The Next Evolution of Car Shows
Hi Friends!
A few weeks ago, I was in Los Angeles meeting with partners, friends and incoming clients. Happening the same weekend was the second installment of what appears to be a new Southern California automotive institution in the making. I was familiar with the hype surrounding year one, so I definitely made a point to attend and check it out for myself.
Taking place at the LA River Center and Gardens about 20 minutes Northeast of LAX, Macchinissima (which translates to “very machine” in Italian) is a celebration of Italian cars/motorcycles, cuisine, etc fused together with elements of an outdoor art walk and the attitude of a dive bar, punk rock DJ night…. and I gotta tell you, it was fantastic. With over 1,000 people through the gates and an excellent, excellent selection of 100 plus cars and bikes, it was successful and popular, too.
Now, I could hyperfocus on all the little individual, event promoter brain type nuances surrounding this show, but as great as basically all that stuff was also, it’s not really what I walked away thinking the most about and being the most impressed with overall.
When someone mentions a car show, generally one of a couple scenarios come to mind. In almost every circumstance your imagination immediately shifts either to rows of perfectly aligned cars sitting on a manicured lawn somewhere fabulous or to the parking lot of a coffee joint or a hot dog stand either for a cruise in situation in the evening or a cars and coffee in the AM. Despite the differences in locations, at their roots, these scenarios all kind of look the same.
What initially really caught my attention with this show (also, done similarly at Luftgekühlt, a very, very popular Porsche focused show that is now in its 10th installment – which I’m sure was definitely an influence on this), is for starters, it was not a traditional venue for a car show. The LA River Center and Gardens albeit does have a small parking lot out front that would traditionally fit the bill (and there were cars laid out there), but the real show was through the gates. Inside was a maze of tightly woven nooks and crannies that guided you through the event in a very intriguing way. As you followed through, you were greeted by cars (and motorcycles where no cars could fit) strategically placed within the narrow passages around the event site. This made lining up cars impossible and it also significantly reduced the amount of cars that were able to be displayed on the property. It was much more like a highly curated museum exhibit than a car show and as such, it allowed event spectators and participants alike to really go through and experience each piece in a more intimate and atmospherically interesting manner. It also allowed event organizers to really play the strengths of the venue site and the cars themselves off of each other in a way that just felt fresh and unique.
The other element that I found so intriguing was how welcome the events cultural elements were. There were obviously conflicting components throughout the event, but it was never something that was abundantly obvious anywhere and everything felt smooth and natural. It was an original concept but it was done so sympathetically, that nothing really clashed negatively with anything else and it no doubt helped to create the overall feeling of originality that was abundantly clear in every corner of the event. I’ve obviously had a lot of conversations with folks in this space and over the last couple of years it seems like people that are constantly asking for more. Cultural elements, whether it be live performance, food, art installations and integration above and beyond the traditional classic rock, hot dog, burger, shake combo seem like they could be an answer. Either way, all this stuff definitely worked together brilliantly at Macchinissima.
Am I proposing that we throw the baby out with the bath water on this and abandon the traditions, concepts and ideas that got us here? Of course not. Concours d’Elegance is still prestigious and important and of course, cars and coffee and cruise in nights are still a lot of fun. However, as I was flying home to Arizona I felt like I was in a time machine that was coming back from the future.
In order to continue to engage and to inspire, we have to be willing to do engaging and inspiring things and that may mean stepping into unfamiliar territory. I invite people out there who are car show promoters or are looking to do different things within their community to either raise awareness, raise funds for non-profits or to just have a good time to start looking at some more non-traditional types of events and then trying to figure out how to cater what you’re going to do and what you’re going to show at these events based on the uniqueness of that venue.
For so long, we’ve kind of tried to engineer things like this based on the larger scale availability of the same old, standard types of empty spaces, but as more and more cities in this country get closer and closer to build out, retail and commercial establishments shrink their physical footprints and/or place higher and higher premiums on parking, seeking out more traditional landscapes like this could prove to become significantly more costly and much more difficult to find and acquire. It would be a shame if that’s what starts decreasing the appeal of this hobby overall. In many communities around this country, this could be an evolve to survive type of proposition and it’s something that’s probably worth thinking about now rather than later.
Anyway, outstanding show. One of the best I’ve been to in a long time and I applaud the organizers for their creativity and their willingness to take chances. All of it certainly paid off and your efforts were definitely appreciated.
That’s it for this week…
Darin Roberge