Sports Lab

When Emerald Expositions cancelled Interbike in 2018, it was not one show dying. It was the admission that the US bicycle market no longer has — and may no longer need — a centre.

Competing European shows in the same season is not a choice of convenience. It forces every brand to pick where the industry's centre of gravity will sit — and hedging is its own kind of losing.

When the industry's biggest exhibitor and its own German trade bodies terminate cooperation with the show's organiser, it is not a scheduling dispute. It is a vote of no confidence in the trade-show model itself.