IAA 2015 25.09.2015
I was extremely lucky this year and got a ticket to IAA. It’s international auto fair, which is held in Germany sine 1897. Though it’s not an every year event. Therefore it was a good luck. This year it was 66th exhibition.
Exhibition was held in the huge Frankfurt Fare building. You can spend the whole day trying to explore every corner and still it won’t be enough.
Major manufacturers might take the entire pavillion. Those which are not the big can rent only a part of one. E.g. Volkswagen takes a lot of space.
You can freely sit in the car, touch it. You can even have a ride, though you have to go into special place for it.
Manufactirers try to attract visitors in whatever way they can. Some put the raw engine on a stand:
Others try to attract with cyber games (:
Though you can’t check all the cars from the inside. To some cars you can have an access only with a sales guy. Though only if you passed face control. I saw a guy who was rejected.
You can find here not just real cars, but also concept cars which may be in future will be in mass production. Though may be not.
Pavillions are huge with a lot of people and cars inside. Everybody tries to spend a few minutes in the car he likes, so if you wanna try one you have to spend some time in the queue.
Or you can dress like an oligarch and go to the elite section. There is no crowd around it.
Valkswagen shared pavillion with Porsche, Bentley and some other car manufacturers. Audi is rich enough to occupy the whole pavillion. They even decorated it in their own way. If you want to visit it, you have to pass deep freeze room.
And discover huge crowd inside. This was one of the most crowded pavillions.
Some of visitors are so exhausted, that they can already just lie down on the nearest bench :)
Meanwhile the advertisement boosts the trade on the street.
There is also a huge pavillion for Mercedes and Smart.
Guys from Mercedes did a really good job. They ran there the live show with showmen and cars on the scene. Quite unusual. Unfortunately the show was in German, and according to people reaction at least half of visitors had no clue what the guys on scene was talking about. Part of the show included interaction with audience, though sometimes people didn’t react as it was expected by the showman.
There were guys from Tesla as well. It should be tricky to make that long way and bring all the stuff here from USA.
You can find here car on any taste. From old-school rarity models up to modern Mansory or Mazzeratti.
The BMW pavillion was already closed when I found it. I was a bit disappointed becuase of it, as I was only 5 minutes late. Though it’s just the way it is. May be next time.