Afterthoughts on the Belfast Motor Show 2014 at Kings Hall

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Cooper

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This weekend saw the return of a motor show at the King's Hall (http://www.belfastmotorshow.co.uk/). There has been a seemingly strong reaction to the event, with mentions of complaints heading for the BBC Nolan Show, and through facebook and Twitter.

First mention of the event was posted in the original thread - http://reallymeansounds.com/forum/threads/belfast-motor-show-2014-kings-hall.163390/

RMS offered to be involved as I'm sure other car clubs in NI did, however this was not taken forward by the organisers.

So for those of you that went along, lets have the rundown on your thoughts. Although this is a topic many are passionate about, please note of course to keep your comments sensible and within the terms of the forum! :grinning:
 

ace275

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Worst. Show. Ever.

Nothing to see at all, cosmetic stands at a car show too? Hardly any cars, only highlight was 50Cal/PMG Autocare
 

TAZ6416

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Yes, you had to pay to take a photograph in it, £5 was the cheapest. Same for the Noble but that went to charity.

How empty the "show your car" bit was -

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And this shows how little of the hall was used I reckon they only used 25% of it, they had the rest curtained off but I took a sneaky picture. - http://anonimg.com/uploaded-1b0622a50dd7e630e77e8b03e11864b2.jpg.html

Jonathan
 
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Artoir

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Exhibition hall - Half a badly lit shed with eyebrow threading, solar panels, something about the EU tekkin' ar' bikes, some detailing stands and the PSNI Evo that everyone has now seen at every other show (and now badly, badly wrapped in fake carbon). Oh and the MX5 you see everywhere (nice car, but if you've been at a show in NI in the past year you'll have seen it before) and two Deloreans. The Noble was class but there's only so long you can look at one car. The two folks manning it looked terminally depressed, which I don't blame them for to be honest as I doubt they made a single sale. They could have at least passed the time by maybe chatting to the enthusiasts that might have been interested in the details.

In fairness I did hear that they approached Hurst's, etc and were snubbed.

Show and Shine - The only people I heard talking about this show all week were family members or work colleagues who heard about it on the radio. No one I spoke with bar a few off here and BCS knew it was even on. None of the car clubs knew about it as far as I can tell. Do they really think those interested in showing cars are going to be interested by an ad in the paper? The approach was entirely arse about face. The turnout could have been fitted in the other half of the exhibition shed with room to spare.

Action packed entertainment - No motorsport, couple of bouncy castles and a few oul dolls that should know better singing karaoke. The robot was good, I'll give them that. The strongman competition was cool, but not exactly sure how it fits in with a motor show.

Organisation - I spoke with a dozen people who had just walked in the front doors, money in hand and found no one there so just walked in for free. No timetable for events (strongman, celebrities (?), robot, demonstrations, etc.) so no one knew what, if anything, was happening.

Regardless, I still had a great day. Met loads of new faces and chatted beardy ***** to oul fellas about the Beemer. Had a good yarn and a giggle with the guy that owned the E Type too, proper gent from Fermanagh direction.

The nails across the showing area really pissed me off though and was an indication of how the event was run. You really got the impression it was organised by people with very little interest in cars at all.

IF they run again next year (IF!), they need;

  • More presence from manufacturers or even the likes of Hursts on board.
  • Much better communication with the car clubs to get a good showing.
  • Some sort of motorsport, whether it's autotesting or something else. If UCS can do it in a car park, they could have done it there.
And as for the "told you so" crowd. Yes, you were right. But it's an absolute crying shame. The foundations for an excellent event were there, just badly, badly executed.

A handful of the thousands of offending metal objects. Mister Dub himself has an even better one.

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Mark315

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Very poor show indeed!

Looking through an old hard drive there and came across these pics, poor quality but sure. This was the last good Motor Show i can remember at the Kings Hall. Motor Plus it was called and these are dated 3rd June 2005, back when dealers actually came.

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BigP

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Mark315 said:
Very poor show indeed!

Looking through an old hard drive there and came across these pics, poor quality but sure. This was the last good Motor Show i can remember at the Kings Hall. Motor Plus it was called and these are dated 3rd June 2005, back when dealers actually came.
Click to expand...

^^Now thats the sort of shows I remember^^

These people today are just some corporate wannabe money grabbing out of their depth egotistic p***ks

Literally just had an exhibitor leave their vehicles back here who said exactly the same...waste of 2 days for him

He commented that 30,000 people weighed in yesterday
 

Bryan

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Storm said:
remember how everyone slated the Stormont show a couple of years ago, saying how badly organised and thought out it had been?

Stormont was beezer compared to this, at least it had cars lol
Click to expand...

I enjoyed the Stormont show and it's a shame it didn't return.
 

Crow555

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My brother and his girlfriend stayed over with us on Friday to go to it. He left saturday morning and little more than an hour later, texted me to say it was crap and waste of a day.
 

Shannonsir

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I'd like to know who the event organisers were so I know never to waste my fuel or time travelling to one ever again. Anyone aware of who these non-motoring unenthusiastic money grabbing biffs are?.
 
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