The North American International Auto Show 2020 in Detroit was canceled because the Federal Emergency Management Administration chose the TCF Center as a field hospital for COVID-19 cases for at least six months.
The show, one of Southeast Michigan’s most important events, will resume in June 2021, the organizers told the show’s sponsors in a memo on Saturday.
“The health and wellbeing of the citizens of Detroit and Michigan are of paramount importance. The TCF Center is the ideal location for this important role in this critical and unprecedented time,”; said Rod Alberts, NAIAS Executive Director, in a statement.
Auto show officials declined to comment on the memo that the Free Press had received.
Show 2021 will include all the events planned for this year when the event was scheduled to move from its long-term home to summer in January to offer outdoor events along the river bank, including test drives, self-driving demonstrations, and other new ones Technologies and Motor Bella, a street festival of Italian and English cars before the show in the heart of downtown.
The cancellation is another blow to the hotel industry in the region.
The show routinely attracts 800,000 paying customers to its public days, and thousands of automaker and supplier executives, engineers, and journalists attend pre-show events, eat in restaurants, and stay in hotels. The cancellation is just another blow to those companies that are already suffering from the absence of the January show and the current COVID-19 restrictions.
The Detroit Auto Dealers Association relocated the show from its traditional mid-winter slot to get the most out of Detroit’s up-and-coming downtown in the good days of early summer. Car manufacturers who have been looking for ways to make car shows more attractive to customers as online shopping increases.
Holding the event in June became increasingly impossible as the economy was impacted by COVID-19.
Before it became clear that a temporary field hospital would make the best use of the space and central location of the TCF center, there was reason to wonder whether customers would consider big purchases in just under two months or would be interested in automakers, the fancy new ones Introduce vehicles.
The 2020 show should start with the Italian and English street festival Motor Bella from June 5th to 7th. Press and Industry Days 9-11. June; the charity preview from June 12th and the public show from June 13th to 20th.