Autoshows in Malaysia

There many automotive / car shows held every year in countries across the globe. Some of these shows are immensely successful leading to the event occurring every year. Good examples are the SEMA show in Las Vegas, Tokyo Auto Salon, Tokyo Motorshow, Paris Motorshow and Frankfurt Motorshow. These car shows usually display cool new upcoming concept cars, new technology and show cases the history or motorsports pedigree that the car manufacturer has.

The same cannot be said about motorshows or car shows held in Malaysia. The Malaysian motorshows are a complete let down as the shows only display cars that are already sold in showrooms across the country and display very little flair in how the vehicles are exhibited. For shows that display tuned or modified cars, the organizers spend little effort to promote the event leading to very poor visitor turn out.

For the traditional motorshows the layout is extremely important as it is meant to provide optimum visibility for all exhibitors. In the case of Malaysia where there aren't any good exhibition halls capable of hosting large motorshows organizers are left with no choice but to use the out of date Putra World Trade Centre as the venue which spans across several medium sized halls on various floors. This is less than ideal for any motorshow as the visitors are expected to walk across exhibition halls that are scattered all over the place. The Kuala Lumpur International Motorshow is by far one of the worst organized in Asia.

The poor organizing also has led to many car manufacturers boycotting the motorshow all together. Some of the car manufacturers who boycott the event were BMW, Mercedes Benz and Audi. How do you have a motorshow when key manufacturers boycott the event?!

The recent Hot Import Nights in Kuala Lumpur which was organized by an Indonesian company was a complete failure. The visitor turn out was way below the expectations of the exhibitors despite 2 other large non automotive exhibitions taking place at the exhibition halls next to the Hot Import Nights event hall. Greedy organizers were to blame as the entry fee was RM10 per person and having such a small exhibition display visitors were left fuming over the lack of exhibits for them to see. Exhibitors were also upset by the low visitor turn out which mean little exposure for their brand or products.

Malaysia is in serious need of an international standard exhibition hall capable of hosting large international scale motorshows and good organizers who are able to create the interest for the public to visit the shows.