The Bailey Blog

Geneva is exactly as you imagine it: a quaint, bustling and polished city with Europeans, all wearing large scarves and fashionable coats, hustling along little cobblestone streets amid flying shiny European cars and motor scooters. Here you can buy the following everywhere: Swiss chocolate, cigarettes, caviar, croissants and coffee (or café, as they refer to it).

What you cant buy: Mexican food, catsup, peanut butter, pancakes and pork rinds.

Also, despite my best effort at packing my most fashionable clothes and brushing up on my French (FYI, I studied it for SIX years), it is apparently evident to everyone that I am American and… lost.

Waiters, hotel staff and people on the street patiently explain things to me as I wander through the Geneva Motor Show, our hotel, cafes and taxis. They indicate to me, with an expression of.. shall we say, mild amusement, that no, I cannot charge the coffee on my credit card because the minimum is 22 Swiss Francs and my coffee costs 1.39 Swiss Francs and, yes, we do have a computer here and you may use it.

But it’s a great place and a fantastic city to visit. I do suggest you try it.

In truth, I am lucky to be on this trip. I had no expectation of attending this show again and when suddenly the opportunity presented itself, I found that I was able to attend by the grace of my clients, the North American International Auto Show, and my firm.

So each day I attend the Geneva Motor Show. It is a huge auto show; very similar to the NAIAS. It is walkable, friendly and glamorous. There are thousands of media everywhere and countless industry insiders. I hear mainly French and German on the show floor with a few English speakers.

The Geneva Palexpo (a.k.a. the Geneva convention center) is a beautiful facility with plenty of room to go around but not so much that you don’t run into friends or feel lost. It has what I would love to see incorporated into Cobo Center, the right amount of space, updated amenities and a wide variety of creature comforts. For example, you can stop in for a full sit down meal in their bistro or drop in a number of informal cafes for a sandwich, coffee or pastries (yes, I love the pastries).

With these upgrades including more loading docks and other technical amenities, Cobo would be a fantastic asset to metro Detroit and Michigan. That’s because with the right assets it would become attractive again to conventioneers. To be blunt, it takes an unbelievable amount of planning, coordination and investment to be successful in the event business.

Major events like the NAIAS or the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas take more than a year to plan and execute. Yes, I said more than a year. With so much riding on a single day or a few precious weeks of show time, why would other conventions choose an outdated facility? Would you? With ONE chance to get it right, most folks choose the safe option: a modern facility. By modernizing Cobo, we make it competitive again in this demanding and tough business. In reality, we don’t have that far to go, we just need the upgrades and we need to get it done and move on to the next challenge.

But back to Geneva… I am loving it here, but I am also missing Detroit. I look forward to Sanders Hot Fudge, coneys and cheese fries very soon. Dorothy was right, there is no place like home.