TN Fall Bus Flop!

[Busted Knuckle]

Hey ya'll!
The weather sucked terribly, it turned cold on top of rain and was a miserable monsoon type of week!
Ross showed up last weekend on Sunday (as he had plans to scout for property from here), Belfert arrived Wednesday afternoon (he showed up early to get some preplanned work done), Steve & Ethel Hurst showed up Thursday evening (but pulled out early Friday morning as I was walking done to the shop, sorry I missed ya'll & wished ya coulda stayed longer!) the Berry's (Jim & I sorry but I forgot the Mrs's name) Rolled in during a heck of a storm Friday night in their pickup w/slide-in (but ended up rolling out early Saturday morning as we didn't have hardly any conversions for them to look over and learn from (they have a 9 n progress) Captain Ron rolled in Saturday Afternoon (no audiance to play for!).
Well it wasn't a total loss Saturday morning the sun came out and we had a bright warm sunny weekend. Also I was able to fix Brian's oil leak and Ross and I replaced the bearings on the driver side control arm of his steering (that was the only place he had any play! ) He left early Sunday morning as he had 800 miles to drive to get home. The rest of us just hung out and had a good time Sunday, we did get Captain Ron's bus in over the pit and he did a thorough greese job (it needed it as he'd never been under it since buying it last winter), and inspected it it seems to be in great shape structurally! Then they washed it, and steam cleaned the engine! 
I was sorta disappointed in the low turn out but hey I understand the bad weather and other circumstances like the big rally in GA that had 70 coaches show up and all ! So all in all I think even though it sorta flopped we still had fun, and Ross and I are thinking of giving it another shot in the spring! BK 

[NJT5047]

Ya got any good pix?   
What you describe is why I quit promoting outdoor music festivals.   The good outcomes are nice...and forgotten; the bad, rained-screwed events are nightmares.   The show has to go on...even with a handful of participants.
Too much headache.   
You also got caught between 4 proximal bussing events....hard to work with.   
Good luck on the next one! 
Best, JR     

[Dallas]

Bryce,

I hate to hear of the low turn out. It really sucks putting all the work into setting things up and then not having a good turnout. We had a good turnout for our Octoberfest, but compared to the number of people that wanted us to put it on, we had less than half show up. (22 Vs 46).

I think we may drop the fall rally if that would give you more attendees.

Another option is to set it up so that the, (late summer and early spring), rallies are consecutive. That way the freebooters could travel from rally to rally in a long trek and the promoters could have a better feeling of the attenance.

BTW, you forgot to mention the excursion on Saturday in the workin' bus.

We want to hear about that!!!!!

Let's get together and set up the rallies differently next year.

Dallas

[NJT5047]

BK, may I suggest that you shoot for Sept so that the potential for really cold weather isn't a added burden...although it still could get cold.   Some folk don't mind  40* weather, but that screws all over lounging around under the awning for many.   You may have power and water at your facility, but in cold weather, a lot of dry camping becomes problematic.  Much more complicated to say the least. 
The weather this time of year could be very nice, or as you had, sooo nasty.  Rain can be dealt with in warm weather, cold rain will keep even paid attendees away.   Once they see the weather forcast, they'll stay home.   
Like Dallas says, try to fit your schedule as far from other dates as well.  You aren't going to get many "freebooters," you'll have to depend on those that work most of the time and do these things when the urge hits. 
You may want to consider (you said you were) a date in the spring, before everyone gets all traveled out.   You'll have bus owners looking for things to do in the spring. 
IMHO you won't find interest from vendors until you reach some magic number of regular attendees.   New rallys (and small rallys) have a hard time with this.  These things grow, often after several years of less than optimal response.   If you have a nice all weather location, large enough to attract your target audience, it'll work out eventually.   You may wish to do some demographics and see what your potential attendees look like...how many within, say, 250 miles?
You would do well to start now and get some dates set for the spring (or fall).  Often if the date is known far enough in advance, your outcome will be improved.    We just paid for reservations for a music thing that comes about every year the 3rd week in October...easy to plan. 
If you have a good indoor place to gather, the outside temps may not be quite so important, but, for outdoor gatherings, warm is good...for most folk. 
Do another poll and see what comes from the temp/time question. 
Another thing that is holding all but the most major gatherings back is the cost of fuel.  Can't stand too many of these long distance weekends.  Reckon I'm 500 miles from you...cost me close to $500 dollars for fuel (1000 mile round-trip).  Makes for a fairly expensive weekend.
There should be enough coaches within a few hundred miles of your location to make for a good rally.  Just got to get some dates down so folk can get it in the planner.   
You have an interesting attention getter with the pit and experienced mechanics available.   There's a potential for that alone to attract  bus owners. 
Good luck with your next rally!   JR

[belfert]

Saturday and Sunday turned out to be beatiful sunny days, but the preceeding three days had been pretty bad with all the rain.

I can't tell you about the bus excursion Saturday evening as I didn't go.  I was really tired even though I got up at like 9 am, plus I can't stand smoke filled bars.  I sometimes get sick from the smoke.  I also figured they wouldn't be hiome until late and I had to leave early Sunday.

I didn't get home until 1:30 am this morning.  About three hours from home I was too tired to drive any more so I stopped and slept for a while.  The good news is I got over 8.2 MPG on the trip down to Bryce's place.

Many thanks to Bryce for fixing my oil leak and for replacing the bearings in my steering control arm.  I could have fixed the oil leak easily enough, but it is too darned cold here to attempt it.  No way I could have done the bearings myself since I don't have the right tools.  His rate was reasonable for the repairs.

Brian Elfert

[RJ]

Brian -

Did Bryce have any suggestions for your front door problem?

[belfert]

Did Bryce have any suggestions for your front door problem?

Ross did some work on it and got it working better.  It now raises up after it pulls in the door, but it still doesn't close at the rear.  It needs more tweaking.  It also needs new seals in the air motor that closes the door.  The tie rod that guides the door on the bottom is screwed up as someone did a bad welding job on it.  I wanted to remove the interior door panel so I see can where the tie rod connects, but the door panel can't be removed with the glass in the door.  The local glass shop wouldn't remove the glass as the gasket is very thick and they thought they would break the glass.

I wasn't planning on getting any repairs done on my door at the rally.  What I really wanted is suggestions on converting to a hinged door.  I don't really want to spend any more money on an air operated door.  Bryce has a local guy that might be able to do the job somewhat inexpensively, but it costs $500 to drive there and back.  I was just going to call Bryce about that when I saw this post.

Brian Elfert

[bobofthenorth]

Bryce - good on you for going to the effort of organizing your rally.  Too bad it didn't turn out better but it sounds like the ones that showed up have stories to tell - that has to be a good thing.  Its a lot of work putting things together - don't let the lack of quantity get you down.  Quality is what counts.   

[Christyhicks]

Sorry the weather didn't co-operate, BK.  We could have easily been in your shoes, as rain came in Sunday in the Carthage area.  It's really my fault you know, as the week or so before our rally, I was complaining to Larry that if it stays up in the 80's and 90's, it sure wasn't going to be fun sitting around a blazing campfire!   As it was, the cold front came in, and it came in hard.  If it hadn't been for the campfire in the evenings, well, we all would have been in our coaches by 8:00 p.m., ha ha. 

I think we're going to go in a different direction with our rally than many choose. . .we're not going to try to make it bigger and bigger, we're not going to try to get vendors or seminars, we're going to let it be a small, intimate, relaxing rally.  For example, when we stoked up the fire, early each evening, there would be this huge circle of people around it,. . .believe it or not, 20-25 people around a fire is a pretty big group.  Luckily, it was a large fire pit and pretty much we could work it out that no one was stuck "behind" another person.  As the evening progressed, and people started drifting back to their coaches, the ring of people shrunk and we moved closer and closer to the fire.  Since it got cooler as the evening progressed, it was sort of a symbiotic relationship, because we NEEDED  to get closer to the fire .

Shoot, the first rally we attended, a year earlier, only had like six busses or so, and we had such a blast that we were willing to organize it this year, just to keep it going!  The measure of a rally's success is definitely not the numbers of attendees, it's whether the attendees want to return!

Everyone agreed that they enjoyed a small rally where they could just sit and visit, so although we will still advertise the rally each year, we're thinking that we'll try to keep a relaxing weekend where everyone can just come and go as they please.  If you decide to rally again, you'll just have to listen to everyone's suggestions and then do it the way that works best for you.