Year in and year out, the automotive community in America holds three major shows. The cycle begins with the Los Angeles Auto Show by the end of November, followed by the New York Auto Show the following April, and finally, the Detroit Auto Show, which was recently moved from January to June to avoid harsh winter conditions.
Unfortunately, organizers of the Detroit and New York shows were not able to stage their events this year because of the still-ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
This is why it’s not surprising said organizers were seemingly upset upon learning that the people behind the LA show are still looking to proceed as planned. Except that instead of a November show, the event will take place in May, sandwiched right between the Detroit and New York auto shows.
In a report published by the Detroit Free Press, a few people involved in the shows as well as an unnamed automaker executive expressed their thoughts about the new LA show schedule.
“This is not ideal,” said a senior executive of a major automaker. “Those are the most important auto shows by far. It’d be challenging to do them all right in such a narrow window. We’ll probably have to make some trade-offs.”
The previous gap of 11 weeks between the New York and Detroit shows was considered acceptable to all parties involved, but with the sudden disruption caused by the impending LA show, automakers are now being forced to pick which shows to attend.
A display at a single auto show costs an automaker millions of dollars, which is likely going to be a difficult undertaking given the current economy in the United States.
As if staging an auto show right smack in the middle of two other shows wasn’t ludicrous enough, organizers at LA are also reportedly thinking of holding a separate showcase in November 2021.
“We had to reiterate to them twice that we weren’t doing LA shows in May and November,” a source from an automaker said. ‘We budget one time for LA a year. Just one.”
Looking at the situation, it’s not entirely surprising people involved in all shows are not on the same page. For one, the LA show is privately owned, unlike the two others, which are largely organized by dealer associations in coordination with automakers.
At the moment, nothing is set in stone except that the LA show is slated for May next year.
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