Passes & Canyons Blog

Here’s an interesting possibility I just picked up on. Marketplace Events (ME), an outfit that primarily puts on home shows around the country, including here in Denver, is expanding into the big deal motorcycle shows business. Their main competitor would seem to be what is currently called the Progressive International Motorcycle Shows put on by Advanstar Communications in 12 cities around the country. Denver is not one of those 12.

Advanstar’s event used to be called the Cycle World International Motorcycle Shows, but now they have a new lead sponsor, Progressive. During the Cycle World years, however, they certainly worked closely with Cycle World’s Vice President and Publisher Larry Little. Little has now been hired by ME as their Vice President & General Manager, Motorcycle Group. That puts ME on solid ground to launch this thing, called the American International Motorcycle Expo (AIME), which they plan to do in Fall 2013.

So what does this have to do with the Colorado Motorcycle Show and Swap? Well, with the IMS only coming to 12 cities it doesn’t seem that ME would want to go head to head with them except on occasion. It makes more sense to bring the show to towns that don’t already have the IMS. Of course, you want to come to the bigger cities, and Denver would seem to be a good choice.

To put it bluntly, if I were running the Show and Swap I’d be feeling a little nervous. Certainly the Show and Swap offers some things the AIME is unlikely to offer, primarily along the swap lines. The IMS doesn’t get into used parts or such, and AIME probably won’t either. Still, if AIME does come to Denver they’re likely to find a lot of vendors and organizations who set up at the Show and Swap who welcome an alternative. The Show and Swap is not a vendor friendly outfit, as I discussed a few days ago.

So who knows. Right now this is all speculation. Marketplace Events has yet to release any details about its plans, and probably won’t for a good while yet. But when the time comes, it should be really interesting to see how things shake out.

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Biker Quote for Today

I’m a bit conflicted about going to the Colorado Motorcycle Show and Swap this year. I don’t go every year, but I have gone a number of times and had been thinking about it this year.

I’m a member of ABATE and each year ABATE sets up a booth. I worked the booth two years ago and was thinking about doing so again this year. At yesterday’s ABATE meeting they were making the point that they were short of people to work the booth, so why not?

Well here’s why not. It costs $15 to get in the show, and even though I was going two years ago to work the booth, I had to pay to get in. I asked Randy Savely, our District 10 rep, about that yesterday and he said oh yeah, that’s the way it is. In fact, he told me, last year when they went down on Friday night to set up, they had to pay admission to do so even though the show doesn’t open until Saturday.

Now hold on. You pay for the privilege of setting up a booth and then you have to pay to get in and man your booth? Or pay even to get in to set it up before the show starts? No, no, no. That is just wrong.

I mean, I can see how things could get out of hand if an organization set up a booth and then 100 of its members all wanted in free to “man the booth.” But that could be addressed just by saying, OK, each organization gets three passes; everyone else has to pay. But pay to get in the night before just to set up?! Please! To me, that smacks of just simple greed.

So you can imagine, I don’t feel very inclined to give these folks my $15. I may give in, but maybe not. It just smells a bit too much for my taste.

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Biker Quote for Today

MOTORCYCLES: created to keep us from choking the idiots around us.