EICMA is always a stressful experience, especially for international visitors. In fact, EICMA does a really bad job of catering for the very particular needs of international visitors in general, but visiting dealers, importer/distributors and vendors (i.e. potential exhibitors). The organisers don't appear to understand who really pays their wages.
Far from a fun experience, spending a few days immersed in the enjoyment of the great sport of motorcycling, EICMA is work. Industrial grade, high pressure, deadline driven, ridiculously difficult and stressful work - and every year the organisers are making it even more so.
Regardless of whether the visitor numbers released by EICMA after the show are anywhere near accurate (they're not - they never have been so there's no reason to assume they are now) by any measure it was a (theoretically) successful show. Plenty of exhibitors with lots of brands, new products and, above all, plenty of people. In fact, too many people.
By as early in the six-day cycle as the afternoon of Thursday November 06, the show was already functionally unworkable and no longer enjoyable for anyone, consumers included. A vast army of slow-moving humanity shuffling slowly down packed aisles and with very little chance of getting onto the booths and pursuing the detail of their passion for motorcycles in any meaningful sense.
In 2017 EICMA had to make an embarrassing Volte Face and withdraw its plan to add another public attendance day and turn the Monday and Tuesday into the Press and Trade days with set-up concluded by midnight on the Sunday.
The exhibitor community complained bitterly about that and responded adversely to EICMA's arrogance in failing to consult. Well, the time has now come to either restrict the attendance by increasing ticket prices - and being strict about it (allowing exhibitor costs to come down - like that would ever happen!) - or to add additional public attendance days after all.
Regardless of the numbers, the show has now become over-visited and when that happens it starts to become less effective as a business nexus. There were Red Flags all over the show this year.
If anyone at EICMA is under the impression that the new hall configuration was a 'good thing', they are wrong. They are deluding themselves. It was a mess. Worse, far from providing 'extra' space, two or maybe even three of the halls now being used are actually smaller in available exhibitor footprint terms.
If anyone at EICMA believes what they are saying about doing a better job of controlling who gains access on what days (Press Tuesday, Dealers/Distributors Wednesday etc) and the measures taken to (theoretically) extend Press and 'Trade' access times, they too are wrong.
Ironically, I have now, finally found a 'good reason' as to why the manufacturer community's post-Covid transition away from Expo based new model range introductions on a comprehensive, industry-wide basis is a 'good thing'. Whether it is pre-Show, during the show, or afterwards; whether it is one major announcement of a complete model year range or a sequence of one or two model, or model family releases doesn't matter.
The net effect is the same. Namely that from the point of view of the show's primary purpose, its founding purpose, its strategic purpose, the manufacturers have 'broken the wheel'. The Media is no longer dependent on the show in order to be able fill their columns or generate their clicks with new motorcycle tech and pretty pictures.
The only ones who really do depend on EICMA are the cheap online outlets and influencers who live by the superficialities of click bait numbers, not by the real value of real vendor results and brand profile development - institutional memory of which is fast fading in the rear view mirror.
EICMA always 'pimps' its numbers as aggressively as it can. One of those numbers concerns the number of media representatives that the show attracts. They claim that it was up again this year. Well, it really wasn't. Interestingly, even by EICMA's own data, the number of countries the so-called media growth came from is down on 2024, with the overall number being almost the same.
All of us in the 'Media Tribe' know that real media attendance at EICMA is down and know of many full-time, long-term, highly valued and experienced motorcycle industry journalists who just don't bother with the show anymore - they would rather cover the show from the comfort of their office or spare bedroom and rely on track days and 'junkets'.
Similarly, the claims about Dealer numbers? No, the so-called 'professional' and 'Operator' B2B attendance is not up. Similarly, the claims about the percentage of international visitors? No. In reality they are not up either.
The only honest number in EICMA's post Expo data set was concerning the number of exhibiting companies - not brands, but actual individual business enterprises. Yes, that was in fact down. EICMA quotes "over 700 from 50 countries" for this year, having quoted "over 770 from 45 countries for 2024.
Despite the increasing size of the show since 2021 in real estate and visitor terms, the underlying reality of recent shows is that the number of individual exhibiting businesses, especially from the P&A and G&A sectors is in long-term decline.
The most egregious use of distorted figures are the claims often made about how many of the exhibitors are new - over 30% were first timers in 2023, they said; over 26% were first timers in 2024, they said. In fact, if you did the math, you'd find that none of the existing P&A/G&A exhibitor community had ever attended for more than five years.
As for the public attendance? Give me a break. The claims for this year's record setting show are "over 600,000". The claims for 2024 were "over 600,000". There has been growth in overall attendance since the 2021 "comeback" show, but the record came in 2019 with "over 800,000 claimed".
Even though booth and associated exhibition costs have more than doubled in the years since, the business opportunity those increased costs deliver has not.
