The 2022 Montreal International Auto Show (SIAM) will finally not take place next January. The event was canceled last week due to the deteriorating health situation linked to the Omicron variant of COVID-19.
“It is really not out of heart that we are making this decision,” said Luis Pereira, director general of SIAM, in a press release last week. This will be the second edition in a row that is canceled due to the pandemic.
People who have already purchased their tickets will receive a full refund, the organization says.
The SIAM had announced in November to prepare for a lighter edition, while several manufacturers had indicated their absence.
The management of Canada’s largest automotive event, the Canadian International Auto Show in Toronto, also announced on the same day that it would not hold the event in February 2022.
Of course, we can blame the pandemic in both cases, but we cannot rule out the increasingly marked disinterest of the manufacturers for these costly and often complex to organize demonstrations.