The latest such event was the Sydney Motor Show, cancelled because car companies forced the organizers to conclude a deal with the Melbourne Motor Show to hold events alternatively, drive.com reported today. This year, the latter will be held as planned later this month, while the Sydney Motor Show will only take place in 2010.
The deal was triggered by last year's boycott of Sydney Motor Show by some important automakers who wanted only one motor show a year. Among the eighteen car makers who failed to show in Sydney in 2008, one can note Porsche, Aston Martin, Jaguar, Bentley, Rolls-Royce, Mercedes-Benz, BMW and Audi.
Consequently, organizers of the two motor shows, the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries (FCAI) for Sydney motor show and the Victorian Automobile Chamber of Commerce (VACC) for the Melbourne motor show agreed to conclude a partnership to save both shows. This agreement comes also with the modification of the name of the shows, each of them being called the Australian International Motor Show.
“There was an emerging consensus within the industry that we needed to move in this direction,”said FCAI chief executive Andrew McKellar. “We’ll get a better result in terms of what we can bring to future motor shows and that will be better for the public,” he added.
In addition, he also confirmed that the drop-off in ticket sales was also due to the absence of key-automakers but he added that other factors were also involved in the matter.
But now that there will be only one major auto show a year in the country, automakers should have no other reasons to deny participation... with the exception of costs during such hard times, of course. McKellar is, however, optimistic about the future claiming that alternate events will ensure a high standard of exhibits.
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