If auto salons have been struggling in recent years, the effects of the new coronavirus pandemic seem to have doomed them… at least for this year. Geneva and Detroit were cancelled, Beijing and New York were postponed. Now the organizers of the Salon de Paris 2020 are also announcing the cancellation of the event.
With the original date set to open on September 26 — lasting until October 11 — the organizers of the event decided to cancel the event in advance due to the effects caused by the pandemic of the new coronavirus.
“Given the seriousness of the unprecedented health crisis facing the automotive sector, hit hard by the wave of economic shock, today struggling for survival, we are forced to announce that we will not be able to maintain the Paris Motor Show at the Porte de Versailles in its current form for the 2020 edition”.
Organizers also pointed to uncertainties about when restrictions on the movement of people will be eased as yet another reason to take this decision early.
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However, the bi-annual event — alternated with the IAA, better known as the Frankfurt Motor Show, which is now moving to Munich — will not cancel everything it had prepared for the occasion. Other peripheral events associated with the Salon de Paris 2020 will also take place. One of them is Movin’On, a business-to-business (B2B) event dedicated to innovation and sustainable mobility.
Future?
What future for the Salon de Paris 2020 (or even many other salons) seems to be the question that organizers of this type of event are now trying to answer.
“We are going to study alternative solutions. The profound reinvention of the event, with the dimension of a festival, based around innovative mobility and a strong B2B component, could offer an opportunity. Nothing will ever be the same, and this crisis must teach us to be agile, creative and more innovative than before.”
Razão Automóvel's team will continue online, 24 hours a day, during the COVID-19 outbreak. Follow the recommendations of the General Directorate of Health, avoid unnecessary travel. Together we will be able to overcome this difficult phase.