Rick asked a question earlier today....I may well be asking for help from UK members on organising the event in 2014.
Those who attended the event LAST year will remember Peter suggested we should do a UK event around one of the big UK motoring events. There are a few to choose from - Silverstone Classic, Goodwood Revival, Cholmondley Pageant, CarFest and so on but ONE of these was specifically mentioned by our esteemed leader...
I came home and started to do some homework and today things became clearer. We have the opportunity to start the 2014 European Event at the start of the...
GOODWOOD REVIVALhttp://www.goodwood.co.uk/revival/welcome.aspxIt is usually in mid-September. 146,000 people attended last year over the three days. Testing is Friday and racing on Saturday/Sunday. Getting INTO and OUT of Goodwood is not easy.
We have the opportunity to stay ON SITE on the Thursday night (we would be parked securely and safely), have drinks and dinner and then spend the day at Revival - including Paddock access tickets - and leave late in the day to head to another location for the remainder of our weekend. We would park and stay at the pop-up hotel on site - it's not camping but is based on two people sharing a room. Today I had confirmation that we can take the rooms JUST for the Thursday night - Snoozebox usually only do full weekend tickets - and a rough indication of the cost of that (£110 per room B&B). Other things, like dinner, lunch, drink, actual Goodood tickets and so on are all still tbc.
As we'd be starting earlier than usual, it would make sense to finish the formal event on Sunday morning so folk can get home for the Monday morning...
This will not be cheap - assume ~£250 JUST for the Goodwood portion of the Event. So it's NOT CHEAP - they are in a sellers market when it comes to pricing! Hopefully we can bring that cost down but if I price the rooms, entry, food etc from the info from this year, that's sort of where we'd be coming out just for the night/day.
However, I need people to express their interest in doing this, and logically therefore building the 2014 event, around/following the Goodwood Revival. I am not looking for a commitment and we know from past experience that we will lose people between now and payment time. If you're interested in building the 2014 event around Goodwood Revival accommodation, then please post here. I need to get numbers to the people doing the organising (and will likely pay a very early deposit on YOUR behalf for the rooms if we get a decent number of people interested). I have a hunch we could take 30 rooms but that is all up to you guys. Rooms for the Thursday night are shared so if that's likely to be an issue, speak now or PM me if you prefer.
If this is not for you, or you think it's a bad idea/too expensive then that would also be good to know and the UK members can put their heads together to come up with an alternate plan as the onus does appear to be on us!
I appreciate that this is sort of putting the cart before the horse but:
- our past events have generally coincided with the Goodwood timing
- southern England is generally easier for European members to get to than more beautiful/emptier parts of the UK such as the Lakes or Wales
- to me there is a great advantage in staying on site: we get more of the day at the Revival, with fewer (hah!) people and don't run the risk of spending half the day sitting in traffic getting to the circuit or spread to the four corners of southern England!
- it's a fantastic event but...
- as it's expensive, it makes some sense to gauge interest before going too far with the organising
Therefore if there is interest, as well as trying to pull details together, a crack team of UK members will help me work out the rest of the weekend. Won't you?
