Hey guy and gals, this is Bones, I was the chairman on the car show last year for our organizations frist car show. While we considered it a success, our judging was a disaster! I am requesting input from my fellow HAMBers on what you people like in Car Shows judging and classes. How cars are judged,ie who gets the trophies and do you like a lot of classes or lump a lot of cars in one class? We’re just starting, so this is a small show, now. But we want to do our show the way the people that show cars want it. Thanks in advance for any input, Bones
Make it easy,every participant gets a vote,peoples choice. No rat turds or new cars.set a cut off date unless your more interested in making money than trying to establish a must attend show. Make sure you don't set a date that competes with another show in the area. HRP
My club has been putting on an annual indoor car show for the past 36 years. We learned a long time ago that it is a bad idea for the host club to do the judging. We hire an outside group, in this case another semi-local car club, to handle the judging. We make it clear to all participants that judging is handled by a third party group and all complaints are to be funneled through the Complaint Department. It works well and we rarely have problems.
I vote make it open for anything with wheels tractors, bicycles, wagons, new, old, painted, rusty ............ you dont have to like the cars but it will draw all ages a young person with a tuner may learn to appreciate older rods all the award winners, for hot rods, at the last show I attended were over 60 I blame year cut offs for this (plus the high price to build one) I would even let them have a radio contest and let the crowd determine the winner as far as trophies, find a local shop class and take them a bunch of junk parts and have the students build trophies make judging simple, place the cars in the classes, then have spectators vote PS.....please do not play never ending poodle skirt music
easy squeezy, just give trophies to the guys who are cleaning their cars and armor all-ing the tires while at the show. they will be the ones who need a trophy for their ego. they will tell all their friends how great the show was and will come back next year.
X2 If you insist on awards, call them "picks", that way, there's no expectation of objectivity. Unless you're at a Concours event, Judging should be reserved for pigs at county fairs.
A couple of local car shows use this method: Each registered vehicle gets a small numbered cardboard container with a slot in the top. That container gets placed in a convenient spot on or near the vehicle. Each registrant and spectator gets a quantity of tickets when they enter the show area. There are a few specialty tickets like “Best In Show”, or “Best Truck”, etc., and quite a few general tickets. The idea is that the voting is done by placing an appropriate ticket in the container. Or several tickets if you wish. At a specified time, the containers are collected, and the tickets are tallied up. So rather than the judging being done by one or two individuals, it’s done by the crowd itself. And each registrant/spectator has the opportunity to vote for their favorite vehicle.
The date was tough to pic, seems like every date had something to compete with, did the best I could with the date. Our group donates the proceeds from the show to the local Cerebral Palsies center. A well known organization in our town, that helped us tremendously with sponsors. So... ours is designed to make money, but we still try to make it a good time for all. Bones
a charity show....cool invite all the local car clubs, like the vette, mustang and camaro guys take their money for charity and hand them a $10 plaque for best vette, mustang, camaro club participant
I only go to one judged show a year, Billetproof. The host club cars are not judged, they do the judging. No drama from what I have seen over the years. A quick story, one of my favorite shows I ever went to many years ago was put on by a local Boy Scout troop. The Scouts did all of the judging, it was great to hear them talk as they walked around and picked best engine, paint, interior etc. They also made all of the trophies, it made for a fun day.
People's choice in a few categories. Say, prewar cars, postwar cars (1945-1980), modern, and modified. Do the top 2-3 in each catagory.
remember that its a drive on show..the 2 same cars parked next 2 each other .one with calif duster the other with bugs...drive on show number 2 is the winner
Humans judging makes temptation of favortism a big possibility. Club members picking fellow member for trophy etc.. Best bet is have Mayor's Choice, Police Chief's choice, participants choice or sponsor's choice. If you have prizes or 50-50 have a little kid draw the winning ticket. That way you have no disgruntled participants.
Truth be told, I would much rather see your club solicit donations, even small stuff, from local businesses, then dole them out as door prizes. I would rather use a can of wax, a spray detailer, some cleaning supplies, even a container of Go-Jo hand cleaner instead of watching a trophy collect dust. Make sure to acknowledge the contributing business (or individual) when handing out these door prizes.
I like this idea, contact local businesses to donate a trophy and send a dignitary(s) to select which car receives it. Takes you out of the equation and doesn't cost you anything. Win, win.
If you give out twice as many quality door prizes and no trophies you will weed out the "trophy whores" for next years' show.
How about no judging and no trophies? those are the best shows, where you get to drive you hot rod hang out with a bunch of like minded people, make new friends and shoot the breeze with old ones. I never cared to much for trophies. I don't build hot rods or old cars to win anything.
Exclude your club members cars from the trophy judging,there is a local antique club here that has a annual show,all their cars are "eligble" for prizes,they seem to have classes for their own vehicles?.they go around and get donations from local businesses,wax,oil,gift cards etc,however they seem to win some of the better prizes?,i havent been there in years,asked how the prize stucture worked,boy i got a bunch of dirty looks that day..The best type of show is outdoors in a park,have a DJ some food vendors and a couple of prticipants choice and maybe a peoples choice,keep it low key,it will be all you want.
Just try to make a friendly car party out of it. Have it be physically large enough to, if you have music, people can get away from it. Trophies? Only if they mean something. Trinkets from a trophy shop are not all that cool. Make it large enough so they sort of folks who act like they're hipper than all the rest can make their snarky remarks and not get in arguments or fights. These kinds of threads prove that we should go out of our way to thank the people who put on the really good shows. They really have to put up with toddler like behavior.
For a one day show leave the awards to local dignitary picks and people's choice and liberated ladies forgive me a lady's choice and maybe a kids choice. A pick by another club is ok as long as they make it clear that they don't pick a vehicle out of their own club for the award. Most folks who hit rod runs in Texas in the 70's remember the Vintiques of Dallas mug award that was considered to be a real top award to get at that time. I don't like awards that say "BEST" though. That always seems to piss that one trophy hunter off who will come up afterwards and protest the selection stating that his ______ is the best because of______ and _____. Just state in the flyers what the awards will be. If the trophy hunters don't like it let them go to the other event. One of my favorite awards was a "Most potential" that I received at a McDonald's cruise night a few years ago. It probably wasn't the "Best" unfinished rig in the lot but the person who picked the award thought it had the most potential. Door prizes are a big deal for some participants but I always seemed to get cans of wax when I had my truck in primer. My students knew where to look in my office to see if there was a new can of wax or other door prize I didn't have a use for. One club in the area doesn't solicitate door prizes from local businesses because the businesses in that area get hit all the time by other organisations. instead they stick a certain percentage of the entry fees in envelopes and give the envelopes out as door prizes that often get spent right back in town. Just state in the flyers what the awards will be. If the trophy hunters don't like it let them go to the other event. Truthfully for me the more laid back the event the more I like it these days. We go to look at cars and visit with car folk that we haven't seen since the last time we went. If I want a trophy I'll enter my rig in an indoor show that is judged and has a trophy for everything.
No judging, no trophies, no entry fee.. Have good quality and reasonably priced food, have club T-shirts for sale and have fun....
Good Luck ! Here's my opinions from my experiences. BE specific on cut off year, types of cars if you are going that route, bad idea IMO, When new and small you take what you can get. Plenty of classes to split up the different type of cars, hit the local business's for trophy cost and attach note to bottom of trophy w/address/e-mail, reminding people to send a thank you note, goes a long way the following year when you ask them again for $ help. Lots of Door prize drawings are good, Minimum 2 trophy per class, participant voting seems to bring less bitching than judged shows IMO, I have been involved organizing shows and currently run our Ice Cream Culvers cruise in and sadly be prepared to listen to some bitching and moaning over something, the car hobby, like all things have a percentage of unhappy people willing to share their misery at any opportunity. For me, how/why, my choice's of where I go, the venue, trip, food, entertainment, all factors in my decisions and always try to hit new shows as I've been doing this for a long time and enjoy new adventures. Running a show or cruise tends to be a thankless job, I always wanted to post " NO BITCHING, NO CRYBABY'S, NO ASSHOLE'S past this entry point, everyone agrees, BUT no signage ever displayed YET.
You could Make it like t-ball , everyone gets a trophy. The easiest non political way is get local involvement. Mayors pick, police department pick, participants pick. Sent from my iPhone using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
Thanks people, keep the answers coming, lots of good ideas! Some we did use, we had 45 cars and bikes at our first show and were able to give each one a door prize, the last two got only t shirts,as we ran out of prizes at the end. We kept our door prizes at no lower than $20 in value,so with our $20 entry fee everybody at least broke even. All the prizes were donated by local businesses. We did have a People’s choice at a dollar a vote, to raise money for our charity, it was designed as a buy yourself a trophy, worked well. We are going to make changes next year based on what we learned and input from people that show and attend car shows. Again thanks, but keep the ideas coming! Bones
Great idea, but remember there are a lot of owners that show up for the trophy. And you will never make them happy unless they win.
Bones, There's car shows, dog shows, horse shows, etc. I think those would probably be very hard to put on. I guess you would need judges, that are experts in what they do. I also guess there would be a lot of rules, classes, categories, etc. etc. I'm not much help if your talking about a car show. But if your asking the OPINION of a HAMBer, who loves going to old car Events in my Hot Rod. I do have one of those. This is what I enjoy the most. I really like the trip, I like the food, I like the music, I love the swap meet, I like sitting around the camp fire. I just like making a lot of good memories with old, and some new friends. People build their old cars for a lot of different reasons. For some it's just to show, and for some, it's just for Fun. So if its a { show } you guys want to put on, I wish you the best of luck. But you may just want to keep it a simple event. You can always use the trophy money for some food. Did I say that I like the food? Sorry, but I haven't read the others comments yet. I hope they had some better ideas for you. THANKS . Ron...
If you want it to stay small then cap the year. Otherwise open it up to anything with wheels with a 80s onwards must be modified. Get a burnout pad if you can and charge a fiver or ten bucks to go on it. Crowd pleaser that will be solid booked if you yanks are anything like us kiwis. Judging depends on how many prizes you want. Some ideas maybe... Peoples choice set at a $1 a vote, participants choice, best car in show, best bike, best 1900-1949, best 50s, best muscle car, best truck, best import, best paint, best engine bay, best burnout, best sound system, best interior, then spot prizes through out the day (great way to drop your sponsors names) If you do a best dressed/fashion show dont forget to add a wearable parts show. if you want to draw younger kids then try to get a drift team or some such to come and show the cars, answer questions and scribble there name. Even better if your burn out pad is large enough for them to do donuts or something. Really draws the younger guys all wanting to be the next drift king fast n furious style.
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