As the 2016 rally season starts to wind down it’s already time to start planning next years events.
Last weekend at Bridlington, representatives of the larger clubs (and rally organising individuals) sat down for the annual BSRA meeting to discuss proposed dates and venues.
The final list of destinations can be found below but what do you think of the rally destinations for 2017? Exciting? Predictable? Stale? As you expected? Rallies are what you make them and it doesn’t matter where you are?
You can have your say in the comments at the bottom of the post but let’s have a quick look at the dates and towns before we delve a little deeper into the rally scene…
National Scooter Rally destinations 2017
Easter April 14th-17th: Run by VFM, Scarborough and Whitby rotate every Easter so 2017 sees us back at the pretty little harbour town of Scarborough with its magnificent Victorian Spa hosting the entertainment.
May Day April 28th- May 1st: Run by South West Scooter Clubs Weston and Exmouth also rotate but the date for Weston has moved to the May Day Bank Holiday for 2017. It’s a welcome change but it means B&B accommodation will be snapped up quickly due to the earlier date and potential for colder weather.
Spring Bank May 26th-28th: Kelso is run by the Scottish Number ones and is the only Scottish National. It’s just over the Scottish border so if you’ve never been before give it a go, it’s closer than you think and is a lovely town.
June 9th-11th: Big 7 is run by Big 7 Scooter Club and their rally at the Hop Farm in Kent takes us nicely into summer. This already successful club rally gained National status for 2016 and retains it for next year. It’s still new enough to be exciting.
July 7th-9th: Cleethorpes is run by Mansfield Monsters/Olympics Scooter Clubs. This event celebrates its 20th year in 2017, it’s a great town for a rally with an abundance of pubs and a great campsite.
July 21st-23rd: Llandudno is back for 2017, run by VFM it’s good to see this rally back on the calendar, it’s a great little town with everything a horde of thirsty scooterists need.
August Bank holiday 25th-28th August: The Isle of Wight is run by VFM and is the largest scooter rally in the world. It’s still very popular and has plenty of variety on offer around the island so you can make the weekend a bit different if you fancy a change.
September 22nd-25th: Woolacombe is run by South West Scooter Clubs. It’s an event with the busiest Sunday night on any rally – even though it’s not a Bank Holiday weekend. That’s usually due to an inspired and varied choice of Sunday night live entertainment. The accommodation on site is usually sold out a year in advance though so you have to get in quick or stop elsewhere in town or camp.
October 27th-29th: Bridlington is run by VFM & LCGB. Let’s face it, this is the perfect venue to host an end of season event with a huge Trade & Custom show as the main attraction. Although this event also suffers from over population so getting a room in a B&B isn’t easy but there are a couple of campsites with static caravans for hire and if you turn up on the day and are prepared to walk around knocking on doors somebody might take you in.
What does a rally town or venue need?
Although we may get tired of the same rallies, year in, year out it’s not an easy task to put one on and it’s not the kind of thing you can just do in any old town. Organising a national rally that is capable of accommodating 3,000 or more people, with a venue that holds at least 1,000 of them, preferably with a decent campsite, enough B&B accommodation and a fine selection of welcoming bars is no mean feat. As a bare minimum a national rally town/location needs the following…
- Enough accommodation to hold 3,000 people
- A venue capable of holding over 1,000
- A selection of bars/restaurants
- Preferably a campsite
- Facilities for campsite
- Catering for site
- Badged security staff for the numbers expected (1 per 100)
- Additional stewards
- First aid provisions
- Insurance
Impact of a rally
If you’ve been doing the rallies for a while you’ll no doubt be on first name terms with your regular B&B owners and probably be on their Christmas card list. If you’re a rally organiser you’ll have everybody from the local mayor to the fire service and tourist board on your case making sure that you’ll be going back again next year.
A recent conservative estimate into the revenue we take into Cleethorpes each year puts the scooterist pound at £900,000. That’s a lot of cash going into a local economy during a weekend. Just think how much you spend in a town during a rally weekend, include accommodation, fuel, food, beer and times it by 3,000. It soon adds up.
Back in those hedonistic 1980s we were the scourge of seaside towns, turned away like lepers, tarred with the brush of badness by anybody in a position of authority. Councils fought against us, injunctions were served on organisers and we were barred from shops, pubs and restaurants. The heavy-handed police stopped and searched us going in to towns. Tools were confiscated, documents checked, producers issued. At Whitley Bay the police even noted any distinguishing marks and described tattoos (a lot of paperwork in itself judging by the amount of ink on the average scooterist).
Golden goose
Local pubs and promoters are quick to cash in on this weekend invasion, sometimes their involvement can be a welcome addition to a rally but at other times it can have a detrimental effect. I’m one of the organisers for Cleethorpes and most of the local bars have tribute bands and scooter style DJ’s on during the rally. That’s great in some ways but it means people are tempted to stay in town rather than heading down to the official evening events.
A better way for a town to get involved is the way some bars in Weston work alongside the organisers, they’ll have live music during the day and evening but observe a 9pm curfew so people can enjoy themselves but still have a need to go to the do later. This in turn builds a better atmosphere in the do.
Outside promoters on the Isle of Wight organised a music festival during the rally for a couple of years and even tried to get coaches picking scooterists up from the official rally site at Smallbrook Stadium. Hardly helping to foster relations and unite each other. The point being here is that if the rally organisers’ events are not attended then they will lose money. If they lose money then there is every chance the rally may not happen again. Then the local pubs won’t have any scooterists to bleed dry of cash and will have effectively killed the golden goose. Geddit?
Going stale?
Most rally towns are set in stone, or at least seem to be and social media is alive with moans and groans from long-in-the-tooth scooterists. You can’t ride the same ride and visit the same towns for 30-odd years without getting slightly bored after a while. We all like new adventures, different scenery and finding the best pubs in a new town. Or discovering the atmosphere of a new venue for the very first time. Having to book a B&B a year in advance (if there’s no site) can kind of take the spontaneity out of a last-minute decision to attend a rally.
Finding a new or long forgotten town and sorting out all the headaches that go with organising a new rally there takes up a lot of time and effort. I know from personal experience with Cleethorpes and other rallies I’ve been involved with that it can take a few visits to a town each year to sort out any problems, visit venues and campsites and negotiate all the red tape that goes into the behind-the-scenes part of rally organisation. Add a completely new town into the equation and you’re starting from scratch, you need to develop a relationship with the venue owners and get the local council on your side. Try and get across to landlords that we like a drink or two so they won’t run out of beer over the weekend, or scrimp on bar staff. Sort risk assessments out, secure public liability insurance, consider traffic management, signage, locate a workable campsite, find plant hire firms, skip hire, shower and toilet block hire, fencing. Sort out local licensing applications, jump through hoops and juggle plenty of plates. There are lots of unseen jobs that go into rally organisation.
Mix it up a bit
Although the national rallies are predictable they can still be as enjoyable as they ever were, especially if you’re with the right bunch of people. It may not be easy to change which towns we visit but you can mix it up a bit.
Take a new route
You know the route to the Isle of Wight, Cleethorpes or Bridlington like the back of your hand. Your scooter has it’s own National Rally autoroute setting, just press the button and it rides itself there. Maybe try using the A-roads or a scenic route instead of a direct route there.
Live dangerously
When you get there, rather than sticking to the same tired old pub route try and find some back street out of the way establishments, ones you never knew existed and turn the town into a different experience.
Rather than blindly booking your usual bed & breakfast live dangerously and camp, or vice-versa. Try and find last minute accommodation when you get to a town. Do a rally on a 1980s budget, live off the land, cook your own food and drink warm White lightning out of the bottle.
Armchair moaner? Keyboard warrior?
Although it’s very easy for the armchair keyboard scooterist to sit and moan about where the rallies are, or how bored they are it’s much more strenuous and difficult to try and do something positive to try and change things. If you’re one of the many moaners who sit back year after year looking for a change of scenery why not do something about it?
Rally super-town
Look around for a new (or long forgotten) town, go there and check things out. Make sure it has everything a rally town needs. Is there a suitable amount of B&B/hotel/caravan accommodation? Is there a place for a campsite close to, or in town? Is there a large enough venue to hold a do for over 1,000 scooterists? Do they have any free weekends during the rally season? You need to speak to the council and make sure they don’t have any other large-scale events around the time you’re looking at. Then you need to start speaking to other rally organisers to see if your new super-town can fit into or replace an event on the calendar for the following year. You’ll also need to raise the cash needed to book venues/campsites/insurance/plant hire in advance and have (not too bad if you’re part of a large club) or be able to hire in the staff you need to run it.
Finally you need to get the new event proposed for the 2017 BSRA meeting. Or if you’re already running a club rally that could one day become a national (as Mersea and Big 7 have done in the past) move things up a gear.
Rainy days
Running, or being part of a large event on such a diverse national scene isn’t easy, there are no short cuts to creating a successful scooter rally. It’s a lot of hard work (and financial commitment) just to get a scooter rally up and running – especially with all the legal implications in the modern world.
Thankfully a core of road-going scooter riders are still in control of our scooter rallies, they’ve done the miles and still are doing the miles. They know as much as anybody what makes a scooterist tick. They know or try to guess what will and won’t work. They know, or at least have an educated guess whether a band is likely to go down well with a crowd, or if putting an extra room, or rooms of music on is a good idea. They’re also willing to make sacrificies to ensure your weekend away with mates is as good as it can be. They’ll take days off work before an event to sort things out.
During the rally weekend they’ll work until 3am at a do after setting up a campsite early that morning and then still be back on a gate shift or setting up a parts fair or custom show by 7am on the Saturday morning. All to try and keep our national rally scene alive.
It’s a thankless task but is it worthwhile? Seeing people enjoying themselves during the weekend is all the reward you need and if there’s a few quid in the club bank account afterwards to help subsidise our expensive weekends away then it makes it all the sweeter.
Nothing is guaranteed though, it only takes bit of bad weather, either just before or during an event and it can mess things up big style and it can happen at any time. Day trippers won’t come out in force if the weather is bad on the Saturday, many campers won’t come if the forecast is bad leading up to the weekend. At Cleethorpes this year day visitors were down by at least 1000 on the Saturday and we had 500 less campers than the previous year. All weather related.
Enjoy yourselves
If you’re a scooterist who likes to criticise what we have but aren’t prepared to put yourself out to try and change things, maybe just get out there and enjoy yourself wherever you go. Remember we’re lucky to have the scene we have and the friends we’ve made along the way are part of the enjoyment. Make the most of it whilst we still can.
Have your say
Right then, with that off my chest, the page is open for your comments and views. Try and give constructive feedback and solutions rather than useless whining. Get typing folks and post them below this article please (not on a Facebook page) so everyone’s views are all together.
Who knows, some of what people have to say may prove useful for rally organisers in the future.
Words and photos: Iggy
Additional edit: Andy Gillard
As the 2016 rally season starts to wind down it’s already time to start planning next years events.
Last weekend at Bridlington, representatives of the larger clubs (and rally organising individuals) sat down for the annual BSRA meeting to discuss proposed dates and venues.
The final list of destinations can be found below but what do you think of the rally destinations for 2017? Exciting? Predictable? Stale? As you expected? Rallies are what you make them and it doesn’t matter where you are?
You can have your say in the comments at the bottom of the post but let’s have a quick look at the dates and towns before we delve a little deeper into the rally scene…
National Scooter Rally destinations 2017
Easter April 14th-17th: Run by VFM, Scarborough and Whitby rotate every Easter so 2017 sees us back at the pretty little harbour town of Scarborough with its magnificent Victorian Spa hosting the entertainment.
May Day April 28th- May 1st: Run by South West Scooter Clubs Weston and Exmouth also rotate but the date for Weston has moved to the May Day Bank Holiday for 2017. It’s a welcome change but it means B&B accommodation will be snapped up quickly due to the earlier date and potential for colder weather.
Spring Bank May 26th-28th: Kelso is run by the Scottish Number ones and is the only Scottish National. It’s just over the Scottish border so if you’ve never been before give it a go, it’s closer than you think and is a lovely town.
June 9th-11th: Big 7 is run by Big 7 Scooter Club and their rally at the Hop Farm in Kent takes us nicely into summer. This already successful club rally gained National status for 2016 and retains it for next year. It’s still new enough to be exciting.
July 7th-9th: Cleethorpes is run by Mansfield Monsters/Olympics Scooter Clubs. This event celebrates its 20th year in 2017, it’s a great town for a rally with an abundance of pubs and a great campsite.
July 21st-23rd: Llandudno is back for 2017, run by VFM it’s good to see this rally back on the calendar, it’s a great little town with everything a horde of thirsty scooterists need.
August Bank holiday 25th-28th August: The Isle of Wight is run by VFM and is the largest scooter rally in the world. It’s still very popular and has plenty of variety on offer around the island so you can make the weekend a bit different if you fancy a change.
September 22nd-25th: Woolacombe is run by South West Scooter Clubs. It’s an event with the busiest Sunday night on any rally – even though it’s not a Bank Holiday weekend. That’s usually due to an inspired and varied choice of Sunday night live entertainment. The accommodation on site is usually sold out a year in advance though so you have to get in quick or stop elsewhere in town or camp.
October 27th-29th: Bridlington is run by VFM & LCGB. Let’s face it, this is the perfect venue to host an end of season event with a huge Trade & Custom show as the main attraction. Although this event also suffers from over population so getting a room in a B&B isn’t easy but there are a couple of campsites with static caravans for hire and if you turn up on the day and are prepared to walk around knocking on doors somebody might take you in.
What does a rally town or venue need?
Although we may get tired of the same rallies, year in, year out it’s not an easy task to put one on and it’s not the kind of thing you can just do in any old town. Organising a national rally that is capable of accommodating 3,000 or more people, with a venue that holds at least 1,000 of them, preferably with a decent campsite, enough B&B accommodation and a fine selection of welcoming bars is no mean feat. As a bare minimum a national rally town/location needs the following…
- Enough accommodation to hold 3,000 people
- A venue capable of holding over 1,000
- A selection of bars/restaurants
- Preferably a campsite
- Facilities for campsite
- Catering for site
- Badged security staff for the numbers expected (1 per 100)
- Additional stewards
- First aid provisions
- Insurance
Impact of a rally
If you’ve been doing the rallies for a while you’ll no doubt be on first name terms with your regular B&B owners and probably be on their Christmas card list. If you’re a rally organiser you’ll have everybody from the local mayor to the fire service and tourist board on your case making sure that you’ll be going back again next year.
A recent conservative estimate into the revenue we take into Cleethorpes each year puts the scooterist pound at £900,000. That’s a lot of cash going into a local economy during a weekend. Just think how much you spend in a town during a rally weekend, include accommodation, fuel, food, beer and times it by 3,000. It soon adds up.
Back in those hedonistic 1980s we were the scourge of seaside towns, turned away like lepers, tarred with the brush of badness by anybody in a position of authority. Councils fought against us, injunctions were served on organisers and we were barred from shops, pubs and restaurants. The heavy-handed police stopped and searched us going in to towns. Tools were confiscated, documents checked, producers issued. At Whitley Bay the police even noted any distinguishing marks and described tattoos (a lot of paperwork in itself judging by the amount of ink on the average scooterist).
Golden goose
Local pubs and promoters are quick to cash in on this weekend invasion, sometimes their involvement can be a welcome addition to a rally but at other times it can have a detrimental effect. I’m one of the organisers for Cleethorpes and most of the local bars have tribute bands and scooter style DJ’s on during the rally. That’s great in some ways but it means people are tempted to stay in town rather than heading down to the official evening events.
A better way for a town to get involved is the way some bars in Weston work alongside the organisers, they’ll have live music during the day and evening but observe a 9pm curfew so people can enjoy themselves but still have a need to go to the do later. This in turn builds a better atmosphere in the do.
Outside promoters on the Isle of Wight organised a music festival during the rally for a couple of years and even tried to get coaches picking scooterists up from the official rally site at Smallbrook Stadium. Hardly helping to foster relations and unite each other. The point being here is that if the rally organisers’ events are not attended then they will lose money. If they lose money then there is every chance the rally may not happen again. Then the local pubs won’t have any scooterists to bleed dry of cash and will have effectively killed the golden goose. Geddit?
Going stale?
Most rally towns are set in stone, or at least seem to be and social media is alive with moans and groans from long-in-the-tooth scooterists. You can’t ride the same ride and visit the same towns for 30-odd years without getting slightly bored after a while. We all like new adventures, different scenery and finding the best pubs in a new town. Or discovering the atmosphere of a new venue for the very first time. Having to book a B&B a year in advance (if there’s no site) can kind of take the spontaneity out of a last-minute decision to attend a rally.
Finding a new or long forgotten town and sorting out all the headaches that go with organising a new rally there takes up a lot of time and effort. I know from personal experience with Cleethorpes and other rallies I’ve been involved with that it can take a few visits to a town each year to sort out any problems, visit venues and campsites and negotiate all the red tape that goes into the behind-the-scenes part of rally organisation. Add a completely new town into the equation and you’re starting from scratch, you need to develop a relationship with the venue owners and get the local council on your side. Try and get across to landlords that we like a drink or two so they won’t run out of beer over the weekend, or scrimp on bar staff. Sort risk assessments out, secure public liability insurance, consider traffic management, signage, locate a workable campsite, find plant hire firms, skip hire, shower and toilet block hire, fencing. Sort out local licensing applications, jump through hoops and juggle plenty of plates. There are lots of unseen jobs that go into rally organisation.
Mix it up a bit
Although the national rallies are predictable they can still be as enjoyable as they ever were, especially if you’re with the right bunch of people. It may not be easy to change which towns we visit but you can mix it up a bit.
Take a new route
You know the route to the Isle of Wight, Cleethorpes or Bridlington like the back of your hand. Your scooter has it’s own National Rally autoroute setting, just press the button and it rides itself there. Maybe try using the A-roads or a scenic route instead of a direct route there.
Live dangerously
When you get there, rather than sticking to the same tired old pub route try and find some back street out of the way establishments, ones you never knew existed and turn the town into a different experience.
Rather than blindly booking your usual bed & breakfast live dangerously and camp, or vice-versa. Try and find last minute accommodation when you get to a town. Do a rally on a 1980s budget, live off the land, cook your own food and drink warm White lightning out of the bottle.
Armchair moaner? Keyboard warrior?
Although it’s very easy for the armchair keyboard scooterist to sit and moan about where the rallies are, or how bored they are it’s much more strenuous and difficult to try and do something positive to try and change things. If you’re one of the many moaners who sit back year after year looking for a change of scenery why not do something about it?
Rally super-town
Look around for a new (or long forgotten) town, go there and check things out. Make sure it has everything a rally town needs. Is there a suitable amount of B&B/hotel/caravan accommodation? Is there a place for a campsite close to, or in town? Is there a large enough venue to hold a do for over 1,000 scooterists? Do they have any free weekends during the rally season? You need to speak to the council and make sure they don’t have any other large-scale events around the time you’re looking at. Then you need to start speaking to other rally organisers to see if your new super-town can fit into or replace an event on the calendar for the following year. You’ll also need to raise the cash needed to book venues/campsites/insurance/plant hire in advance and have (not too bad if you’re part of a large club) or be able to hire in the staff you need to run it.
Finally you need to get the new event proposed for the 2017 BSRA meeting. Or if you’re already running a club rally that could one day become a national (as Mersea and Big 7 have done in the past) move things up a gear.
Rainy days
Running, or being part of a large event on such a diverse national scene isn’t easy, there are no short cuts to creating a successful scooter rally. It’s a lot of hard work (and financial commitment) just to get a scooter rally up and running – especially with all the legal implications in the modern world.
Thankfully a core of road-going scooter riders are still in control of our scooter rallies, they’ve done the miles and still are doing the miles. They know as much as anybody what makes a scooterist tick. They know or try to guess what will and won’t work. They know, or at least have an educated guess whether a band is likely to go down well with a crowd, or if putting an extra room, or rooms of music on is a good idea. They’re also willing to make sacrificies to ensure your weekend away with mates is as good as it can be. They’ll take days off work before an event to sort things out.
During the rally weekend they’ll work until 3am at a do after setting up a campsite early that morning and then still be back on a gate shift or setting up a parts fair or custom show by 7am on the Saturday morning. All to try and keep our national rally scene alive.
It’s a thankless task but is it worthwhile? Seeing people enjoying themselves during the weekend is all the reward you need and if there’s a few quid in the club bank account afterwards to help subsidise our expensive weekends away then it makes it all the sweeter.
Nothing is guaranteed though, it only takes bit of bad weather, either just before or during an event and it can mess things up big style and it can happen at any time. Day trippers won’t come out in force if the weather is bad on the Saturday, many campers won’t come if the forecast is bad leading up to the weekend. At Cleethorpes this year day visitors were down by at least 1000 on the Saturday and we had 500 less campers than the previous year. All weather related.
Enjoy yourselves
If you’re a scooterist who likes to criticise what we have but aren’t prepared to put yourself out to try and change things, maybe just get out there and enjoy yourself wherever you go. Remember we’re lucky to have the scene we have and the friends we’ve made along the way are part of the enjoyment. Make the most of it whilst we still can.
Have your say
Right then, with that off my chest, the page is open for your comments and views. Try and give constructive feedback and solutions rather than useless whining. Get typing folks and post them below this article please (not on a Facebook page) so everyone’s views are all together.
Who knows, some of what people have to say may prove useful for rally organisers in the future.
Words and photos: Iggy
Additional edit: Andy Gillard
This is a brilliant article and im sure it will spark up some form of debate.
Since I got home from Brid all I have thought about is the potential demise of the scooters scene. You mentioned pubs stopping music at a certain time pushing people towards the main do which is a fantastic idea and a must in my eyes because if the main do is empty the atmosphere can be pretty poor. However no one really wants to pay in to the do unless they know that’s something good is happening, i.e a great band or the brid custom show and parts fair is always a given. Do VFM charge us too much? I always do a different rally each season as well as the usual ones. ( Mersea, Whitby/ Scarborough, Kelso, rttw and brid ) it’s good to try new ones. I don’t think I or my club could organise our own rally though, purely because there is that many. Some weekends this year there has been three different rallies at the same time so would anyone turn up to ours or would it be the empty atmosphere feeling.
There is so much going on within the scootering scene at the moment with new parts , scooters and content coming out, new multi meets and ride outs going on. It’s brilliant and I don’t really want it to stop. I’d say most scooterist are 40+ so I’m worried as to when they all retire from the scene in 20 years or so and I’m 40 who will be left to attend the events or even put them on. Young guns sc I believe will help keep the scene alive and as will my club as we are a fairly young club too. The younger members of our club and myself hosted the YSA pre season ride out this year with a turnout of 700. We loved it and we’ll do it again and again. Will it still be worth doing in 20 years time if no one is about though?
That’s my main concern. I want to keep doing this for as long as I can but worried it will die out as it doesn’t appear to have a large amount youth in the scene. With scooters being so expensive these day I don’t think many young ones will be getting involved. Maybe I’m blind to it and it’s all going to be okay because there’s more people out there like me.
There’s not too much I would change just don’t want it to die. I feel like a keyboard warrior now so I’m going to stop.
It’s easy for people to moan and quite frankly a lot of those who moan haven’t attended a national or any other rally for years or perhaps compare them to the ’80’s when everything was so much better?. A rally, any rally is what you make out of it and for those who think they can do better, I am sure SWSC, VFM and others would welcome a bit of the heat being taken away so they can enjoy scootering a little more.
People seem to forget that those who organise the nationals do this alongside having a normal job so I certainly would understand if some one day will say ‘Sod that, why do I bother’ especially when outside promoters are being supported by scooterists, promoters who only want our hard earned cash.
I hope nationals will continue for many years to come and I for one look forward to continue to put on some miles, break down, have a drink and lots of fun with like minded friends. Roll on 2017!
Did anyone else read that in Cindy’s voice ? . Sorry Goldie this is where it should have gone
My ‘ONLY’ gripe with National rallies is that they do not really cater for Scooter riders. A broad sweeping statement you may say but let me elaborate. I drove up to Brid friday as I couldn’t get the whole day off work to ride the 270 miles, which I have done on many, many occasions.This is the second time in over 20 years I have driven to a rally, and I’ve done hundreds of the buggers. Felt crap about it as I enjoy riding but digs were booked & you can only work with the tools you’ve got. But…the sheer number locals or those within half a days riding at most, yet choose to drive to reach Brid & clog up the b&b’s is beyond belief!
The main do. £8 is nothing to anyone in this day & age to see a decent band & have a choice of three rooms with different tunes to cater for all, yet the venue was half empty. I didn’t mind when I went to the bar as there was no waiting, but it was pretty dead which is a shame. I think that the suggestion that all music should be turned off in pubs at 9 pm is a great idea. Go for it. Anyway I had a laugh with my mates & that’s all that really matters.
WOW what a read very informative and worthwhile reading . I know Cindy said it but we all know keyboard warriors slate the nationals are stale yet they then say thats why they stopped 20 years ago. HELLOO a lot has happened in 20 years the scene has grown the music has grown my belly has grown . But i still love what we do and the people we meet . I WILL POINT OUT the IOW is now better than ever putting it all back on site was genius i know the logistics behind it mean more work but it WORKS what a breath of fresh air in itself. The rallies are what we make them. DONT FOOKIN MOAN . Get out and make it better by standing by the scooterist idiots that have kept the scene alive even through the dark years when they could of walked away as well . It also amazes me how many people will not go north of the border kelso is a fantastic rally and well run but the sweaty socks have plenty of other fantastic rallies in beautiful places . Woolacombe still ranks as one of the best its a trek but well worth it. CMON people get on ya scooter ride to far away places get pissed have fun .
Did anyone else read that in Cindy’s voice ?
Great article, very informative and hopefully the moaners will take heed.
I agree that it’s the pubs that can ultimately end up ruining a rally, as many people end up staying in the pubs and not supporting the main venue. The main venue then loses atmosphere so less and less people bother to go there. That results in the organiser not taking the amount of money on the door that he or she needs to pay for the venue and staff, resulting in the gradual demise of the rally. It’s fine for rally goers to use the pubs in the day and early evening, but by not going to the main venue afterwards is like shooting themselves in the foot.
Town councils that appreciate the hire of their venues and the income a national rally can bring to their town, should take steps to enforce pubs to encourage their rally going customers to leave at a decent time in the evening, like perhaps not allowing live music or DJ’s after a certain time at night and also prompt closing of the pubs at 11pm. People will then head off to the main venue, resulting in busy venue and hopefully a great atmosphere.
We’re lucky at the Hop Farm because nearest decent size town (Tonbridge) is a good few miles away, so not may people move off of the site all weekend. Of course that presents a problem in itself trying to keep everyone busy and amused throughout the day (hence the free Dyno, huge parts fair and live music throughout the day) and then there’s the other worry that the venues will become too full in the evenings and having to turn people away from a room, which is what happened with our live music venue in 2015 (hence adding the 4th music room in 2016).
Whatever way you look at it, running a decent size rally isn’t an easy task, but I feel that some people don’t realise that and just expect it to be there for them year after year, without a thought for the organiser or the implications of not supporting the main venue in the evening. If that’s you, wise up and support the main venue!
I am not going to prevaricate and analyse each rally as I don’t feel myself qualified to enough to do so. I only go to potentially two or three rallies each year but thoroughly enjoy the scene and have met and made some wonderful friends. I appreciate the hard work and dedication that goes in to the organisation of each rally and realise that it is a full time job.
My main issue lies with the consistency of pricing, especially this year at the Brid rally. With only an hour left of the evening / morning I enquiried the cost of entry and was told £7 per person. I chose not to pay £7 at that time and that was my choice, however, the next day it became evident that some people were charged £7, others £5 and now someone mentioned on here £8, with the cost bearing no relevance to the time that they went in to the Spa. I am happy to pay as long as the pricing is consistent, fair and applies to all. Flyers for many rallies clearly state the cost per weekend for entry in to the custom shows and evening events, such as Mablethrope – advance tickets £18 for the full weekend, but the flyers for Brid stated that advance tickets could be purchased from the Spa etc, but no details of the actual cost, advance, or on the door.
I feel that clearer pricing, on flyers, websites, Facebook etc would help people to appreciate the events and know the cost of entry for advance tickets or exactly what they will be charged when they turn up on night.
With thanks.
I make a point of supporting national rallies above anything else and everyone I travel with or meet up with is having a great time, however….I don’t want to listen to cover bands almost every weekend (most of my club and others we party with attend 15+ weekend rallies a year) I don’t want to pay to queue at a bar, pay over the odds or drink crap beer and most of all, more than anything I don’t want to be coerced into having to do something. If I attended a themed event at a venue, or a festival in a field I’d accept that was par the course but a ‘national rally’ in a town, no way. All the talk is about organisers and how we should all stop moaning but come on, what would happen if all the organisers stopped? We wouldn’t all pack away our scooters or disappear we’d just turn up somewhere with our mates and make the best of it doing our own thing, social media would facilitate that and enterprising souls would soon be putting stuff on all over the place. So who is it really moaning, is it the average rally going scooterist or is it the promoters feeling pissed cos people are voting with their feet and not spending in the main do? I’d also like to know who these big clubs are that decide on rallies? We have about 25 full time riding members, we ride & party with many other similar size clubs and collectively I’ve never heard of anyone being involved in any decision making process, maybe this should be a little more transparent too..
In response to Mandy Farr
Admission on the door at brid Friday was £7. Saturday night was £8. If you bought advance tickets it was a little bit cheaper. Tickets are made available primarily so we can express people in a lot quicker, in case the weather is a bit shitty. This covered two bands and three rooms of music, 4 Saturday.15 djs in total. As a lot of people may know who attend vfm, we always drop our admission price around midnight straight after the bands, and then around 1am let people in for nothing. This has always been the case at brid for the last 18 years or so. There is no conspiracy or random pricing.
Thank you Steve for replying and providing the pricing details. I appreciate that it can be difficult to ensure consistency on the doors, however we actually went to the Spa at 12.30am on the Friday, after the bands had finished, which you have said would mean the price was reduced, and I was clearly told the price was £7 each, the full entry price for the evening. We had friends who went in earlier in the evening to see the bands and were only charged £5 each, these tickets were not bought in advance. The purpose of my post was to suggest that clear, consistent pricing, before each event, and during the evening, would help everyone to understand the charges and know what price they were expected to pay in to each vfm event, there was no mention of conspiracy.