How to Plan a Car Show

There are numerous ways to plan a car show, but creating a car show that is memorable and encourages a lot of people to attend can sometimes be tricky.  There are some tips and suggestions that can help you ensure that you are planning the best car show possible to encourage the most people to attend and check out the cars.

Start with the cars.  If you are looking at pulling cars from numerous car clubs, start sending out flyers announcing your show at least 2 months in advance.  Many car clubs organize activities and you want to ensure that they know about your show far enough in advance that they can tell members.  Additionally, you want to ensure that you are telling numerous car shows, most members will not bring their cars so telling 5-10 car clubs is not a bad idea if you have room for a huge turnout of cars.

Bathrooms, bathrooms and do not forget the bathrooms.  Many people do not plan properly and organize a great car show, but forget the bathrooms!  Most people are not comfortable walking far away from their car so you need plenty of bathrooms spread out across the entire show to ensure that there are not huge lines and that those bringing their beloved car are not forced to walk 10 miles to the nearest bathroom.  You may have to have bathrooms brought in if the location is not designed well for bathrooms initially.

Food and drinks are also essential components.  You can choose to do this several ways.  You can rent out space to local restaurants and charge them a space rental fee and allow them to supply food and beverages to visitors and guests or you could provide the food and beverages yourself.  However, be aware that if you attempt to provide the food and beverages yourself you are adding a huge list of things to do.  Your best option may be letting the professionals rent some space and provide the food.  Most restaurants that would be interested already have the equipment they would need to use at the car show as well, which once again makes your job much easier.

Bring some form of entertainment, even if you are just bringing a stereo system and tons of speakers try to ensure that there is an area for people to have some music, chairs, tables and so forth.  This in addition to maybe some games and face painting for the kids will allow everyone to have a great time.  Additionally, if you can afford it you might want to spring for a live band.  You can usually find a great band at a cheap price especially if they think they are going to get lots of exposure and you allow them to sell their own CD’s and shirts at the car show.

If you are organizing your car show during the heat, ensure that you have some shade.  You may need to pull out some tents or canopies for this, but it is essential to help avoid heat strokes and other medical problems.  Additionally, try to avoid having car shows in the dead of winter unless you are having the show in an inside area.  You do not want visitors to freeze anymore than you want a heatstroke.

Your final considerations should be with those who are bringing cars.  How are you going to ensure that they can easily get in and out of the show?  You need security for the cars as well so ensuring you have staff that are knowledgeable about where each car goes and can help ensure that they are safe is a very wise idea.  Realize if the people bringing the cars are upset, they are going to give your event a bad name and talk.  This can severely hurt your attendance in the future if you try to make the event an annual occurrence.  However, with some careful planning you can ensure that everyone is happy and the car show is a raving success.