Detroit’s Auto Show Hibernates Before Returning to Icy Calendar Spot in 2025

The Detroit auto show is moving back to its long-held time slot in January, starting in 2025. The move ends an earlier experiment in moving the timing of the show around in an attempt to boost flagging interest in auto shows generally and the Detroit show specifically. Organizers thought frigid Michigan weather and the increasingly popular CES in Las Vegas (which is far less frigid) hogging media attention in January were keeping people away, and decided a summer or fall auto show would play better. So, after the last January Detroit show in 2019, the plan was to return 18 months later in June 2020. Then the pandemic hit, the convention space had been converted to a hospital, and the auto show was cancelled altogether. New plans for September 2021 were also cancelled.

The North American International Detroit Auto Show was rescheduled for September 2022 and returned—limped back, really—with a fraction of automakers participating. The 2023 show was equally disappointing, and rumors abounded that the show would return to its January roots.

The move has been confirmed in statements to the media by Rod Alberts, executive director of the Detroit Auto Show and the Detroit Auto Dealers Association that puts it on. It will return January 10, 2025, with the Red Carpet Charity Preview, followed by public days January 11-20. There will be no show this year, in 2024.

For decades the pre-eminent international show was held in January, starting each year with almost every automaker and top executive in attendance to reveal some of their most important vehicles and concepts. Companies spent millions on unveils, elaborate displays, and off-site events.

The new year timing worked well for automakers and their budgets, the community for drawing visitors when tourism had slowed, and the public because it included the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday when many families were free to attend.