After a brief flirtation with warmer months, the North American International Auto Show NAIAS), also known as the Detroit Auto Show, is returning to its original January exhibition month.

Rod Alberts, executive director of the Detroit Auto Dealers Association (DADA), told the Detroit Free Press on Thursday that the 2025 Detroit auto show will begin with the Charity Preview the night of Friday, January 10th, and conclude on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, January 20th. The DADA runs the Detroit show.

“This update reflects our efforts to continue reimagining the Detroit Auto Show while keeping an eye on what matters most – getting people excited about cars,” Alberts said.

It’s unclear if there will still be a 2024 show during the late summer this year. There will probably not be one; budgets and planning will shift toward 2025. It doesn’t seem realistic to expect a show in September and another show following so soon.

Wanting to go outside

The move to summer was initially meant to take advantage of outdoor spaces in downtown Detroit. The plan to move outside was announced well before Covid-19 impacted significant events. The pandemic forced some bouncing around, including a one-time move to the suburbs.

There are, of course, advantages to hosting the show during warm weather. Especially car manufacturers insisted that it’s far easier to do test drives on summer roads, while outdoor spaces can also be used for vehicle unveils in the open air.

On the flip side, summer is when there are many more entertainment options, so it can be harder to convince the paying public to head to the convention center. And it’s the paying public that matters, of course. The DADA isn’t putting on the show solely for the media, and the automakers aren’t spending millions to see few customers showing up.

Remaining relevant?

However, the events that would make a new kind of show of the NAIAS in summer never really materialized, and attendance fell. The show regularly drew 700 000 to 800 000 visitors in its drowsy winter period, which fell drastically for the post-pandemic shows in September 2022 and 2023. DADA never announced official attendance for those shows, but it was a small fraction of previous levels.

Although auto shows remain relevant, Michigan State University assistant professor of marketing Ayalla Ruvio said: “The pandemic changed consumer behavior, and it’s not changing back, but there’s still a place for auto shows.”

“Like any business rethinking, auto shows reflect on how to move forward and add value to the customers. The number of companies participating in auto shows has declined, but not the number of spectators. The focus must be on making it more interactive, more fun,” she added.

And what about the manufacturers?

“No matter the time of year, auto shows continue to be a good place for us to engage with potential future and current customers to help them experience our new technologies and vehicles,” Ford spokesman Said Deep said to the Detroit Free Press when asked about the move.

But apparently, not all manufacturers think in the same direction. Recently, the Stellantis Group has cleared its position on the subject and has decided that the presence at motor shows will be considered case per case in relation to the interest of the manufacturer and the customer and the amount of money and people that need to be invested in it.

This much more wait-and-see approach toward motor shows was initiated a while before the pandemic by Volvo Cars, which was the first to say no to big motor shows because of the costs and the lack of return. At the time, the example was given for the IAA in Frankfurt, where the German brands were so overwhelmingly predominant that Volvo saw no reason to be there (at a high cost) and be drowned in a minor hall.

Many other manufacturers have made the same considerations. Consequently, some are only present when they have something to show and are not too overshadowed by ‘home players’. Recently, Chinese carmakers have been glad to fill the gaps, eager to show their unknown products to potential customers outside China.