Interbike now and in the future
Last week was the big shinnydig for the bike industry. Interbike is held the last week of September every year and is the chance for manufacturers to show off their wares to dealers. This was my fourth year to the big show and although I’m still a newbie compared to most, I believe I can give some overall thoughts and opinions on the show. The parts that are good and the parts that need some work.
Viva Las Vegas
Vegas sucks. We all know this. And the overall waste and sadness that exists there is hard on the soul after a week. So why is the bike tradeshow held in a city that many would deam contrary to everything the bicycle stands for?
One, just like the women, Las Vegas is cheap and easy. The major airport is five miles from the event and the hotels/flights are to expensive. Not to mention that much of the city is built around large events and large amounts of people. This makes it way easier to put on such a large event as Interbike
Two, the sands expo is a perfect place for Interbike. There are only a couple places in North America big enough to hold everybody and the Sands is (I believe) the only place that can house everyone in one room instead of multiple floors and shoving the little guys off in their own room somewhere. Think the New Exhibitor pavilion is a ghost town now?
Third, how many of those other places that could house Interbike can almost gaurantee no rain for the outdoor demo?
So yeah, Vegas sucks, but the folks at Interbike didn’t just close their eyes and put their finger on the map. They picked Sin City for good reasons… and don’t forget the dealors took a survey last year and overwhelmingly voted to stay in Vegas.
The Exhibitors Need Some People Skills
Ok, I’m gonna say it. A lot of the exhibitors come off as jackasses.
Why would you pay the thousands of dollars for booth space, shipping, travel, etc and then ignore people when they walk into your booth to look around? And this isn’t just me, I’ve heard this same complaint every year from many people. There were several times each day, companies large and small, that I walked into a booth, asked somebody standing their to tell me about their products and they looked at me like I had three heads. There were a couple that even sighed as if I were annoying them.
And then you have booths like Specialized and Townie that had friggen security at the door kicking people out. Oh yeah, and I was told I had to ask permission from the marketing guy at the Specialized booth for each picture that I took.
Maybe the folks at Interbike should ship out a copy of “How to Win Friends and Influence People” to everyone that exhibits.
Get some people skills or stay home and save your money.
Switch the order of Outdoor Demo and Interbike
Having the Outdoor Demo before Interbike makes no sense from a logistical standpoint for Interbike’s biggest customers, the manufacturers. Every company that participates in both has to ship out to sets of bikes. One to get wrecked during the demo on Monday and Tuesday then another to get shown Wednesday through Friday. Why not have the tradeshow the first three days and then the demo Thursday/Friday so these guys can save some cash and only ship out one set of bikes?
Also, doing it this way gives the dealers a chance to see all the bikes for a few days so they can see exactly what bikes they want to demo and potentially make appointments for them.
Let’s switch up the Outdoor Demo and Interbike days to save the manufacturers some cash and make it easier on the dealers.
The Show Rocks for the Media
Last year the media center was added to the showroom floor and it was great to have somewhere on the main level to go and update the websites. However last year was also the first year cycling.tv was streaming live from the event and the bandwidth was severely underwhelming. For most of the show the internet was painfully slow and a huge nuisance for those of us bloggers looking to update the sites regularly.
This year all that changed. The wireless network was extremely reliable and they even had hardline hookups in the media center if you needed a faster connection. Rich Kelly of Nielson (owners of Interbike) and Chip Smith of SOAR Communications were extremely nice and helpful.
The 2007 show was the best so far for the media and I give two big thumbs up.
Not so Rockin’ for the Manufacturers?
I heard a story about a smaller company only wanting to exhibit at the Outdoor Demo and they were quoted a price that was more than the cost of exhibiting at the Outdoor Demo and Interbike. Yes, you read that right. Doing both cost less than doing just one which meant they opted to exhibit at both.
There’s been some speculation of the waning of Interbike with big dogs like Trek/Fisher pulling out of the main show and Specialized severely cutting back their booth space. So is this Nielson’s way of twisting the arm of smaller operations to stay at the show so they can keep claiming big numbers? I sure hope that’s not the case but I don’t see any other reason for the weird pricing.
In the end…
Interbike was pretty great this year. I’m interested to see how things pan out in the future with people’s annoyances with Nielson and the Eurobike folks trying to muscle in as well.
Either way, it’ll give us media folks somethin’ to talk about.
October 1st, 2007 at 4:14 pm
Some good points here. I like the idea of the Outdoor Demo afterwards, though I wonder if people would be too exhausted to stay and attendance would suffer.
Vegas is one of those places people love to hate, but you’re right, there is no doubt that it is the best place for the conference given all that you highlighted. There is just simply not enough space in any other city.
October 1st, 2007 at 11:49 pm
Great post, Tim. Ditto about Vegas — everybody loves to hate on it, but who else has half a million square feet of exhibitor space PLUS 22,000 hotel rooms?
October 2nd, 2007 at 12:20 pm
Good stuff, Tim. First of all, I want to know if anyone in our booth wouldn’t help you ’cause I’ll have a “friendly” chat with them about that! Why go to the show if you aren’t there to make connections and build relationships? That doesn’t make sense!
As for Vegas….well, yes, we love to hate it, but it gets the job done for all the reasons you mentioned. I do a large show in Indy in the winter and you have no hope of getting a dinner reservation even two weeks in advance of the show, never mind right on the spot. Vegas is perfect for that because there are so many restaurants around, heck there are a ton in the Venetian alone. One of our guys, good or bad, was in Vegas for a week and never left the Venetian/Sands complex. It’s all right there at your fingertips. We may all grumble, but it works, I guess.
October 2nd, 2007 at 3:01 pm
Tim - Nice write up. I’m glad I wasn’t the only one that had trouble at the Specialized booth!
http://bikedrool.blogspot.com/2007/09/top-secret-specialized-booth.html
I couldn’t believe it!! I was in disbelief that they wouldn’t want their products “marketed” as much as possible?! And like you mentioned, why even go, if you’re going to be “top secret” about it? Trying to create some BS mysterious cloud around your products - yet have a booth at InterBike - is a bit silly.
I’m all for having InterBike in a city like Portland, OR, or Denver/Boulder… but like yourself and the others mentioned, LV gets it done, so it will probably stay put.
October 2nd, 2007 at 10:47 pm
Well, I’ll stick out my neck here and be the odd man out. Vegas sucks and it isn’t the only place to “get the job done”. I know the Outdoor Retailer Conference/show is in Salt Lake City and is four times as big as Interbike. And the Outdoor Demo? Who says you have to do that? They didn’t in years past, and somehow we managed to do the deals and get the job done. Really, it’s a luxury that isn’t totally necessary. (And this coming from a guy that absolutely had a blast at Outdoor Demo)
Weather is a factor, but look at Sea Otter. Every year we get dumped on and every year we come back. So what gives?
I’m just paying Devil’s advocate here, but I also can not believe we have to roll over and just accept that Vegas is it. We’re better than that!
October 3rd, 2007 at 12:33 pm
Hey Tim
Sorry I missed you in Vegas.
Great post, ditto on the location and people skills comments. I’m always amazed by those who sit in booths and make no effort to engage visitors. I’ve worked booths and I talk to everyone, if only to avoid boredom.
Agree with your other post on letting in the public as well. I can see exhibitors running from the room screaming already.
Cheers
Karl
October 11th, 2007 at 12:02 pm
Nice post, Tim. Cool to see some comments about the show experience itself along with all the gear features.
A few comments on your post and G-Ted’s response are needed to clear up some of the expected conspiracy theories.
Interbike and OutDoor Demo have the same per-square-foot pricing for booths if you do one or the other. Two factors make it seem like we are gouging the ODD-only exhibitors:
1. We offer a special ODD price to companies that buy booths at both indoor and outdoor expos.
2. Because of the outdoor layout, the smallest booth at ODD is twice the size of the smallest indoor booth. Apples to oranges here. The smallest outdoor booth is more expensive because it is larger than than smallest indoor booth. Same per unit price, though. No arm twisting here.
On G-Ted’s comment about the Outdoor Retailer show in SLC being “four times bigger” than Interbike: that’s just plain wrong.
In attendance terms, Interbike is actually larger than OR Summer Market (the bigger of their 2 annual shows). For ORSM 2007, their post-show press release states that there were “over 21,000″ total attendees. For Interbike 2007, my preliminary numbers show the bike industry showing up in Vegas to the tune of nearly 23,000 people.
On a sold square footage basis, yes, ORSM is the larger of the 2 shows with about 25% more sold booth space (in a smaller venue using ballrooms, hallways and meeting rooms). Not exactly 4 times larger.
Oh, and now the OutDoor Demo is not important? I say over 6,000 people and 120 companies would disagree!
As has been discussed almost ad-nauseum over the last year in various forums, we currently put on shows in many cities including Vegas, SLC, Denver and San Diego. We are not married to Vegas by any means, but as Tim explained in his post, there are many good reasons to hold IB in LV as well as many valid reasons to NOT hold IB in those other cities. There are many factors involved in venue choice aside from the local bike culture (which we are actually working on with the city and Bikes Belong, BTW).
Sorry to bore you all with numbers. Cheers and thanks for coming to the Interbike! It was great seeing you all!
June 9th, 2008 at 7:58 am
airport airport mortgages…
I always enjoy coming to this site because you offer great tips and advice for people like me who can always use a few good pointers. I will be getting my friends to pop around fairly soon….