PR firm responds to coronavirus pandemic with live-streamed bike trade show

With events such as the London Bike Show postponed, a San Francisco PR firm has announced a live-streamed trade show where journalists will be able to log in to a website to view presentations of new products.

The REVEAL Live Streaming Global Media Conference is being run by ECHOS Communications, a San Francisco PR firm that represents 14 brands in the bike industry.

With the Sea Otter Classic – at which a number of new products would have been launched – shifted from April to October because of COVID-19 concerns, REVEAL is intended to fill the gap.

“The live streaming event is designed to be an effective way for brands to present the launch of their products while limiting or eliminating travel,” explained ECHOS CEO Rob Reedy.

Scheduled for April 29 and 30, the event will be hosted in Camp Navarro in Mendocino, California.

A custom website will allow participating brands to live stream their product presentations to journalists. They will also be able to post images, videos and press releases.

Brands can choose to do this remotely or come in person to present products on stage and take questions from participating journalists.

ECHOS hopes to reach 200-300 journalists, but the show will not be open to consumers.

"People who are going to go to Sea Otter in October are still going to go,” the firm’s senior partner Billy Sinkford told Bicycle Retailer. “But there is still a need to reach journalists in this time period."

Some product launches do however still require a hands-on experience, according to Mark Riedy, the founder and owner of True Communications, which represents Canyon Bicycles, Giro, Blackburn, Rapha, Wahoo, and Zwift.

"Canyon planned a new bike demo at Sea Otter and there is some desire to get people on that bike," he said.

Nevertheless, he added: "We can do launches in person, or digitally through a webinar. The third way is to just send assets to journalists, which is really what a lot of journalists do at Sea Otter: go around and take photos to put in a web gallery."