The great danger with the U-turns being taken by the German trade’s representatives right now, is that the global market-place will end up taking the view that our German friends really don’t know what they are doing.
To cancel IMA in the first place was to flag up to their enemies in the provincial governments that the industry is weak and will go belly-up at the first rattling of the sabre. To then announce a show without AWPs suggests that they are at least responding to the industry’s needs for a focus, an annual gathering place.
To then promptly cancel it is, bluntly, bewildering.
What prompted these changes? To cancel IMA was perhaps a knee-jerk reaction to the bullying of the authorities; to run ALEX (the alternative, non-AWP, show) was perhaps a knee-jerk reaction to suggestions that if VDAI doesn’t run a German show in January then perhaps they are opening the door to someone else running one; to then cancel it is perhaps a knee-jerk reaction to the suggestion that if they run an “IMA without AWPs” would simply open the door to the smaller AWP makers from both within and outside of Germany to running hotel-events close to the ALEX venue.
Whatever the real reason, the net effect is one of ineffective and confusing thinking, which is certainly not what we have come to expect of the German AWP industry.
Maybe they will now decide to amalgamate their show with the UK-based European Amusement Expo with a new venue somewhere in between, such as Amsterdam…….watch the knees tremble……
