When the COVID-19 pandemic hit Europe in February, the organizers of the Geneva Motor Show had postponed the cancellation of the event for as long as possible, officially announcing it a few days before the press opened. With the difficulties that Palexpo SA, the show’s promoter, is going through, we can now understand this reluctance to pronounce the cancellation.
Sandro Mesquita, director of the Geneva Motor Show, recently gave an interview to La Tribune de Genève, in which he did not mince words and did not try to make the situation better, now close to disaster: “If we do not find a solution by September, we risk liquidation. We will have to sell our assets, in particular the brand and the shares of Palexpo SA”. These words confirm that the inescapable European automobile mass is on the brink, and that the situation is very urgent.
In a press release published last month, Palexpo SA had revealed that it had to refuse a loan of 16.8 million Swiss francs, requested from the canton of Geneva, and the conditions which accompanied it were “contrary to its statutes and in particular to the raison d’être of the Foundation for more than 100 years”. This little detailed publication already seemed to prepare the ground for a cancellation of the 2021 edition of the Geneva Motor Show, since the organizer also revealed that its main exhibitors advised it to consider the next edition in 2022.
Exhibitors who are mainly car manufacturers, also in the grip of a strong crisis following the coronavirus. Sandro Mesquita once again assured that it would be very difficult to hold a salon in Geneva in 2021, if the organization that does it survives the next few months. For that, the solutions would not be numerous and would pass by the arrival of private investors, or by an agreement with the canton of Geneva not to have to answer the conditions wanted by the authorities. But time is running out, and it is to be hoped for the survival of the event that the meeting which took place on June 22 will have borne fruit.
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