Mark your calendars and get your flights booked: next year’s NADA Show, CADA Summit, and Canadian International AutoShow VIP night run right into each other.
The CADA Summit will take place February 12, 2020, in Toronto, Ont., followed by VIP night the following day. The NADA Show is set to run between February 14-17 in Las Vegas, Nev.
This is a first time conflict for these important annual events, and comes as a result of NADA’s show dates moving around. As you know, this year’s NADA Show in San Francisco was in January.
I strongly recommend that anyone planning to take part in both Toronto and Las Vegas events book their flights as early as possible. In my experience, flights to Vegas tend to fill quickly. And as many as 300-350 Canadian dealers gather at NADA each year.
On the subject of the CADA Summit, congratulations to the CADA team and sponsor TD Auto Finance for another great event. Despite a pretty dramatic snowstorm, it was a tremendous success. The feedback I received from dealers confirmed that the approach taken by the Summit to bring a wide range of speakers that often tackle non-traditional topics was the right one.
The CADA Summit will take place February 12, 2020, in Toronto, Ont., followed by VIP night the following day.
For Toronto Maple Leaf fans, Brendan Shanahan’s keynote was a high point. Personally, I’m more of a Raptors guy, and very much aware of the playoff run that is about to start!
On the topic of events, I had the pleasure of attending the media day and award night for the Vancouver International AutoShow in mid-March. Blair Qualey, Jason Heard, and the team did a great job on the show.
Two items were of note to me:
The first is the announcement by convenience store chain 7-Eleven to bring hydrogen fueling stations to some of their convenience store locations. This is a further step in the chain’s hydrogen strategy that also has them partnering with Toyota to operate Hydrogen fuel cell trucks.
The second is related to luxury brand Genesis, who will be supplementing their heavily online-centric customer experience with a growing network of retail locations. In the announcement they didn’t call them dealerships, but at a time when there is so much debate about the role of the physical dealership in the car buying process, I think it’s notable that a brand born online is taking that step.
