The Bologna Show is cancelled this year due to the absence of brands

Against a very bleak backdrop for the European automotive industry, brands are making constant cuts to everything they can, as a way of stretching available budgets for events and presentations to the maximum. The proof of this virtual “war economy” that brands are living through today is the complete absence of interested parties wishing to showcase their products at the Bologna Show.

The news has been confirmed by the company organising the event, in a brief statement to the Reuters agency, in which it has regrettably acknowledged that no brand has contacted them to take part in the show. I believe this must be an unprecedented event, one I cannot even recall among the Spanish shows that have been cancelled or suspended in recent years because of the crisis.

The Bologna Show was scheduled to begin on 3 December and would run until the 9th. With car sales in Italy going through one of their worst moments, with a drop of more than 50% since 2007, brands have few or no incentives to invest money in showing new cars that the Italian public will not buy.

The truth is that this is not the first time the Bologna Show has taken blow after blow from the industrial and economic crisis in the sector. While this year the Frankfurt Show has had some 1,000 brands and manufacturers on display, last year in Bologna there were only 133 brands present. In other years, the show had to close early, before the agreed number of days, because of the crisis.

For more data on the investment made at each show, it is estimated that at a show of the size of Frankfurt or Geneva, the costs of organising a front-line stand exceed one million euros.

Source | Automotive News