Retro Rides Gathering 2014 : What You Need To Know

[blcso]

Just like to say thanks from myself and the MK2 Golf Owners Club for a fantastic day.

First time that I or our little club has been and in all honesty it has been the show of the year for me.

Hopefully you will allow us back again next year.

Thanks again and well done to all that arranged it.

ps: One of our guys nabbed the Club Stand sign also to good to be left for the bin.

[Bolf]

Awesome event , few pics here , didn't wanna start another thread for fear of a clog up

www.flickr.com/photos/bolfotography/sets/72157646704090767/

[oddified]

Great show overall, and where else can you see such a wide range of cars and ideas!.

Yes the organisation of the hill needs looking at (i was also one who only got 2 runs in the morning, but yet some who ran in the morning and got 3 runs also ran in the afternoon...hmm not really playing cricket that!). No where near enough catering for a show of that size. Of course it's easy to pick holes afterwards and nearly impossible to correct on the day. I'll probably be back next year any way.

[PhoenixCapri]

Sept 1, 2014 19:54:48 GMT Bolf said:

Awesome event , few pics here , didn't wanna start another thread for fear of a clog up

www.flickr.com/photos/bolfotography/sets/72157646704090767/

Thanks for this shot mate, it's fantastic!

RRG 2014 (23 of 94).JPG by Bolfotography, on Flickr

Any chance of getting copies of the ones of the capri please? As you've taken some really god ones!

[Bolf]

Sure , fire me an email , i'll send you the high res.

[e-mail]

Only cos I like ya car and its wobbly doors mind

[bstardchild]

Sept 1, 2014 19:44:08 GMT blcso said:

ps: One of our guys nabbed the Club Stand sign also to good to be left for the bin.

D

I agree the signs looked great - having dragged a bunch of them every year from Norfolk to wherever we hold this wonderful show I suffer an increasing issue with boot space due to the increasing number of clubs every year.

They don't go in the bin they get kept and reused next year - unless they get half inched

[thooms]

This was the first RRG I've been to - I was genuinely blown away by the quantity vehicular awesomeness. Still haven't quite recovered from the level of awesome.

Camped on the saturday night which was fun. Atmosphere was epic. Enjoyed seeing the Honda Vision hillclimb attempts

Nice that there was plenty of seating areas along the track, was cool watching the huge variety of things going up the hill. The venue was great I thought - would've been good if there was other veggie-based food than chips - but the chips were pretty nice so all wasn't lost.

All in all, can't wait for the next one - definitely camping again next time, too. Only problem with the show is that it plants thoughts of buying stuff in your head.

Thanks to all who made it what it was! Can't wait for the next one

[rodit]

No complaints, but can we please return to family camping as well next year, this is a family holiday for us and our kids will grow up like I did round Motorsport. I get people party, I used to but seemed everyone was in closer proximity camping this year and limits seemed to be pushed Friday night. We had bin bags and excuses about that is a bit Liam, surely we are big enough to go ask for a few. Security is hard to gauge. You fancy asking a load of drunks you don't know to do something. Anyway show was awesome yet again and we will be there next year.

[nomad]

I think most has been said already but just to add my 2d worth (Rero here - so not onto 2p worth yet )
Top marks to the RR team and Prescott staff !

Me like (a lot!)  
The vibe on the campsite on Friday & Saturday. It's the only gig I've been to this year and it was a good choice! Fantastic folk, great cars, and a very welcoming atmosphere from everybody I met / stumbled into (literally ). For me that was the hilight of the weekend
The "Advice from a local" thread /bluffers-guide that gave lots of good info for us who have never been to that track, many thanks to Mr Brain Damaged for this!
The tat auction Please can we make this a regular item? Please? (fun watching KFW try to fall of a stack of wellers last year, even better attempt this year to fall of the back of the Dez pickup / auction podium )

Things that would have suited me better if they were different
The attitude from Security on Friday nite (but credit where it's due - things were much better on Saturday)
More food stalls on the Sunday - I know I wasn't the only one who looked at the queues for food and decided not to bother.
Would it be a problem to include camping on the Sunday night? ( I tagged the Gathering onto the end of a few days touring around, it would have been great to have a lazy day on Sunday at the Gathering and head home on Monday - instead of cutting short Sunday so I could start a 300 mile trip at 50mph )
Please let UK.Gov know the date of the next gathering and ask them to uplift the 40mph/50mph speedlimits on-route from "Up North" to the venue for the weekend

Thinking out loud stuff
I know the carshow and tracktime are the headline of the show but for me I'd be just as happy with 3 days camping / meeting folk off the forum.
Some great guest cars that put on a good show but are wide mega-motors really suited to a narrow twisty track?
I'm not a sun-bunny so by the time I'd walked up to the first corner on the Sunday I was cooked and ready for a rest. It looks a great circuit but a hop-on/hop-off shuttle up the track during the intermissions would have made it accessible to lots more folk.
Regulars v "Guests" (& how to make sure everyone knows what's expected?) Eg. Tidy up when you leave, don't have a noisy genny running 24x7 in the middle of the campsite to power a fridge in the boot, make sure "gathering firewood" is done without upsetting anyone, bring plenty of food and beer as there's no supplies nearby - all the "everyone knows that" stuff that we assume everyone knows 
It was a new venue so nobody knew how the campsite would layout (fair enough) but security advising everyone to park near the entrance away from the tents rather than risk getting stuck in the mud? Really? What mud
The skip for rubbish was good, maybe add another at the other end of the field to share the load and avoid overspill?
The "mobile" loos were decent on Friday, a cleanup and restock every day would have been a good idea. Portaloos were handy. The showers were basic but much appreciated!

Did I say "Thank you!" already?

Many thanks, hopefully see you at the next one.

[HoTWire]

Hey folks thanks for the feed back both the thanks and the things we need to do better, also thank you for being understanding of us being at a new venue. I'm going to put a post event page on the website with some of the stuff we will change for next year (having discussed with the venue yesterday) and an apology for the food/drink situation (we did tell them it was going to be 3,500-ish people and I'm not sure they believed us). Traffic issues will be resolved too. Anyway that and a few other bits (PA etc.) are for me to write up properly, however here I'll talk a bit about the camp site.


The camp site of 500 people takes a disproportionate amount of effort for us to run, certainly in previous years when the organising team have been the people that are manning the door. In February when I went to look at the venue I picked The Orchard as our camp site because it looked about the right size, I went home, checked on Google maps at how it compared to last year's field and it was about the right size, a touch smaller, but with a bit of management we could get it straight. I made a minor error here because I looked at the mowed area of the orchard to be the area usable for camping, however when you are in the field they have actually mowed all the the steep hill bit, so in reality the field was smaller than we initially thought. For those arriving early on Friday we had changed the plan of how we would run the field so we could fit tents closer together and ensure easy movement of cars in and out the venue (cars parked separate from tents), the org team was split on if this was a good idea but we thought overall it was worth a punt as it would keep life simple for us and hopefully make for a nice camp site. Turns out it was not a popular choice ( ! ), so we changed it on the Friday as people were arriving, which caused a couple of bits of tension, but I hope those were resolved happily for everyone that it affected?

As a result of the above our original plan for family camping collapsed, so we apologies for that.

The campsite management was left to the events firm we decided to use this year and bar a couple of run ins and some slight attitude adjustments that were sorted out (or certainly will be next year) they were great from our side of things. No one realllllly likes events or security folk managing their fun,.. but then #dontcamplikeadick and they will leave you in peace. On that point I haven't read the whole post event thread (yet) but I get that there was disgruntlement with other campers, the camp site is made up of 90% Retro Rides people and frankly I expect you lot to know how to behave in a respectful nature towards each other, whether that is night time noise, cleaning up after yourself, driving sensibly within the campsite and basically be a decent human being. Camping is limited to 500 people, now and likely for the next few years, if needs be I'll make a damn list of people that are able to camp like reasonable people and they will get invites and no one else. So please, for yours and our sake, be excellent to each other.

On the POSITIVE side, I need to check through the complaints about mess, but we did litter picking yesterday and other than stepping in someones sick it was a very quick job in the camping field, so if someone had been around and done that before us please drop me a PM and I'll get something nice in the post. We'll have a larger skip in the field next year (we were supposed to have it this year, they put two skips in the wrong place) and one at the far end too. The water trough that made the ground VERY soggy is actually broken and not draining properly so that will be fixed next year. We've got a LOAD of little improvements we want to make to make the camping nicer, easier to enjoy, easier to manage and overall just better... that is true for every aspect of the show in fact, from clubs, to hill, to paddock, to traders, to roads, to exits.. everything will be much, much better (if we are back next year, we need to make sure the MAC want us there (we find out on 15th Sept)).


I may quote and reply to some specific points when I go through the thread fully later, but for now thank you to everyone that came to our show, everyone that went up the hill and to everyone that has been understanding of how big an event this is to move to a new venue!

[HoTWire]

Sept 1, 2014 10:50:39 GMT speedy88 said:

My only constructive criticism this year is: Campsite security numpties. At RRG13 the security was perfect, nice relaxed attitude but putting their foot down on dangerous activities or people acting like berks.

There were a particular pair of security this year that went from shouting/swearing at people for being up late drinking to encouraging people to rag their cars up the grassy bank (to get their cars to a pitch) whilst filming it on their phones. Not to mention giving everyone threatening stares whilst prowling around the campsite and generally acting like a couple of goons. The general consensus around the campsite was that everyone found them uncomfortable to deal with. So less of them again, please.

We'll feedback to the events team about that... they had eight people there and it seems two of them were an issue, so we'll speak to them when we do a debrief and make sure we have people next year with the correct attitude.

The RRG13 security may have been perfect for you guys because they basically did nothing that we asked of them (except one guy who was awesome) ! ... then after the event threatened to come to my house if we didn't pay them immediately (we were not happy to pay them the full amount as they didn't do what we asked of them). So we'll not be using those people again thanks.

[whitey]

Thanks for the reply back. was a good show. Well done for the hard work put in : ) here's to next year

[rob0r]

Good post HW, roll on next year

[stevepeanut]

I'm not sure if at the show, someone threw the end of a lit cigarette into the soft top on my mx5

NOT HAPPY

*****edit****** just had a proper look at the soft top and where the cig ended up, it's burnt and stuck to the rubber seal, the way it was, it could have only got like that with the roof up, and my roof was down all the way through the show and halfway home, so it's happened sometime after the show. Very glad to figure out this did not happen at the gathering.

[surprisingskoda]

Sept 2, 2014 8:08:32 GMT HoTWire said:

We'll feedback to the events team about that... they had eight people there and it seems two of them were an issue, so we'll speak to them when we do a debrief and make sure we have people next year with the correct attitude.

I found them all to be very helpful and friendly. They told me where to go, were to be careful of (mud), where the nearest town was, etc.
People that arrived late Saturday didn't get bin bags (entry packs). Although TBH thinking about that, we shouldn't need to be given them.
Whoever was getting the white Golf, and then the red Polo, intentionally stuck in the mud should be ashamed of themselves.
There were no signs in any of the local towns or along the roads for the hillclimb venue or for RRG. It's ridiculously obscure to find and with zero phone signal I couldn't use the satnav on there - I know I wasn't the only person lost in the countryside and although I got directions off a friendly local, there were other locals that were ignorant to some people trying to find their way in.
I really, really think there should have been on-site food on Friday. Whether from the club-house or a burger van. The local towns are half an hour away (well, they are in my car anyway) and with entry closed at 10pm... the cafe on-site was delicious when it was open.
The combination of tight entry and slippery slope didn't look like fun for any big/low/wide/american cars getting into or out of the campsite. Can't comment on whether anyone else found that but I do have concerns for next year if I bring the Caddy + trailer as planned...
Could it happen earlier in summer? The hour less light in the evening was definitely noticeable when trying to pick around the (tighter together) tents. Oh and people not camping on the pathway to the toilets would be good for all concerned.
Show was great. Well done on organising that sunshine.

[Brian Damaged]

Sept 2, 2014 13:59:37 GMT surprisingskoda said:

Sept 2, 2014 8:08:32 GMT HoTWire said:

We'll feedback to the events team about that... they had eight people there and it seems two of them were an issue, so we'll speak to them when we do a debrief and make sure we have people next year with the correct attitude.

I found them all to be very helpful and friendly. They told me where to go, were to be careful of (mud), where the nearest town was, etc.
People that arrived late Saturday didn't get bin bags (entry packs). Although TBH thinking about that, we shouldn't need to be given them.
Whoever was getting the white Golf, and then the red Polo, intentionally stuck in the mud should be ashamed of themselves.
There were no signs in any of the local towns or along the roads for the hillclimb venue or for RRG. It's ridiculously obscure to find and with zero phone signal I couldn't use the satnav on there - I know I wasn't the only person lost in the countryside and although I got directions off a friendly local, there were other locals that were ignorant to some people trying to find their way in.
I really, really think there should have been on-site food on Friday. Whether from the club-house or a burger van. The local towns are half an hour away (well, they are in my car anyway) and with entry closed at 10pm... the cafe on-site was delicious when it was open.
The combination of tight entry and slippery slope didn't look like fun for any big/low/wide/american cars getting into or out of the campsite. Can't comment on whether anyone else found that but I do have concerns for next year if I bring the Caddy + trailer as planned...
Could it happen earlier in summer? The hour less light in the evening was definitely noticeable when trying to pick around the (tighter together) tents. Oh and people not camping on the pathway to the toilets would be good for all concerned.
Show was great. Well done on organising that sunshine.

I was planning on doing an extension to the 'bluffer's guide' that I posted a few days before the event with a 'how to get there' guide with maps and Google Earth pics to help.....but I forgot all about it. If we're invited back next year I'll knock one up, you weren't the first to not be able to locate it easily.

And I know one of the 'mudlarks' personally, as his car ended up on our stand. I had a word on the Sunday about it and have just had another one via Facebook.

[Brian Damaged]

Sept 2, 2014 8:01:10 GMT HoTWire said:

I may quote and reply to some specific points when I go through the thread fully later, but for now thank you to everyone that came to our show, everyone that went up the hill and to everyone that has been understanding of how big an event this is to move to a new venue!

I think that considering the geographical limitations of having an experienced part of the organising team on the other side of the planet up until a week before the show, AND having various RR Event Crew stalwarts away at VW Action (I wonder just how much the lovely Polly's stern looks were missed on the campsite LOL)...AND having what must have been a 60% increase on last year in the amount of cars to get onto the show field.....and ALL at a new venue......

....nothing short of a magnificent effort, David. Thankyou for making RRG awesome yet again.

[Nathan]

Sept 2, 2014 8:01:10 GMT HoTWire said:

Hey folks thanks for the feed back both the thanks and the things we need to do better, also thank you for being understanding of us being at a new venue. I'm going to put a post event page on the website with some of the stuff we will change for next year (having discussed with the venue yesterday) and an apology for the food/drink situation (we did tell them it was going to be 3,500-ish people and I'm not sure they believed us). Traffic issues will be resolved too. Anyway that and a few other bits (PA etc.) are for me to write up properly, however here I'll talk a bit about the camp site.


The camp site of 500 people takes a disproportionate amount of effort for us to run, certainly in previous years when the organising team have been the people that are manning the door. In February when I went to look at the venue I picked The Orchard as our camp site because it looked about the right size, I went home, checked on Google maps at how it compared to last year's field and it was about the right size, a touch smaller, but with a bit of management we could get it straight. I made a minor error here because I looked at the mowed area of the orchard to be the area usable for camping, however when you are in the field they have actually mowed all the the steep hill bit, so in reality the field was smaller than we initially thought. For those arriving early on Friday we had changed the plan of how we would run the field so we could fit tents closer together and ensure easy movement of cars in and out the venue (cars parked separate from tents), the org team was split on if this was a good idea but we thought overall it was worth a punt as it would keep life simple for us and hopefully make for a nice camp site. Turns out it was not a popular choice ( ! ), so we changed it on the Friday as people were arriving, which caused a couple of bits of tension, but I hope those were resolved happily for everyone that it affected?

As a result of the above our original plan for family camping collapsed, so we apologies for that.

The campsite management was left to the events firm we decided to use this year and bar a couple of run ins and some slight attitude adjustments that were sorted out (or certainly will be next year) they were great from our side of things. No one realllllly likes events or security folk managing their fun,.. but then #dontcamplikeadick and they will leave you in peace. On that point I haven't read the whole post event thread (yet) but I get that there was disgruntlement with other campers, the camp site is made up of 90% Retro Rides people and frankly I expect you lot to know how to behave in a respectful nature towards each other, whether that is night time noise, cleaning up after yourself, driving sensibly within the campsite and basically be a decent human being. Camping is limited to 500 people, now and likely for the next few years, if needs be I'll make a damn list of people that are able to camp like reasonable people and they will get invites and no one else. So please, for yours and our sake, be excellent to each other.

On the POSITIVE side, I need to check through the complaints about mess, but we did litter picking yesterday and other than stepping in someones sick it was a very quick job in the camping field, so if someone had been around and done that before us please drop me a PM and I'll get something nice in the post. We'll have a larger skip in the field next year (we were supposed to have it this year, they put two skips in the wrong place) and one at the far end too. The water trough that made the ground VERY soggy is actually broken and not draining properly so that will be fixed next year. We've got a LOAD of little improvements we want to make to make the camping nicer, easier to enjoy, easier to manage and overall just better... that is true for every aspect of the show in fact, from clubs, to hill, to paddock, to traders, to roads, to exits.. everything will be much, much better (if we are back next year, we need to make sure the MAC want us there (we find out on 15th Sept)).


I may quote and reply to some specific points when I go through the thread fully later, but for now thank you to everyone that came to our show, everyone that went up the hill and to everyone that has been understanding of how big an event this is to move to a new venue!

We found all aspects of the show including the camping perfect, the security staff were polite and informative when we asked questions (Mainly on where to pitch).
It seemed to be managed a lot better than last year, also the slight reduction in size stopped most of the silly people doing donuts on the site.

You and all of the people involved in this years show did an excellent job, it must have been a massive headache with the venue change.

Cheers.
Nathan.

[speedy88]

Sept 2, 2014 8:08:32 GMT HoTWire said:

Sept 1, 2014 10:50:39 GMT speedy88 said:

My only constructive criticism this year is: Campsite security numpties. At RRG13 the security was perfect, nice relaxed attitude but putting their foot down on dangerous activities or people acting like berks.

There were a particular pair of security this year that went from shouting/swearing at people for being up late drinking to encouraging people to rag their cars up the grassy bank (to get their cars to a pitch) whilst filming it on their phones. Not to mention giving everyone threatening stares whilst prowling around the campsite and generally acting like a couple of goons. The general consensus around the campsite was that everyone found them uncomfortable to deal with. So less of them again, please.

We'll feedback to the events team about that... they had eight people there and it seems two of them were an issue, so we'll speak to them when we do a debrief and make sure we have people next year with the correct attitude.

The RRG13 security may have been perfect for you guys because they basically did nothing that we asked of them (except one guy who was awesome) ! ... then after the event threatened to come to my house if we didn't pay them immediately (we were not happy to pay them the full amount as they didn't do what we asked of them). So we'll not be using those people again thanks.

Fair enough HW, thanks for taking the issues forward. Again, thank you for show of the year once again!

[claymore]

A great show again, the only problem I had was getting the car trailer into the camp site, but once the paddock gates were opened it was just a simple swing around and straight in.