MILTON KEYNES, U.K. (BRAIN) Feb 1, 19:56 MT —Trek’s decision not to exhibit at Eurobike this year is not a reflection of the tradeshow, but rather a company strategy to grow its successful Trek World dealer event globally, said Malcolm Davies, Trek’s subsidiaries director for Europe, in an interview on Wednesday.
Any perception that Trek is dissatisfied with Eurobike, the industry’s largest tradeshow, is not accurate, he added.
“We want to have a working relationship with them,” the U.K.-based Davies said. Trek is negotiating with Eurobike to potentially exhibit at the demo day associated with the show, similar to the approach it’s taken with Interbike. Trek has not exhibited at Interbike’s indoor show since 2005, but consistently runs one of the busiest demo rigs at Outdoor Demo.
Eurobike swarms with 40,000 trade visitors during its three-day run in early September in Southern Germany, and packs in thousands of consumers on its public day. It attracts the who’s who of the industry from around the globe and keeps a long waiting list of brands eager to buy space in the show’s 14 sold-out exhibition halls.
But, the strong positive feedback from retailers after its first Trek World Europe in Austria last year, and the number of orders resulting, cemented the validity of Trek’s own formula for future success in Europe.
“We’ve wanted to do this for a while,” Davies said. “We tested the waters [in 2011] for 2012 product; this is just development of that.”
Trek will host this year’s event in a section of the Messe Frankfurt, one of the largest exhibition venues in the world. The size will be comparable to Trek World North America, a gathering of roughly 1,000 retailers near the company’s Wisconsin headquarters. It will include new product showcase from Trek, Bontrager, the Fisher Collection and Villiger and Diamant—Trek owned companies that are the big brands in Central Europe—seminars and a keynote address by Trek president John Burke. Davies expects retailer attendance from main European market, as well as farther-reaching areas like Scandinavia.
The five-day Trek World Europe will be capped with a consumer day—a first for a supplier dealer event. Details of the consumer portion, such as whether there will be an entry fee, haven’t been hashed out, but Davies said the idea has been welcomed by Trek retailers.
Trek is mindful of the concern of introducing next model year products to consumers when retailers are still trying to move current season bikes, but Davies said that shouldn’t be the case, based on sales patterns.
“We’re pretty confident that we’ll be launching product to dealers be able to have it in stores pretty quickly and consumer will see it pretty quickly,” he said.
Trek World Europe is set for July 16-20.
—Nicole Formosa
nformosa@bicycleretailer.com
