Reshuffle of cycling fair dates

 The calendar of bicycle trade events is getting reshuffled as both Eurobike and the Taipei Cycle Show have announced new dates for 2018, seven weeks earlier for Eurobike and five months earlier for the Taiwanese fair.

Next year's Eurobike will open on Wednesday, August 30, along the same lines as in previous years, but in 2018 it has been scheduled to start on Sunday, July 8. This comes as several major exhibitors pulled out in the last years and the number of trade visitors declined this year. Some of the major suppliers have been organizing their own order events, competing with the established trade fairs. Eurobike's start on a Sunday should help more retailers to attend, as many of them close their shops on the Monday anyway.

Another change is that the 2018 edition of Eurobike will not include a Festival Day, admitting the general public. The show has long featured a day for the public and this year it introduced two Festival Days in a bid to support attendance, but that apparently wasn't conclusive. Eurobike's organizers have yet to decide if the 2018 show should be held over three or four days.

Eurobike's decision has been publicly supported by several large suppliers. The German bicycle retail association, Verband des Deutschen Zweiradhandels (VDZ), stated that the proliferation of events by suppliers over the summer was not practical for small retailers, and it favors one show location providing a full overview of the industry's new products.

The Taipei Cycle Show, which has been held in March for many years, has been moved to take place at the end of October from 2018. The changes were announced by the organizers, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (Taitra) and Tony Lo, chief executive of Giant and chairman of the Taiwan Bicycle Association (TBA).

The dates of the show had been a topic of discussion for several years, and Taitra responded by organizing a survey among exhibitors. While some of them are targeting distributors and retailers, the March dates are apparently less judicious for OEM orders, which matter for many of the participants.

Another event held in October, the Taichung Bike Week, has been gaining in importance in recent years, and the organizers of Eurobike announced earlier this year that they intended to get more involved with it. Lo told Bike Europe at a press conference that the changing dates of the Taipei Cycle Show were not meant to replace the Taichung Bike Week, which he described as a series of workshops, and not an international show. He further argued that the earlier dates would help to position the Taipei show as a trendsetting event.

The organizers of Taispo, a sporting goods fair that has been held in conjunction with the Taipei Cycle Show for several years, are conducting their own survey to decide on dates for 2018. The options include March, October among other dates. Over the last years the two shows have been held in separate locations in Taipei, but surveys have shown that the attendance figures for Taispo are supported by visitors from the cycle show. The 2017 edition of the Taipei show is scheduled for March 22 to 25.