Competition, Perhaps, For The Show & Swap?
Thursday, January 19th, 2012
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.
Recent from National Motorcycle Examiner
International Motorcycle Shows to face competition?
