Eurobike Closes in Positive Mood, But

FRIEDRICHSHAFEN, Germany – Yesterday, the worlds biggest bike show closed its trade days in a positive atmosphere. Three days of bike business were as usual in Friedrichshafen which means busy; better said extremely busy with packed halls, except for the new ones at the new East entrance and Foyer.

This year’s Eurobike made clear that the regular trade visitor of the show has to get used to the fact that there are new halls and a Foyer with also a big number of exhibitors. The main issue here was, as one of the exhibitors in the new halls explained, that too few people used the new East entrance. Due to that it was less crowded there as in the other halls.

Besides this phenomena that probably came to a surprise to the show organization also; this year’s Eurobike hardly had any problems. Traffic congestion was not an issue. What became very apparent during the three trade show days was the fact that the show organization in cooperation with the Friedrichshafen police force did everything possible to avoid traffic jams. Once one of the ways up to the show got congested; it was blocked by the police and the traffic was directed to a not or less congested route.

How much effort Messe Friedrichshafen put into its program to avoid traffic problems was maybe best illustrated by the fact that Bike Europe saw at one of the crossroads leading up to the fairgrounds Messe CEO Klaus Wellmann discussing with police officers.

So, the three Eurobike days were again buzzing. But, despite the huge crowd visiting the huge number of exhibitors (1,028 to be exact), business wise the show was certainly not like in previous years. This year’s Eurobike made clear that, although not as hard as many other business sectors, also the bike bizz is faced with the results of the economic crisis and the fact that it burdens heavily future expectations and with that ordering.