Show report: VW Festival

Not so much of a report as a mini-rant.

I can fully appreciate running a show of this size takes a lot of balls. Not to mention commitment of time and resources, but there's a few factors that - when combined - can easily make or break a show.

You never see posters for Vanfest around Malvern or Worcester?

We camped there last year on a trade plot, this year however we decided not to. Aggressive marketing of the show with posters around Leeds city centre and adverts on local radio promoting the event more as a 'festival' than a show (I know, the clue is in the name), we decided that just a Sunday visit was in order.

Sunday would also be a great opportunity to stick the Lupo in cars-for-sale. So, early start, sandwiches packed and away we go. Into traffic queues far greater than previous years - Harewood House is a total bottle neck - something seriously needs to be done about access. After sitting in traffic for over an hour we were through the gate. Stopping briefly at one of the orange hi-viz wearing event staff to ask if we could put the car in the cars for sale area. "Full" was the short reply, "follow everyone else".

Okay, I thought to myself, maybe we had to be here when the gates opened. We parked up in general parking and wandered into the show - straight to the cars for sale area - loads of space!!!

So, over to another hi-viz, this time making sure we found an 'organiser' and not event 'management'. "Is there any chance of getting our car into cars for sale?" we politely asked.
Some muffled walkie-talkie'ing followed. They clearly didn't want the hassle and came up with various reasons why it would be difficult (Still not midday yet - and isn't this a one day show?) so I merely said "fair enough, we didn't have this problem last weekend at Tatton Park" and walked off.

As wonderful a location as Harewood is, I can't help thinking the show shouldn't be there. The event staff seemed overly precious about glass bottles - to the point of coralling my friend back to his trade plot when he went for a walk with a bottle in his hand - now I know there are implications with livestock using the show area etc. but he's a responsible adult - give the man some credit.

Traffic management - as already mentioned, this seems almost non-existent. Trying to get thousands of cars through an archway entrance and a couple of gates is never going to work. This is totally down to Harewood's location and thus needs stronger management - look at the Three Counties Showground and Vanfest - trade gate, camping gate, day visitor gate, exit-only gate and so on.

There's two things that any show can never have enough of - toilets and dustbins - these seemed to be lacking. Whilst queueing to get out (another hour or so) we noticed large amounts of campsite rubbish blowing across empty fields - a carrier bag is just as dangerous to livestock as broken glass. And those tardis-like portaloos, there's never enough of them. Selling out all your tickets then creating more overflow camping means you're going to need much more in the way of facilities.

The show itself is fantastic; a high number of quality show cars, some great trade stands, a good 'vibe' about the place and nice weather all go some way to redeem the negative points. VW Festival is a well organised event. Just not a well managed one. With rumours of it becoming a two-day show next year (and probably a hike in the ticket cost) I'm not sure I'll be attending...