Bill Sohl felt that allowing drop-ins onto the field would irritate
regular participants. Is this really the case? If others feel this way
I would like to understand why, an someone help me on this?
Bob Paul
TS45738L"O"
TS7280L
Bob,
Surely you jest when you say you don't understand why people would be
upset if others just "dropped-in" on a show without paying? Would you
get upset if you went to a grocery store and they made you pay for what
you got but gave the other person's groceries to them for free? How
about the gas station? Doctor's office? Anywhere? I am not trying to
pick a fight. Or maybe I don't understand your question? Do you mean
just a one day or show registration?
Our club, the Triumph Club of The Carolinas, hosts a show each year. If
you've never put one on, you have no idea the amount of work that goes
on. And the smoother it looks to the participants means the harder the
people worked putting it on. It truely angers me when people try to
sneak in on show (not just ours) without paying. Anyway you look at it,
it is just one thing--stealing, plain and simple.
Our show this year had 142 participants. Lots of car classes, thus lots
of awards. The awards alone cost over $3,000. While the show in Ft.
Worth was a little larger, their cost were at least as equal. I have no
idea if they had to pay for meeting rooms or not. I don't know the
break even point but the Red River Club probably was worried all
convention long if they were going to lose money or not.
While here I want to address acouple of other things. One is the thread
on declining convention participation. In 1994 our club hosted the
national convention. If I'm not mistaken it was either the largest or
second largest ever. So things haven't be going downhill forever. The
last two years in a row the convention has been held the week after July
4th. I personally think that is the worst week a club could choose
except for possibly Labor Day weekend/week. Next year the convention is
later in the month. I think it will be interesting to see if attendance
comes up. Location plays a part also, but I don't know how much. Last
year's show was in N.Y. state, which has the largest number of VTR
members, doesn't it? But they didn't have the biggest turn out, even
before the hurricane.
There seems to be quite an uproar over this year's show, with virtually
everyone in concours. I think this was forced upon the participants
when the Red River Cub had only one class for Participant's Choice.
They may have been forced to do this from the low number of
registrations. They might have been forced to do this by the economics
of the situation. But IMHO, I thought this stunk up to high heaven.
Lots and lots of people don't like to be in concours for all of the
reasons mentioned over the last week's worth of posts. But this year
they really didn't have much choice. There was a participant's choice
class, but I never found it. The car I voted on for PC was actually the
winner of the Modified Concours class! Stupid me.
When our club hosted the 1994 VTR we had a huge turnout and a huge
participant's choice class. Part of our success was the advertising we
did, all free. Of course we hit all of the regular sources--car part
suppliers, car magazines, etc. But we went the extra mile and sent out
hundreds of Public Service Announcements to every radio, television and
newspaper in a three state area. We saturated all avenues. We were
even able to get Mark McEwen of CBS to mention it on CBS This Morning.
All free. Just a lot of work. Can we point to this one thing as to why
we had a large turn out? No. But it was part of it. This type of
advertising is available to all clubs. A really enterprising person
could send PSAs out to the major media outlets in each state and reach a
very large percentage of Triumph enthusiasts.
Well I've gone on too long. Please forgive me.
Bill Wood
1973 TR6
1979 TR8 Coupe
1981 TR8 F.I.
Greensboro, N.C.
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