[REPTYL]

In the past 20 years I’ve organised well over 50 events for the Victorian Cobra club, about half of those were performance related (Shelbyfest, Deca, Mangalore, Heathcote etc.).
I’m amazed at how complicated people can make these things. Sometimes simple is the best.
Take the 10 years Tony and I ran ShelbyFest as an example. We just built the event around what we had. Sponsorship covered the big ticket items, and the entrant’s fees covered the variable costs associated with the number of competitors. We had a loss one year when Roaring Forties went under and stiffed us $2K but made up for it the next year. When we had extra cash we got an entertainer and bigger trophies. When we didn’t have the extra cash we scaled back. It didn’t matter if we had 20 competitors or 70 we always covered the bills.
Here’s where things get messy. The event gets more popular, so the organisers think they need to build the event bigger and give more value as the years go on. No! If costs start getting out of hand; start knocking back on the simple things first. Smaller trophies and less of, no freebie T-shirts and if you need to drop a day, then so be it. I’m sure Shelbyfest could have made a profit at Winton this year with a few tweaks and the same numbers as last year; just drop the skid pan, scale back the trophies and didn’t give out free T-shirts to everyone.
I don’t think people have the respect they should have for the Cobra Nationals anymore (maybe myself included). If 45 Cobra are where we are at; dump Wakefield and organise a retro Nationals in a regional setting such as West Wyalong. Run a few events on the airstrip and a go to woe on a back street. Have a big main street cruise, show and shine and make sure the whole community is involved.
Then once we get the love back in to the Nationals and Cobra numbers up, we can scale it to the next level again (but only baby steps or we end up where we are once more).
Maybe it’s time to give you a break NSW. Let’s book out a few motels a function centre, inform the local council and media and rock the Nationals old school once more!
The Nationals was not always about going fast and winning trophies.
North Victoria, Mid NSW or East SA; I’d travel there in a heartbeat to re-live the Nationals spirit from the late nineties and I think a lot of the ladies would as well.