Sandro Mesquita, a Portuguese-Swiss at the helm of the Geneva Motor Show, anticipates the 2024 edition, the 100th international edition of the event, which seeks to recover from the cancellation of 2020, just three days before the opening due to the COVID-19 crisis!
It is the return of the Geneva Motor Show to the automotive exhibition calendar, about four years after the cancellation of the 2021 edition, on the eve of the opening, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, a virus that kept us locked at home and almost stopped the world! Sandro Mesquita, a 49-year-old Portuguese-Swiss, is the CEO of the event, greatly affected by the health crisis that represented an “earthquake” and had aftershocks that strongly shook the foundations of the industry, which is going through a paradigm shift from internal combustion engines to electric ones.
The cancellation of Geneva-2020 also severely affected the organization behind the event, which celebrates 100 years of international editions in 2024, forcing it to reinvent itself, starting with the celebration of an agreement with Qatar for the realization of an exhibition with the same name in the capital of the kingdom on the Arabian Peninsula, Doha – debut in October 2023. The partnership brought some financial capacity back to the foundation responsible for the event, which received the green light to hold the 91st Motor Show between February 27 and March 3. Among the participating brands, only BYD, Dacia, Isuzu, Lucid, MG Motor Pininfarina, and Renault stand out. In this list, there are no Germans, Koreans, Japanese, or any emblem of Stellantis!
In Geneva-2024, as usual, on February 26, the day before the opening, is reserved for the press. The organization announces only 15 world and European premieres, a number that contrasts with the 151 in 2019. Five years ago, with an exhibition area of 110,000 square meters, 150 brands attracted over 602,000 people. Now, very modest estimates, with Sandro Mesquita speaking of “about thirty exhibitors and 200,000 visitors”. For the Portuguese-Swiss with roots in the Vila Nova de Gaia region and capable of expressing himself in (almost…) perfect Portuguese, as he speaks the language at home with his parents, who have already returned to our country after more than four decades abroad, the event had to reinvent itself if it aims to return to the glory days it experienced in the past and regain the status of the world capital of the automobile during the week of the show!…
Thematic areas instead of novelties
“It is not easy to answer you, I do not have a ‘crystal ball’, but I am very pragmatic and I understand the moment we are living in. We have the ambition to grow rapidly and make Geneva a very important communication platform for the automotive sector, but we also know that we are obliged to implement a different model from what we had for decades, leaving only the rental of spaces for manufacturers to create areas that involve visitors much more, in order to provide them with more attractive experiences”, explained Sandro Mesquita.
According to the CEO of the Swiss event, “Geneva has not lost importance, but it must present itself in a different way to remain relevant to the industry, resorting, for example, to the presentation and production of content that conveys to visitors the rapid change in the dominant paradigm in the automotive industry. That’s what we do in the 2024 edition, with the introduction of thematic areas for the ‘decoding’ of the transformation that is underway: Adrenaline Zone, Design District, Mobility Lab, and Nex World,” he explained. In the first one, there will be competitions, special editions, or tailor-made productions and supercars. In the second one, with the support of Frank Stephenson (former BMW, Ferrari, Fiat, McLaren, and Mini), there will be communications about the design changes imposed by the transition from internal combustion engines to electric ones. In the third one, future mobility will be promoted, and in the fourth one, in partnership with Polyphony Digital, producer of the video game Gran Turismo, entertainment will be privileged as a communication tool”.
The experience of the exhibition in Qatar
Geneva, Sandro Mesquita told us, had to return this year. “We celebrate 100 years of international editions. Digitalization accelerated during the pandemic, brands adopted new communication formulas, and traditional exhibitions almost disappeared from the automotive industry calendar, but we are here again! Obviously, the list of novelties is much smaller than usual, but this fact is mainly due to the limitations that all manufacturers are facing, as they are under pressure to invest less in this type of event or do not have novelties to present, which reflects the instability in the sector caused by the ‘race’ towards electrification”, he explained.
Sandro Mesquita promised a much more crowded exhibition in 2025. “The organization has to know how to adapt to the situation… The future of the automobile is in the hands of politicians, not ours! We mark the 100 years with a more compact exhibition, it is true, but we managed to gather some of the models presented in Geneva in the past in the Classics Gallery, with 35 icons, such as the 1961 Jaguar E-Type, and we have many expressions of interest for next year, which fuels hopes of recovering our status! The automobile is still emotion, and people need the moments we can provide them”, he added.
Finally, Mesquita, who took over the Geneva Motor Show in May 2020, a few months after the cancellation that almost ended the exhibition, told us about his experience in Qatar. “The decision happened three days before the opening. That left us without financial funds. We also did not find banks available for loans, but the opportunity arose to organize the exhibition in another country, as happened with Art Basel, which started in Basel and has already passed through Miami, Hong Kong, and Paris. This opportunity allowed us to make money and show the brands that we could reinvent the model of automotive exhibitions! The experience in Doha was very successful and confirmed that potential. The next edition will take place in 2025, in November, during the Formula 1 Grand Prix week”, he concluded.
The motto of Geneva-2024 is “AUTO. FUTURE. NOW.”
