Last weekend was new venue some sixteen miles away at Whitton Football Club’s training field. The show wasn’t that well advertised, but it was worth a go to support a new venture. The show was advertised as 10am, was that for cars to turn up or public to enter? It was for public to attend, I think. I knew where this field was, but not actually gone in there. I arrived just after 9am and couldn’t see the entrance which was marked up by a single A4 ‘sign’ pegged into the ground pointing to a narrow lane between a row of gardens on each side. I took this picture at the bottom in the ‘car park’ looking up to the top once I had parked up in the field. There was only one way in, and the same way out. If this was to be a busy show I can imagine this would be a real pain to exit or even queue to get in.
Forgive the quality of the pictures, this was my backup phone camera’s efforts and struggled a bit with the colours.
I was shown where to park passing through the gravel public car park which I reckon could hold around forty cars max. There was a big field which was fairly flat and would be great for a show. There was one side of the field with around a dozen club members, and on the other side near the entrance to the field about ten cars where I parked.
I parked next to newer Mustang just for the old vs new look, just as I was taking the photo a Ford Escort Mk 4 Cabriolet parked on the other side of me.
Wandering up the row and back down the other side of the field took all of about twenty minutes at the most.
Then the other side of the field.
I got back to my car got the chair out and waited for the public and the other cars to arrive. I waited, then waited even more, nothing. At the very most I counted twenty seven cars, a couple left at around eleven and couple came in. The entrance fee was £20 for a family ticket which was well steep. You couldn’t see the cars from where the payment was made until you walked around the corner of a hedge to see the field. If it was me; I would have wanted my money back! There was supposed to be a live band, it turned out that the live band was a couple of speakers playing 50’s & 60’s music.
The wide variety of stalls was a hot dog stall, a bloke selling hats, another selling metal plates, a race car simulator, a van selling Hot Wheels cars with a few cheap plastic Marvel figures, oh and an ice cream van.
It was a dire situation – first time I was bored at a show. The guy who owned the S197 Mustang next to me was the only person I spoke to about cars. There wasn’t many cars to chose from for my favourite.
Mart’s Car Of The Show:
The Ford Escort Mark IV Cabriolet, the irony is that this guy turned up only to fix the ice cream van that wasn’t working, technically this wasn’t part of the show. I’m just glad he was there to prop the numbers up.
A little after one I decided to go home, what a waste of time to sit in the field. Next time I may take my tablet with me to write up car show report to pass the time. But, I enjoyed the drive there and back, so it wasn’t all bad. However, this venue had potential to host a lot of cars. They needed to get their act together and get the event out there to get attendance up and more cars. The people that paid for their pitches to sell their goods would have made a loss, the guys selling the toys started to pack up at twelve and was ready to leave about the same time as me.
I wanted to leave before the big rush to leave the venue, while I was waiting in a massive long queue to get out (as it was that busy), I took a final picture before my twenty minute drive home.
On a serious note, it was a shame and I hope the organisers return next year where the event should be better supported if there was a bit more effort. The afternoon nap made up for the lost Sunday morning lie-in. The wife was pleased that I as home early though, waking from my forty winks she had found a load of ‘jobs’ for me in the garden. Of course I would, but only after I cleaned the car in the garage, which took much longer than I had expected so I was only able to do a few of the jobs 😉