Colleen,
This year we only had three vendors. Keith Craft, Texas Driving Experience and the new superformance dealer.
Like Kristen said I really enjoyed the TDE truck and the fun stuff they brought along, plus having Keith at the event is always enjoyable to have the guy who constructed your motor.
From a space perspective I don’t think the guys took up too much space and I never even saw the new superformance guy (besides his trailer)…but as everyone knows I am kind of in my own little world.
For 2009 I would really like to see more vendors and this is my reasoning. There are a few reasons people come to these events.
- Hang out with the group (adult beverages included)
- Hill Country cruise
- Ideas for your own car
The third item is where the vendors come in as extra “bonus”. When I came to the event originally 5 year ago I looked at everyone’s car to see what they had done, differences in model’s, etc. to come up with my own build plan. Having Keith Craft and others can dramatically add value to this process. Every year I see the cars and say…hmmm I could do that…or I talk to Keith and say “really
oil in the water is bad”
. Most of our schedules are crazy and would be great to maximize the time to learn about new products that can make building, maintaining or upgrading our cars during the social events.
I am not suggesting this become a vendor run event but especially if we are looking for changes in 2009 I would highly support adding more vendors, maybe in a special vendor area and they could pay a booth fee to help defer some of the registration. There are a lot of creative ways to increase the number of vendors and keep the same or better accommodations.
Now this may all be mute if vendors don’t see value in coming. TDE and KCM both come to these events because they are members and have fun there return on investment requirements are minimal as they would come anyway.
Thoughts/comments?
