Today I went to a VW show.
It was a bit of surprise to see it advertised a few weeks ago as the venue was the agricultural showground at Stoneleigh. When I first owned my Beetle VW Action was held there and it was a fantastic show. The venue is an excellent choice for a car show with lots of space indoors and out plus tarmac roads around the site. I was looking forward to it.
The day dawned bright and sunny. Unfortunately my van is not quite back on the road yet and the Beetle is very much still broken, to my eternal shame I had to turn up in a non VeeDub.
My heart sank on arrival as I discover the signs said "Mini and VW show". Still I thought, perhaps there will be some useful cross-fertilisation between the two marques.
On arrival at the hall I paid my 8 quid to get in. This is on the steep side but the NAC is notoriously expensive to hire, hence the departure of VW Action years ago. The woman taking the money looked at me as though I was stupid as I proffered 13 pounds hoping for a fiver in change. She preferred to use coins. And rest her elbow on the bag of notes it appeared.
Two feet past the ticket booth a burly security man took the ticket off me. What the point of this exercise was wasn’t immediately clear since I couldn’t have got in without paying short of parachuting in from the ceiling. Once past him there was no proof of payment and therefore no point in challenging visitors who might have nipped in through a back door.
Then I walked into the main hall and started wandering around. There were lots of people and lots and lots of Mini stuff. Perhaps the VeeDub stuff was in the next hall I thought so went through.
Well, I was correct. The VeeDub stuff was in the next hall. Around half a dozen people selling models, a stand of plastic camping implements and not a lot else.
Outside, the autojumble was similar – mostly mini stuff with a couple of bits of VW.
The "Show & Shine" didn’t improve things either. Mixing it up with the cars for sale didn’t help of course. When I left there were still less than 20 vehicles present.
On the way out there were VW people ranting at the crowd going in. I’ve never seen this before but as well as being angry they wanted to stop fellow enthusiasts being ripped off.
If Mini’s are your thing then the show was OK – pricey but OK. For VW fans it was (in my opinion) a con.Of course then the reason for the immediate removal of the ticket became obvious. With no proof there is no chance of getting money back. There is probably no point reporting the organisers to the local Trading Standards Department unfortunately.
In my opinion, and the opinions of several other including at least one trader, Vintage & Classic International are thieves. They deliberately advertised a show that didn’t really exist. I can’t honestly believe that they are so incompetent that this was the best that could be put on. They simply didn’t try. If I were a really cynical person I might think that the Mini show was happening anyway and someone decided to stick a few adverts out and claim a VW show as well to make a bucket load more money.
Personally I hope some terrible misfortune happens to each and every member of staff. And their families. And their friends. I only travelled 7 miles to get to the show. I can only imagine what people who had been on the road for an hour or more feel.
I still think Stoneleigh is an excellent venue for a car show and so I suspect did the hundreds of people who turned up. Shame this bunch of crooks had to ruin the reputation.
In the future I will be sticking to shows organised by enthusiasts such as Stanford Hall and Vanfest. At least they care about more than just the money.
It was a bit of surprise to see it advertised a few weeks ago as the venue was the agricultural showground at Stoneleigh. When I first owned my Beetle VW Action was held there and it was a fantastic show. The venue is an excellent choice for a car show with lots of space indoors and out plus tarmac roads around the site. I was looking forward to it.
The day dawned bright and sunny. Unfortunately my van is not quite back on the road yet and the Beetle is very much still broken, to my eternal shame I had to turn up in a non VeeDub.
My heart sank on arrival as I discover the signs said "Mini and VW show". Still I thought, perhaps there will be some useful cross-fertilisation between the two marques.
On arrival at the hall I paid my 8 quid to get in. This is on the steep side but the NAC is notoriously expensive to hire, hence the departure of VW Action years ago. The woman taking the money looked at me as though I was stupid as I proffered 13 pounds hoping for a fiver in change. She preferred to use coins. And rest her elbow on the bag of notes it appeared.
Two feet past the ticket booth a burly security man took the ticket off me. What the point of this exercise was wasn’t immediately clear since I couldn’t have got in without paying short of parachuting in from the ceiling. Once past him there was no proof of payment and therefore no point in challenging visitors who might have nipped in through a back door.
Then I walked into the main hall and started wandering around. There were lots of people and lots and lots of Mini stuff. Perhaps the VeeDub stuff was in the next hall I thought so went through.
Well, I was correct. The VeeDub stuff was in the next hall. Around half a dozen people selling models, a stand of plastic camping implements and not a lot else.
Outside, the autojumble was similar – mostly mini stuff with a couple of bits of VW.
The "Show & Shine" didn’t improve things either. Mixing it up with the cars for sale didn’t help of course. When I left there were still less than 20 vehicles present.
On the way out there were VW people ranting at the crowd going in. I’ve never seen this before but as well as being angry they wanted to stop fellow enthusiasts being ripped off.
If Mini’s are your thing then the show was OK – pricey but OK. For VW fans it was (in my opinion) a con.Of course then the reason for the immediate removal of the ticket became obvious. With no proof there is no chance of getting money back. There is probably no point reporting the organisers to the local Trading Standards Department unfortunately.
In my opinion, and the opinions of several other including at least one trader, Vintage & Classic International are thieves. They deliberately advertised a show that didn’t really exist. I can’t honestly believe that they are so incompetent that this was the best that could be put on. They simply didn’t try. If I were a really cynical person I might think that the Mini show was happening anyway and someone decided to stick a few adverts out and claim a VW show as well to make a bucket load more money.
Personally I hope some terrible misfortune happens to each and every member of staff. And their families. And their friends. I only travelled 7 miles to get to the show. I can only imagine what people who had been on the road for an hour or more feel.
I still think Stoneleigh is an excellent venue for a car show and so I suspect did the hundreds of people who turned up. Shame this bunch of crooks had to ruin the reputation.
In the future I will be sticking to shows organised by enthusiasts such as Stanford Hall and Vanfest. At least they care about more than just the money.
Update 11/4/07: VCE replied to my angry e-mail with some interesting news.
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