We talked about it back in November when we had three organizers trying to take over the legacy of the paddle EXPO. There were two German contenders and one in France. For quite a while it was not clear who will be the winner so to speak, as we all agreed three SUP Tradeshows would be too many. Link to initial story from back in November
Now it looks like we have only one contender left: The Paddle Sport Show in Lyon. The first German organizier pulled back rather fast and decided to hold a canoe only tradeshow.
Our friends over at SUP Scout now have found out that the second German organizer has put all plans on hold due to an uncertain future.
So the cat is out of the bag, we are going to Lyon. The organizer has big plans and thre will be a Demo day on the water and even a SUP Race is in talks.
Off course the move to France will not sit very well with the German SUP Industry. Traditionally there is still sent of disrespect between Germans and the French. As we seen at the paddleEXPO in the past it was the German distributors that carried out the trade show appearance of their brand. We also had many visitors from within the country and it is questionable how many of the German SUP Industry participants will make the migration to Lyon.
On a good note Lyon is quite centrally located and is not too far from anyting. It would have been more difficult if we had a tradeshow all the way in Spain, Italy or the UK.
We find it also rather unfortunate that the German Organizer who was going to have canoe and SUP in the same show has decided to go canoe only. Back in the paddleEXPO days it was never an issue to have canoe and SUP at the same time and the show in Lyon has canoe integrated as well.