditional press days, on which only journalists were allowed to the exhibition. From March 5 to March 15, the show was planned to open to visitors.
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The motor show was canceled at once when the coronavirus reached Switzerland.
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On Friday, February 28, the Swiss government issued an order to ban all events in the country where more than 1000 people gather.
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In 2020, according to organizers, 600,000 people were supposed to attend the Geneva motor show. Photo: gims.swiss
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All because of coronavirus – on February 25, the first case was discovered in the south of the country, and the Swiss sounded the alarm.
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The cancellation of mass events “should prevent or delay the spread of the disease in Switzerland,” the government’s statement released on February 28 said. Just five days after this statement, 54 cases of coronavirus infection have already been identified in Switzerland, with patients in all cantons.
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Cancel more expensive than spend
Having received information about the cancellation of the show, the automakers, who were supposed to build their stands at the weekend, bring guests and journalists to the exhibition, hurriedly began to change their plans.
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Naturally, there is no question of any compensation for expenses — the global epidemic clearly refers to force majeure circumstances. At a press conference on this subject convened on February 28, the leadership of the Palexpo exhibition center, where the car dealership is held, said bluntly that they’re not refunding money, if you want, sue the government.
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Automakers ’expenses for a car dealership include renting an area, arranging a stand, delivering equipment, catering, advertising and souvenir products, and paying for trips to employees and partners. Photo: gims.swiss
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Car manufacturers will not be returned not only the cost of exhibition space, which is not disclosed, but also the money spent on organizing events related to the car dealership. We can roughly estimate these costs, information on prices for airline tickets and hotels is publicly available:
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Thousands of hotel rooms in Geneva itself and neighboring cities, airline tickets for employees and guests of the exhibition, luxurious restaurants where important people planned to celebrate the premieres – all this was paid in advance and will not be returned.
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Both the headquarters of the brands and their offices in other countries, who planned trips to Geneva in large groups, were affected.
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The show went digital
Car premieres are planned in advance. All the models that were supposed to be shown in Geneva, the automakers were going to show for a long time here and in early March.
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After the ban on holding the event, the organizers of the show hastily decided to hold car shows online.
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Palexpo representatives organized a special digital platform on their website, on which the COTY award ceremony was shown to viewers on March 2, and online press conferences were broadcast on March 3 and 4. Not all brands began to organize them, for example, Fiat, Renault and Brabus did without broadcasts. We did not wait for the world premiere, which was promised in Kia.
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On March 3, 24 online car shows were held. On March 4, 4 more broadcasts were scheduled.
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Automakers were filming press conferences mainly at their headquarters. Broadcasts on the car dealership website were duplicated on the websites of automobile companies (but not all) and in social networks. A number of brands, such as BMW, Honda, Hyundai, posted the broadcasts only on the Geneva Motor Show website.
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Avto.Mail.ru collected statistics on viewing the broadcasts of the prime minister of Geneva on YouTube. It turned out that the showroom did not arouse excitement among the audience.
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How viewers watched an online car dealership on YouTube
| Event | YouTube views |
| E-Class World Premiere | 72 945 |
| New ŠKODA OCTAVIA RS iV | 110 314 |
| Volkswagen News | 8 775 |
| Bentley Press Conference and Mulliner Balacar Premiere | 9 344 |
| McLaren at the 2020 Motor Show | 12,707 |
| World premiere of Audi A3 | 314,452 |
| Porsche 911 Turbo S Premiere Premiere | 202 518 |
| Alpine Press Conference | 9 135 |
| Goodyear Press Conference | 1 831 |
| AIWAYS Press Conference | 4 605 |
| Koenigsegg: the show continues | 277 392 |
| World premiere of GFG Style | 1,182 |
| Morgan Presents New Plus Four | 8 233 |
| Press Conference SEAT & Cupra | 3,572 |
| Aston Martin at the motor show | 31083 |
| Press Conference 1000 Miles | 97 |
| Premiere DS 9 | 506 |
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View statistics as of 12:00 March 05, 2020
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Not everyone had time to prepare
Some brands managed to organize everything at a high level thanks to the powerful infrastructure within the companies. Some had a harder time. So, the DS brand was the last to shoot. The French made a 10-minute video recorded in a laconic white room, only at 18 hours on March 4. As a result, few people paid attention to the DS 9 concept car, prepared by the brand for Geneva.
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On YouTube, the premiere of DS as of 12:00 on March 5 gained just 506 views. For comparison, Audi by this time had more than 300,000 views of the broadcast of the A3 premiere on the same site. Although the DS concept is beautiful, take a look:
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Much more attention went to Mercedes-Benz. The Germans quickly organized the broadcast from an elegant studio, in which they demonstrated and discussed the updated E-Class. See how it was:
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The speech of the authorities, a show with a host or just a video?
Presentations of cars online took place in several basic formats. Someone was led by the same leaders who usually perform on stages at car dealerships.
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Some, like the head of Skoda Bernhard Meyer, even started the online broadcast with the same words that they prepared for the motor show. Then, however, moving on to improvisation.
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So, Meyer said on the broadcast that a car transporter with cars for a car dealership on the weekend of February 29 – March 1 was on his way to Geneva, and he had to deploy it so that on March 2 he would return to Mlada Boleslav. The premiere of the fastest version of Octavia was held right at the factory in the Czech Republic.
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Some automakers have chosen to style online car premieres for TV shows. For example, this is what Volkswagen did when they showed their electric crossover:
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What will happen now
In the expert community, the theme of the “death” of car dealerships in general is now actively discussed. Market participants rightly note that investments in motor shows have not been justified for a long time. More and more brands refuse to participate in car dealerships.
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Oil is added to the fire and the problems experienced by the exhibition sites. Shortly before the cancellation of the Geneva Motor Show, it became known that the exhibition would no longer be held in Frankfurt. True, in the end, they decided to move it to Munich.
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The Moscow Motor Show in 2016 and 2018 was becoming smaller and smaller, and the plans for the exhibition for 2020 are still in question. Photo: mas-expo.ru
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The fate of the Moscow Motor Show, which takes place in the capital every two years in August, is now uncertain. The press service of Crocus Expo, the organizer of the event, Auto Mail.ru, on March 5, could not clearly confirm that the auto show in Moscow in 2020 will actually take place.
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Premieres – only for journalists?
Automakers and organizers of the Geneva Motor Show broadcast their press days. And many called their broadcasts press conferences. And the public days of Geneva, March 5-15, as if they did not exist at all.
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No one in Geneva invented any special online events for ordinary motorists.
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Does this mean that motor shows are needed only by journalists? And what do you think? Share your opinion in the comments!
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