Thoughts About Next Year's Show

[Gary Lewis]

Ok, let's kick off this discussion..  First, I think I want to move the date forward as Janey and I want to travel in mid to late September.  So, why do you think about holding it on Labor Day weekend?

Next, have you noticed that all of the winners were in the first few entries?  Does that say something about our attention span?  Does it imply that our entries are too long?  If so, do we need to limit the words?  Pictures?  Videos?

Another idea is to have a two-phased approach with all the entries people can come up with, and then a group of people pare them down to a subset that all of us vote on.

And what about having a face-to-face and a virtual show?  Maybe at the same time?  We could do the entries in advance, maybe a couple of weeks ahead, and then turn the voting on the week of the show and let it run for the week.

Let's see those ideas!

[Sac79]

Labor day? Have pity on those of us without AC... Whenever suits you Gary. You up for a convoy David?

[86 1/2 Brutus]

Gary.  If you do the show in person, exactly where is it?  just trying to figure out if we may plan a trip

[Gary Lewis]

Good point, Rob.  But there's another side to the coin.  Chris Tubutis/ctubutis comes every year and the late-September date has cause some concerns with fog on his return to Denver.

An advantage to the holiday is that people would have more time off.  But that could be a disadvantage as they may have family plans.

George - It is in Skiatook, OK.  Just north of Tulsa.

[salans7]

Can't speak for everybody else, but I went through every truck and story once I realized I could get to them all on desktop. Unfortunately, I noticed certain trucks were almost poster children for some of the categories, and most of those trucks were at the beginning of the list. I think randomizing the list of entries would help some. And probably some other non-traditional categories (yes, Gary did ask for suggestions at the beginning, so let's think about next year).

[Gary Lewis]

I did the order simply the way they came in, chronologically.  But we could mix them up later.

Boy, those entries were good!  It was fun reading them.

[Rembrant]

Gary Lewis wrote

Next, have you noticed that all of the winners were in the first few entries?  Does that say something about our attention span?  

Gary,

Personally, I think that is just a coincidence. Troy's truck came in second in overall votes-per-truck and he is exactly half way on the list. I thought he was going to win two classes there for a while. His truck is gorgeous after all.

If there was a simple way to do it Gary, it would be nice if you could select the class(es) you wanted to enter your truck in. The Ugliest Truck class comes to mind...at least if you entered it on purpose, you wouldn't be too surprised if people agreed with you. I had a wee bit of trouble with that one and actually left it a day or two until the very end.

There are some guys on here with some really REALLY nice trucks. I see hideously ugly ones on Facebook all the time, but I must say, there are a lot of nice trucks in this Garagemahal crowd. There were some difficult choices.

Have you ever done a 50/50 draw Gary? I notice a lot of the local car shows do this, and donate it to a charity of some sort.

I think the vendor prizes/gifts that were donated are outstanding.

[Gary Lewis]

Yes, I thought Troy was going to win as well.  That truck is to die for!  And you are right that his wasn't at the top.  So maybe it is a coinkydink.

You are absolutely right that there are some really nice trucks on here.  

I think we could allow people to pick their categories.  But, save for Ugliest Truck, why wouldn't they want to enter all of them?  There's no disadvantage and your odds of winning are infinitely better if you do.  I guess we could limit the people to X number of categories?  But might that tend to keep people from entering at all?  If so, would that take away from the fun of reading about everyone's truck(s)?

What's a 50/50 draw?    

[Rembrant]

Gary Lewis wrote

What's a 50/50 draw?

Oh...just a mini lottery where 50% goes to the winner and 50% goes to the charity or society of choice. They are REALLY common here...I guess I never realized that they weren’t common elsewhere.

[salans7]

I spent my early years at the circle track and rodeos, where 50/50 raffles are commonplace. I like that idea for the show, and it would give people another chance to win something other than a trophy.

[Frank Wyatt]

I kind of like the voters picking the winning trucks for each category. Of coarse it would be nice to have some additional categories that the contestants could choose to enter if they wished as well, and an earlier date for entering would give more time to review the entries, as well as more time for the voting. Great ideas. I still think our first ever virtual show was a huge success when taken in account how last minute it was and the fact that it was virtually planed, executed, and moderated by one person. I personally would like to see more online shows in the future as there are surely other members on here like me who are unable to attend the show in person, although I really could use a few days away, I'm just not able to do so.  

[Machspeed]

I'd like to attend next year and Labor Day weekend should be fine for me.  

Regarding the virtual show, there were a lot of trucks entered and thus very time consuming to review each and every one, which is really what one needs to do to vote fairly. However, and for future virtual shows if needed and even live shows before the event, I wonder if it would be easier for voters if they could look at a single page with a single photo and name of all entries. From there, one could click on the image and read about the particular entry. For the live show, it would enable some preparation for voting.