Melbourne motor show attendance drops
March 11, 2009 by George Skentzos
It seems fans have not been motivated by the looming 18 month wait until our next major motor show, the introductory Australian International Motor Show, with only 160,000 patrons visiting the Melbourne International Motor Show during the past 11 days.
This is certainly a bleak swan song for what was technically the final Melbourne motor show, set to be replaced by a new AIMS, the product of a joint venture agreement between the Victorian Automobile Chamber of Commerce (VACC), the Australian Automobile Dealers’ Association (AADA) and Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries (FCAI).
This latest figure pales in comparison to the 74th annual Melbourne motor show held in 2008, which attracted exactly 243,089 patrons, spurred on by exclusive displays of the Bugatti Veyron, the Holden Coupe 60 concept and new Ford FG Falcon range.
Despite the turnout, organisers are pleased with the results for this year, citing the global economic crisis as a major contributing factor to the drop in attendance.
“In any other year, we would be disappointed with a crowd of 160,000. But considering the impact of the global economic slowdown and with households watching every cent, achieving this number of visitors is encouraging for an industry feeling the pinch,” motor show director Russ Tyrie said.
Although this figure may be a result of quality rather than quantity, with manufacturers in attendance expressing surprise at the number of sales enquiries they received.
“We understand that some have enjoyed an unusually high turnover on their stands,” Mr Tyrie said.
Either way, Australians will have to wait until late 2010 to see the next exhibition from the local car market when Sydney takes its turn under the new joint venture agreement between the two cities and hosts the first AIMS.
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The problem with this years Melbourne Motor Show is it lacked concepts from the major car makers like Holden to get peoples interest.
Note to car makers:- bring back the concepts for next years Sydney Motor Show and the crowds will be back
The global economic crisis cannot be blamed for everything which it seems at the moment it is.
Lets face it they upped the ticket prices once again so for the people who are feeling the pinch it was a bit rich. Also there wasn’t anything at this years show to get excited about and want to see.
It was really a slap in the face to punters by manufactures to not have anything worth spending the coin to walk through the gate to see.
All up a disappointment if this is the last show for 18months.
No mercedes down there this year
BK^^
Also no Volvo, LandRover, Jaguar, RollsRoyce, FIAT, AlfaRomeo, Lancia, Bolwell, Elfin, Proton.
SAAB and Hummer stands where rubbish, on the GM stand with just 1 example of each.
I think the hall is to small, needs to be double in size.
I enjoyed it though, and thanks C/A and Alborz for the ticket
Cheers
F-0
sydney should be moved to next march
The organisers are bloody arrogant citing that the global crisis makes up for the 160k people through the doors. Did they ever consider the fact that $19 per person is a huge rip off when there was no Ferrari, Maserati, Aston Martin, Alfa Romeo, Mercedes-Benz, Fiat and plenty more missing from the show. Maybe if they didn’t focus on trying to make huge profits, as they do anyway from the Manufactorers they should drop prices to atleast $10-$12 per person.
There needs to be other activities like the old days people selling assecories, activity displays like the 4WD course. Also all manufacturers and it should be aligned with the GP to attract more attendees.
What about the Perth Motorshow? They can’t expect car enthusiasts from the West to fly over to Sydney or Melbourne for a couple of days to look at new cars.
We have our fair share of Exotic Luxury cars; Performance cars and Street Machines etc over here too you know!
Oh that’s right to some people in the east [particularly Sydney] Perth and Adelaida doesn’t exist.
maybe the constant bad economic news has people so down they cant even walk around the cars and dream anymore, and that kept them away. That, and maybe the skanky girls…sheesh! what were they thinking?
No Ferrari, Maserati, Fiat, Volvo, Alfa, Citroen, Aston Martin, Mercedes Benz. yet they charged more for tickets with less companys on the floor? doesnt make sense?
and here he is all high and mighty talking about how the economic situation is the reason for less numbers through the door? If its such a concern to you, why the hell did you up ticket prices?
Not to mention, No Bugatti this year, and no Koinesegg (or however u spell it).
Honda were slack, they showed of the Insight Concept, when the Production Model Insight has been on sale in Japan for over a month now… so why the hell show the concept?
The 3rd gen Prius was on a rotating stand you couldnt touch or sit in?
No Mini! They have the new JCW’s and the Clubman. Hell even their Crossman concept?
Even the Mazda 3 you couldnt sit in? what gives!
I think the only decent stand this year was VW.
If they charged a more acceptable price, say $10 a ticket then they would have had better attendance rates! Manufacturer presence or concept cars would have made very little difference with ticket prices so expensive.
The ticket prices are to high i cant afford to take my family just to look at cars you can see in the dealer show rooms for free.Just go to a auto ally type main road were there is dozens of new car yards and you will see most of the cars for free and have no crowds.
I agree Pauly, This was my first carshow and there were quite a few omissions that stood out. The amount of people at the VW stand was scary, you could not get a decent look at anything.