Editor’s note: Since the original publication of this story in September, Dealer Expo has announced more revisions to its future show plans. The 46th annual Dealer Expo is now scheduled to be held Sept. 26-28, 2014 in Indianapolis, Indiana. The Dealer Expo website makes no mention of the previously scheduled October 2013 show dates. Below is the original October show annoucement in its entirety as originally published in this newsletter.

In a move that many in the industry are dubbing reactionary to the timing of the inaugural American International Motorcycle Expo (AIME) to be held in Orlando, Oct. 16-20, 2013, Advanstar has announced that the Dealer Expo will move the date of its Indianapolis-based show to October starting in 2013.

Dealer Expo will also hold its February 2013 show in addition to the newly announced October event. An email from Advanstar to its exhibitors didn’t give the specific dates for the October event, but it shared the following rationale for the move:

“Each year, we ask our exhibitors and attendees how we can improve Dealer Expo. This year the response was clear: ‘Hold Dealer Expo in October!’ So we’re moving the winter 2014 show up a few months to October 2013 to serve the evolving needs of our entire industry – OEMs, aftermarket suppliers, distributors, dealers, media and consumers.”

AIME’s Larry Little visited with MPN at our Akron, Ohio, headquarters yesterday to be interviewed for an upcoming “AIME: One-Year Out” show profile, so when rumors of the Advanstar date swap were confirmed after our visit, Little and Marketplace Events trade show division president Mike Webster dropped me a line to comment on the move.

Little said that based on the research conducted by AIME, the industry has been asking for a fall show for many years. “We made a decision based on customer input. They made a decision based on competitive reaction,” said Little.

Webster echoed Little’s statement, “We have our fingers on the pulse of what the industry needs and that’s what we’re going to deliver. By producing the show in Orlando, it gives people in more parts of the country a reason to come.”

I reached out to industry veteran Craig Cervenka, who first shared the whisperings of the Dealer Expo date change with me in late August for his reaction on the move.

"It’s really exciting to see that we have a new show offering that is proactively addressing the needs and changes in our industry. Can our industry support two shows being held at the same time halfway across the country from each other? I’m pretty sure this will shake out where there will be just one show in a couple of years,” opined Cervenka of Edgenet. “The winner will be the one that attracts the majority of our franchised dealers to come back to the show. This means getting at least two of the four metric OEMs as well as Polaris or BRP to participate. I bet it will be the promoter that has one person with 25-plus years of commitment to the industry shows and the chairman of the MIC who has the most influential longstanding relationships with our OEMs."

Want to read more? Watch your mailbox for the October issue of MPN, which features our “AIME: One-Year Out” show profile.

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