Once a year, the global bicycle industry meets for a week on the shores of Lake Constance. When the gates open at this year’s Eurobike in the last week of August, all eyes will again be on Lake Constance and the city of Friedrichshafen, Germany. According to the show organisers, this year’s exhibition, which takes place from 29 August through to 1 September 2012, offers the perfect opportunity to experience the bicycle industry in high gear.
Eurobike is positioned as the world’s leading trade show for the booming bicycle industry. This year’s event will be attended by representatives from 1,200 exhibiting companies, as well as 40,000 trade visitors from over 100 countries, 20,000 consumers interested in cycling and nearly 2,000 journalists.
For over two decades, Eurobike has had a consistent history of success. The bicycle trade show in Friedrichshafen started out small. In 1991, Eurobike began as a meeting place for the fledgling mountain bike scene, with over 200 exhibitors and nearly 15,000 trade visitors. The mix of business and a relaxed atmosphere was a hit in the industry from the very beginning.
The event quickly became a serious challenger among the established bicycle trade shows in Europe. Since the opening of one of Europe’s most modern exhibition venues in 2002 just outside of Friedrichshafen, Eurobike has enjoyed a status as a leading exhibition of the bicycle industry.
In Germany alone, the bicycle industry generates €16 billion in revenues and employs 278,000 people. And yet, in southern Germany Eurobike has maintained a ‘relaxed and youthful atmosphere over the years.’ Eurobike serves as a location for major business deals as well as the annual get-together for the global cycling scene.
This mix has been greeted with enthusiasm in the industry. “For us, Eurobike is and always will be the most important public exhibition worldwide that we attend,” said Mathias Seidler, CEO of the German market leader Derby Cycle.
Seidler added, “As a company that is expanding internationally and is the market leader in Germany, we go where our customers are. This exhibition is unique in its ability to attract the most important customers from around the world. In addition to its status as the largest exhibition in the German-speaking world, it has also become the most important international platform for our industry. For us, Eurobike has long been a truly global trade show.”
Eurobike is also an important event for the Swiss-American high-end manufacturer Scott Sports. “At a time when there are fewer and fewer high-quality exhibitions around the world, it’s important to have a clear leader such as Eurobike,” said Reto Aeschbacher, Head of Marketing at Scott Sports. “The exhibition provides our industry with a platform to reach a wide audience. For example, it offers us the opportunity to meet numerous journalists in this field from around the world. For us, this is what makes Eurobike by far the world’s leading trade show in the industry.”
Many companies in the industry have been exhibitors since the very beginning, such as the Hamburg-based bike manufacturer Stevens. “As exhibitors at Eurobike in 1991, we already appreciated how lively, open and innovative this trade show is. As German brands gained more international attention in the following years, the importance of Eurobike also grew steadily,” noted Volker Dohrmann, Brand & Marketing Manager at Stevens.
Dohrmann added, “We meet all our international customers and suppliers here, talk to all the major media outlets, and see our professional athletes and numerous friends from the industry. In short, Eurobike is the world’s leading trade show for trends in technology, as well as a global meeting place and a platform offering information for retailers on the upcoming season. At Stevens, we enjoy coming to Lake Constance and have been extraordinarily successful there since the first Eurobike in 1991.”
Along with the event itself, the exhibition’s unique surroundings also offer a perfect setting for the bicycle industry. The magnificent natural scenery of the nearby Allgäu, Vorarlberg and Appenzell Alps as well as the exhibition’s convenient location in a high-tech city in the heart of Europe set Friedrichshafen apart from other exhibition venues in Germany.
In addition to being a pleasant destination for vacations, according to the futurologist Matthias Horx, the Lake Constance region is also one of Europe’s “hot spots for investors, innovators and developers.” The EURES study by the European Commission also points to this economic region as one of the most dynamic in Europe.
It’s perhaps of no surprise that, according to a study by McKinsey, the region around Lake Constance and Upper Swabia is home to the happiest people in Germany. Every year, visitors are able to enjoy this atmosphere at Eurobike.
The Eurobike international bicycle trade show is open to trade visitors from Wednesday 29 August through to Friday 31 August, from 08:30 to 18:30 CET, and is open to the public on Saturday 1 September from 09:00 to 18:00.
Eurobike Demo Day will take place on Tuesday 28 August, from 10:00 to 17:00 in the town of Argenbühl in the Allgäu region.
