Bicton was my favourite International. Had everything - beer tent, beautiful site, fantastic location (near the sea), great weather, off-roading, huge camp fire and all my friends in attendance.
tarquin slough2cv wrote:
how can you take money from traders when they are working when the rest of us (including the organisers) are there to party enjoy ourseleves etc. its bad enough that they are there to work let alone pay to be there. all i charged was standard entrance fee for staff. and the 3rd most impotant you want them there why put them off by charging loads of money to be there. if you ask people why they go to big meetings some say to see old friends make new and look at the cars. the other main reason is to buy spares,parts things to keep the cars going etc. therefore its in the clubs interest thet a good range of traders come along.
Traders is a tough one. I absolutely agree that having loads of traders is crucial for us 2CVers. However, IMHO, that works two ways. They are businesses, which I assume make a profit throughout the year, and in the 'real world', business pay to promote themselves at trade fairs. I know 'real world' businesses don't usually expect to make a profit from event attendance, and view it as part of their larger marketing/PR activities in raising awareness, treating the loss as a marketing cost.
Since last year, I have heard several traders say that they don't make a profit from attending the event, due to the enormous cost of getting all the stock there and manning the stand, and also that they don't sell much more than they would have sold online - just that people buy then to save the shipping fees. While that may be true, and I have sympathy for that argument, being slightly better informed now than I was last year, I also believe - as others have confirmed above - that many of us also make additional impulse purchases (I know I did - to the tune of £130!).
[Aside: There's a slight contradiction on your argument re entry fees for traders, Tarqs - if we're to feel sorry that they have to work, why charge them for their entry at all?
x ]
tarquin slough2cv wrote:
for example to my knowlege bicton was the only meeting where you could win a chassis with free fitting. and ok i know this was donated by frome 2cv but this was 11 years ago when this was a good buisness
Asking for a raffle prize is also a thorny issue. I wait to be corrected on this, but it feels like a *long* time since there were great pries like a chassis, or new roof. I'm guessing the quality of prizes went downhill before charges were introduced? Of course, I appreciate that if traders have paid for a pitch, they won't want to donate much of a prize, which is fair enough. However, if you just ask for a prize, it can open up a huge discrepancy between the value traders place on their pitch as reflected in the value of prizes donated - charging is a way of introducing an element of equality. Also, it should be remembered that to get round sticky legal issues, the proceeds of the raffle go to CHARITY, not the Club, so only asking for a raffle prize does nothing to offset the event costs.
I think charging the traders (food traders included!) *something* is appropriate, but am happy to acknowledge that maybe the rates should be reviewed to ensure there is a happier balance between the we need them/they do alright out of us considerations.
tarquin slough2cv wrote:
people seam to forget that just nby camping in the noisy field means they can make as much noise as you like where as there is usually only a small hedge in between noisy field and quite file. its still just a hedge not a sound proff booth.
Exactly - we need a bit of consideration between both sides! The idea is really that the 'quiet' field is really quiet, and that everyone else shows some consideration when coming back from the bar - the other field should be considered the 'less quiet' (convivial conversation and muted background music) field, rather than the 'Noisy' field to house a full-on rave. [OK, I have been known to be guilty on that front, on occasion!]
tarquin slough2cv wrote:
yes the club has £200,000 in the bank good to know really considering the membership own that money. but why should they spend it all on a party when it should be used for more impotant things.
Yeah, I tend to agree. It's a shame that this issue wasn't debated fully at last years' AGM. Ros raised a very valid point - do the members want the Club to subsidise the cost of event entrance fees, or not? - but it got derailed as people failed to understand the simple difference between a 'subsidy' on the ticket price and the 'underwriting' of any losses incurred by the event, and it all descended into a point of order melee.
tarquin slough2cv wrote:
the budget for bicton was £14,000 and we broke even i know this was 11 years ago but we only had 600 attending including day visiters.
Budget for St. Ives 2009 was £13.5K - made a profit on about 850 paying adults/day visitors. This year the budget was about the same, and I think there were about 600ish paying adults, which I believe means they at least broke even.
tarquin slough2cv wrote:
whilst im on this subject HOW MUCH did i have to pay on sunday.
Until last year, though, I wasn't aware that gate prices were *sometimes* lowered - at the organising team's discretion - from Saturday evening onwards. I would like to see some transparency around this - maybe future years could charge different rates according to when people arrive? Offering a sliding scale of entrance fees would let people budget accordingly - even if it's only knowing you'll save a tenner if you rock up on Saturday instead of Thursday lunchtime. The difficulty with that, of course, is that it's much harder to charge people arriving early, but not staying for the whole event - who's to know if they've left when they said? And it would make the Organising Team's budgeting *really* tricky - it would be very hard to estimate how much money you're likely to take - what if everyone only showed up on Saturday and paid £20, when you'd budgeted on receiving the pre-booking price of £25 etc.?
To make everyone happy, we'd have to charge by the hour! LOL! In theory, Day visitors get access to traders, afternoon and evening entertainment, for £10. I prefer the idea of charging by person, not by car, because I always felt like I'd paid twice as much as 'couples' to get in :0) Maybe this could be waived for Day Visitors, though, and just charge £10 per car - often they show up with disinterested friends/family who'd really rather not be there, or are just popping in to say hello to someone (as in Sam's case.).
*retreats back into her box*
...
. Gutted I missed this.
