Maybe people wanted to see if the troubled auto industry would come out swinging in the first major auto show of 2010. Maybe they wanted to get an early peak at the electric cars of the near future. Whatever the case, attendance at the Detroit auto show was up by 65,000 people this year.
The show drew 95,000 people on its final day this past Sunday, pushing the total to more than 715,000 for the entire two-week event. Shand Spencer, a spokeswoman for the show, said that an increase in consumer confidence drove the rise in visitors. The spike also came despite a fire inside Cobo Hall last week that shut down the show for a number of hours.
“Everyone had a renewed optimism in the auto industry,” she said. “This was the place to see the future.”
While the narrative of a sense of renewal steering people to the auto show as a major piece of America’s industrial base slowly rebounds from its near collapse certainly sounds nice, there could be another reason for the high turnout: Michigan had some great unseasonably warm weather last week.
