Australian Auto Show Stalls as Attendance Dwindles

Australians may be buying new vehicles at record rates, but because the Internet is reducing their need to check out the latest models firsthand, organizers have canceled this year’s Australian International Motor Show scheduled for Melbourne in June.

Declining attendance at the show, held alternatively each year in Melbourne and Sydney, in turn has auto makers less interested in spending marketing money on the event.

“We have made the decision to not proceed with this year’s show based on a consensus view of the automotive industry to focus limited marketing budgets in 2013 on firm-specific activities, rather than an industry-based motor show,” event director Russ Tyrie says in a statement.

The Herald Sun newspaper in Melbourne says the tipping point for the 2013 show likely was the withdrawal of the giant Volkswagen Group, with its Audi, Skoda and Volkswagen brands, and the uncertainty of support from South Korea’s Hyundai.

Although more than 60 brands are now on sale in an Australian market headed for another record sales year, fewer than 20 were committed to the Melbourne show.

Melbourne and Sydney used to hold separate annual shows, but auto makers were more than unhappy with having to spend A$1 million ($1.04 million) or more on each competing week-long event.

In 2009, the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries, the organizing body of the Australian International Motor Show held in Sydney, and the Victorian Automobile Chamber of Commerce, organizers of the Melbourne International Motor Show, agreed to merge and operate future shows.

Under the agreement, the show was held in alternate years between Melbourne and Sydney, beginning with Sydney in 2010.

Tyrie also indicates next year’s show scheduled for Sydney is in serious doubt. “The joint venture expects there will be a pause in motor show activity as they explore options for future shows in Australia,” he says.

In calling off this year’s event, Tyrie says Australia is following a global trend that has been apparent for several years where cities do not always have a motor show.

“This trend is evident in the recent suspension of motor shows in London, Zagreb and Amsterdam,” he says.

Decisions on future shows, including 2014, will be made by a JV committee based on market research into how this event can best meet the needs of the industry and the public.

The Herald Sun says attendance at the Sydney show has dropped since peaking at 320,000 in 2001. By 2010 it was down to 124,000 and last year it was 135,000, as premium brands such as Ferrari, BMW and Audi became no-shows.

Melbourne’s attendance peaked at 257,000 in 2004 before falling to 193,755 in 2009 and just 160,000 in 2011.

The newspaper says the exhibition faces a massive makeover to help it survive beyond the cancellation of this year's event after the end of motor shows in Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth over the past five years.

It reports organizers intend to modernize the event with a reinvention that could lead to a rolling road show similar to the successful Goodwood Festival of Speed in the U.K.

“We're ruling nothing in and nothing out on the future structure of the motor show,” the Herald Sun quotes Tyrie as saying. “We really want to start again. We're exploring all the opportunities. We have a lot of research to help us and we intend to re-engage with our exhibitors.”

There is one motor show that is reporting success: the GreenZone Drive, a hands-on event offering test drives of environmentally friendly cars that is attracting increasing attendance at locations including Melbourne, Sydney and Queensland’s Gold Coast.

GreenZone organizer John Kananghinis tells News Ltd. the Melbourne show cancellation could be an opportunity for the GreenZone Drive. “We have an event that has run successfully for the past four years and is attracting a growing number of people,” he says.