Oh Ya! I'd love to see a road course.
Anyone with wheels can play.

Ed heres a couple of ideas that i think of every year...

1. Since you have special classes and registration for SME and Young Guns, you should have a special section. I know you have areas in which you have them park, but nothing is marked. You highlight that you have these things in your handouts and online all year, but yet if i was a first timer or anyone whos never been in the young gun or SME classes, i wouldnt know where to look. Im not saying a tent like the survivors but at least a banner to mark the class and area. And throwing it on the map as a marked area in your handout.

2. I would look into reorganizing the classes as well as adding some new ones. I love how everything is very organized at the show and you can go to a certain area and find certain body style car, however its overwhelming the number of cars and different style cars in the classes. I would have the stock class remain the same for the most part but the modified should be split into "Clones" and truely modified cars. I mean how can you 100% stock trim hemi cuda vert classified the same as a prostreet style cuda? I would also add some specialty classes as well, Hemi class(use to be one for originals),Super 70's/Nostalgia class, pro touring, drag car, etc. I would also add to your preregistration form the form the pick your class. But you need to have a description of what kind of car is to put into that class. The way its setup now, its either stock or modified, and people use the terms different, much like a rusty car to someone from california is a solid car to someone in the rust belt. I would have the stock class be for stock restored cars as they came from the factory.

3. If you were to switch up the classes i would look into judging for certain classes such as stock. I love the people choice thing going on but the system has been beat by clubs. No club names mentioned but every year my family has at least one car at the show being shown and every year i watch members of the clearly marked club walk into the class just to find a fellow members car and vote for them. This would be fine except for the fact that some of these clubs as so big that their members win every time. If you were to pull the winners sheets from the years past, you will see a lot of the same names always getting first place.

4. Now if you keep the judging, which i would still recommend then i would reorganize that as well. I would break it down into "Muscle Cars" 1964-1974, earlier mopars, 75-90ish, and modern 90-today voting classes. This way you would have people who have that Genre car voting for you. Last year my vote sheet for the young guns was the young gun glasses and a bunch of newer stuff. I couldnt vote for any muscle cars, just newer cars.

5. As mentioned before in here the newer cars should be keep to the hillside and that side of the show field. Most people want the see the old cars, not the newer cars and trucks which typically are less appealing because they are not as scarce to see. I noticed this year that the new Challengers were parked in the main field right past the midway. Now i dont mean to be rude but really Most of them are stock and they are all generally the same except for color stripes and wheels. I think it should be replaced by muscle cars, and have the them with the newer cars.

6. You could try coordinating with vendors and local businesses to give away coupons and gift certificates. Give them away throughout the weekend to give everyone who attends a chance to win something. Call the winners over the speakers and post boards at all the exits and larger traffic areas.

7. Then everyone complains about the give away car which i understand is a tough thing to do when you can get a whole lot of mopar for the money. I would suggest selling additional give away tickets for a reasonable price. Take the proceeds from the entra ticket sales and throw that into the bank for extra money for next years car or depending on the extra income every X number of years. If you publicize that the revenues of your extra ticket sales go to a better giveaway people might help you give away better cars by buying extra tickets instead of just complaining.

I know that I'm going to be but here goes. I think you should allow golf carts there. The long time Mopar crowd is aging and it's hard to get around to see everything. I myself have a bad knee and a back that flares up all of the time. If you kept it to ONLY golf carts, not mini bikes and scooters, and put an age limit on drivers, like 21 and older, register them, I think you would make the event more enjoyable to a lot more people.

Whew, I missed a lot over the weekend! I did log on from time to time but never had enough time to sit and post any replies. Anyway, I'm glad to see some constructive criticism and ideas. I'll try to address the posts I can remember off the top of my head.

Mike (Dayclona) had a good suggestion about the giveaway by changing it to a shopping spree instead of a car. That's been considered before and usually when I mention it to people they say they'd rather win a car. Personally I like the idea and I'm glad to hear that someone else does. I'd love to hear what the rest of you think about this one.

Autocross. To those who suggested it, have you actually seen the course? I ask because it's not a true Autocross - it's more of a very narrow road course and there's stuff you could hit. It's not a big parking lot - it's just the paved aisles and a couple of paved bump outs. In fact, we advertise it as a six-turn, mini road course. We do use it at a couple of events and honestly, the little vintage imports have a difficult enough time navigating it. Every year we do some sort of fence repair. I'd love to see some Autocross and/or road racing as part of the event but I just don't think it could happen on site. Let me think about this one and I'll see if I can come up with a location where we could do something.

Sanitation issues with the food vendors concerns me deeply. I will pass this along to upper management today and make sure they address it.

I will also check on the other issues with the food vendors - closing too early and running out of food. I think they close when they do because they all experience a sharp decline at a certain time. I think the solution would be for a certain number of vendors to remain open in certain locations. It's possible that they already do this but if so people need to know who's still open. This is another one I'll present to upper management.

HemiChallenger (Steve) brought up several things - some of which I need clarification on but I'll try to address the others. Regarding identification of certain displays, I do try to make them as visible as possible but I agree it could (and should) be better. Certain displays do get put on the map in the directory, such as SME and the Survivors. The reason Young Guns hasn't made it on the map in the past is because they are Showfield classes and the actual Showfield layout doesn't get done until AFTER the directory has been sent to the printer. The reason it happens this way is because I know how big the SME and Survivor displays will be so they get placed before the class layout. Classes and class sizes vary every year and must be placed last. I don't know if there's anything I can do about getting displays such as the Young Guns on the map in the directory but I can look into better signage.

I placed the new Challengers in a prime location in '08 because they were new and hot. Folks were literally taking delivery just days before the show and I think we were all anxious to see them in person. In the end we only had 12-15 and they seemed to fit nicely with the original Challys. I knew we'd have more this year but I never expected we'd have about 100 of them. I'm still not really sure where to put them. The LX Charger and Magnum guys want the new Challys with them but I thought it was cool to see old and new side-by-side. Of course that was when I thought we'd have 20-30 of them

Those are the ones I remember and I think I've typed enough for now anyway.

Thanks guys and keep 'em coming

Ed

Here's a few ideas from other shows:
As mentioned, Moparfest gives away 2 cars, one for the participants and one for anyone that buys a raffle ticket throughout the year. I believe the proceeds all go to charity. Why not hook up with a charity doing a raffle for a Mopar, and have the live drawing at the event? They also have 50/50, engine burnout contest, and live music throughout the day.
Syracuse Nationals has drawings every hour using program numbers and numbered tickets given to participants in their goody bags. These tickets are dropped off each day by the participants and used throughout the day for the drawings. They also give out a "street rod" every year which all the parts and labor are donated by the vendors and sponsors. The daily Sunday tickets are drawn from to find 10 contestants eligible to win the car. They randomly get from 10 t0 1 and the winner must have a registered car on the show field. They have a lot of recycling cans for cans and bottles.

I think you have a great show and I'm not implying you copy others, but these are just some suggestions. Getting the registration done on Thursday was good, but by mail it would even be better.
Thanks,
Jim

P.S. If you can help me with Ucoatit, Please PM me.

I just remembered something I wanted to address from this years C@C show.

On Friday I arrived around 10:30 and found to my surprise my class was all but full except for one last spot that I took. a few minutes later another car arrives with no place to park in class, followed by several other later in the day.

My pop and I had a lot of concerns about what Saturday would be like if Friday was full. He is getting older and it is difficult for him to early rise to get to the fairgrounds earlier and earlier as each year he gets older.


So that being said here is my suggestion, Try to make the pre-registration mandatory by uping the ante to not register ahead of time.
make it a penalty to not pre reg by adding $30.00 to the fee.......or more.....to register at the gate.give everyone a reason to pre-reg. I know myself have not always done it because it wasnt something I really saved on by not doing.

getting everyone to pre-reg gets the class sizes set and there wont be as much classes full with no place to park.

I love going to Carlisle every year so heres a pic from this year late on Saturday.

maybe if 90 % of people didnt leave by 430 that wouldnt happen.

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My biggest Carlisle gripe is that the places with food or smoothies either run out or close early.
Seems like half the places are out of stuff or closed before it even gets to 5pm.
Guess I'll just have to eat twice as much earlier to make up for it

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I think it is one of the best shows around and have been going for over 10 years now.
One idea I had would be to partner with a few of the Drag Strips that they would run a Mopar Race-"Race for Carlisle"
Atco, Beaver springs, Raceway park, Maple Grove, Quater Aces and so on and take 2 street cars and 2 fast cars from each track to have a run off for a king of the Hill for Mopars @ Carlisle Race @ Quater Aces with some sort of prize and trophy which could be handed off the next year. Just thought it be cool.

I haven't read this whole thread, in fact just joined in now....
I think a great idea would be a MOPAR MODEL CONTEST for adults as well as kids...
wouldn't take up much room and wouldn't need too much money, in fact MOPAR COLLECTOR'S GUIDE would most likely get on board for the awards

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Most of them are stock and they are all generally the same except for color stripes and wheels.

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holy cow you just described the e-body section perfectly. guess some things just never change . lol

Carlisle is always a great show, there is so much to see it's hard to pack it all in with the 2 days I have available.

With all the walking, my knees/legs get terribly sore at times. It would be nice to have a few more park benches scattered about the swap meet and show areas to give my wore out knees a rest every now and then. Otherwise, everything else is great!

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i agree more benches spread out on fairgrounds

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there's porta johns everywhere. Come on guys, get creative

a real nice improvement was adding picnic tables and chairs at a few of the food vendors down in the swap away from the food court.

Nice to sit and eat instead of leaning on trailers and getting the owners .

Ed, better bolt them down or bench races will break out all over the place.