What Kills Rallies?

[Lancashire Lad]

Originally Posted by 1882

Now listen hear young man.

All this criticizing of the club by unhelpful individuals such as your self is really getting on the tits of the people who spend such a large amount of their time trying to sort it, from the goodness of there own heart.

How many times do you need to be told that you are not aloud to poke fun, make suggestions or even express an opinion on the NTET!!!

Don't you patronise me you gobby little shite!

Your another cause for all this! Gallivanting all over the country with your whippet and dinosaur, trudging all your father's worldly possessions around up hill and down dale! Holding up Joe Bloggs and poor old chardonnay in their Chelsea tractor.. due to the free exhibition time you give them on the road, they feel no need to attend the show. Plus because they had to actually drive under the speed limit for once, they don't wish to attend the show because you held them up!

[Steam Extravaganza]

Originally Posted by Lancashire Lad

What about the man with half a dozen oil cans or three old bikes?

We're doing it wrong!

Oh wait hold on a minute. I have the answer to the original question.... Conversions & The NTET!!

In my defence, I recently took my pile of shit, which features oil cans and a bike to a show and it crested a lot more interest than either the fowler or Garrett I had parked either side.

Took an hour to get it home and close to 16 hours to get both engines back in the shed.

[Radhew]

...after thinking about this for a bit I am not sure anything particulary "kills" a rally, but I get bored when I see the same engines/exhibits, in the same locations, year-in-year-out. And when I am bored, I don't go back again.

Some blokes/rally committees have worked hard to get this right, such as prior events at Cerney, but for the ones I attend in Kent its mainly the same old stuff. Having trudged through the mud in Dorset this year, I got the same feeling so may give it a miss for a year or two (sure, I know Gigantic was there, and the trenches and everything... but it all felt very familiar).

So Tom, familiarity breeds contempt....

[Paul30013]

Originally Posted by Radhew

...after thinking about this for a bit I am not sure anything particulary "kills" a rally, but I get bored when I see the same engines/exhibits, in the same locations, year-in-year-out. And when I am bored, I don't go back again.

Some blokes/rally committees have worked hard to get this right, such as prior events at Cerney, but for the ones I attend in Kent its mainly the same old stuff. Having trudged through the mud in Dorset this year, I got the same feeling so may give it a miss for a year or two (sure, I know Gigantic was there, and the trenches and everything... but it all felt very familiar).

So Tom, familiarity breeds contempt....

Engines being a pretty finite resource and difficult to transport it must be difficult for organisers wherever they are to attract / bring in new engines from other parts of the country though? As an example what would be the attraction or incentive for engines from oop North or the South West to visit rallies in Kent? I don't disagree with what you are suggesting but new exhibits is a tough thing to address I would think, so all you can do is shuffle things around a bit. Our little gathering in Canterbury gets plenty of support from the public and its surprising how many are repeat visitors year on year. Free admission and free parking help I guess lol.

Paul.

[Triton]

Originally Posted by Radhew

...after thinking about this for a bit I am not sure anything particulary "kills" a rally, but I get bored when I see the same engines/exhibits, in the same locations, year-in-year-out. And when I am bored, I don't go back again.

Some blokes/rally committees have worked hard to get this right, such as prior events at Cerney, but for the ones I attend in Kent its mainly the same old stuff. Having trudged through the mud in Dorset this year, I got the same feeling so may give it a miss for a year or two (sure, I know Gigantic was there, and the trenches and everything... but it all felt very familiar).

So Tom, familiarity breeds contempt....

There is a similar problem down here in as much as you can see the same engines year after year at different rallies during the season. However, we are at the end of the UK and the likes of Cornwall only shares it's border with Devon!!

However, rally organisers down here do a fantastic job by spending large amounts of money encouraging engines from outside the area to attend local rallies. We have had over the past 5 seasons an amazing number of engines which are not native to Devon and Cornwall. We should take our hats off to both the organisers who invest heavily in attracting new engines and to the owners for being prepared to travel to this end of the country to exhibit their engines.

I may be wrong, but I feel that the killer down here is the cost of transporting engines. It is great to be able to road your engine but some of the roads down here are just not suitable for doing so. Look at the A382 which passes through Bovey Tracey and Moretonhampstead, in several places it is single track with passing places and it is treacherous in October most years when timber is felled in the area and it is transported on large articulated lorries from the Moretonhampstead direction down though Bovey Tracey and then presumably onto the A38 Devon Expressway. The only advantage of these large lorries is that if you follow one you have a relatively speedy journey as oncoming traffic tends to keep out of their way!

I think that the only way to turn around attendances at rallies is not to try and make as much money as possible. Instead, charge reasonable admission fees and provide attractions which are of interest to all of the family. For example, out of the four of us in my household, my 17 year old grandson and myself are interested in the Traction Engines both full size and miniatures at rallies. My 15 year old grandaughter enjoys the vintage fairgrounds. My wife is not interested in any of the above and does not attend any rallies at all. She has been to two in the twenty two years that we have been together. If rally organisers provided an attraction that was of interest to her, she would attend and that would be one more admission fee for the organiser!

[Steam Extravaganza]

Money and greed.

Not necessarily from engine owners either.

[1882]

Did it all go wrong when they started trying to make money and charging people to see engines?

Some of the best doo's we go to we get naff all for going, and Joey Bloggs pays the same amount to see us?

[C.M.FANCE]

Why is it each time I have posted a quick reply it gets lost and I'm transferred to 'Events'?

As this has now registered I'll add -

Maybe this has something to do with uncommunicative / unfriendly enginemen : we can do a lot of good by talking to the public.

[Triton]

Originally Posted by C.M.FANCE

Why is it each time I have posted a quick reply it gets lost and I'm transferred to 'Events'?

As this has now registered I'll add -

Maybe this has something to do with uncommunicative / unfriendly enginemen : we can do a lot of good by talking to the public.

I have personally found this to be the case only on rare occassions. However, I have found this to be more common in railway rather than road steam preservation.

[weidner]

What kills rallies ?

Pissed off exhibitors , pissed off helpers , and pissed off public .

If the exhibitors are happy it goes a long way to make the public happy . The same goes for the hi-vizzers , they need to be smiling as well .