The rally has been over for a week and today is the first time I've had a chance to sit down and type all this out. I am really behind on work and I literally went back to work Sunday afternoon. I haven't even unloaded my deuce or gotten my mule back, which is still in the trailer.
I want to take a minute to thank our sponsors for helping us put on this event-without them, we'd be in a real pickle. Let me explain.
I assume everyone noticed that the hardball convoy changed destinations at the last minute? What happened was on Thursday afternoon, Joni from D-town let me know that the park we went to last year had contacted her and informed her the parking passes would be $5 per vehicle (versus $3 last year) and there would be a $45 fee for the pavilion. Now, this late in the rally, we'd probably already sold half the HC tickets and in addition to that, everyone was expecting to pay $10. So this left us in a bad spot............. start raising the price on the remaining ticket buyers? Go out into the rally field and try and find everyone who'd already paid and ask for another $3 or $4?
After the rally mgmt. staff discussed it, we decided to pay for the difference out of the rally's general funds. This way, HC participants wouldn't get screwed by the park's late decision.
Luckily, Joni found the Greene County Recreation Center and put together a deal for us, so the issue went away, but the point is this: Thanks to our sponsors, we had flexibility. If Joni hadn't worked a miracle and found an alternate spot that late in the game, we would have been able to cover the difference.
The rally costs a lot of money to put on............ SCSG goes $2K in the hole every year and hopes to sell enough food to break even. There's an attorney, an accountant and those kinds of costs for the LLC that owns the rally and of course, an event of this size has to have insurance. Over the years, we've bought a lot of gear to put on the event: tons of MKT equipment, the mess hall tents, tables and chairs, the hand washing stations, a PA system, etc. And we've traded a lot out as well: that professional video editing we did last year? I did a bunch of maintenance and detailing work on our friend's car in return for his coming out and shooting, then editing the raw footage. u/RustyJunk helped as well.
And the rally has done this without charging attendees an entry or vendor fee. When Clintogf and I were vendors at the MVPA National Convention, we paid something like $450 in vendors fees! The only places the Ga Rally has ever taken money was in the form of t-shirt sales, food sales and this year' raffle tickets. All of those are optional............ you can bring your own food, you don't have to buy a shirt, etc. It's no secret that D-town's fees has risen over the years and we're proud that the rally has been able to continue it's traditions of fee-free fun.
And the point of all this?
We could not do it without the help of our sponsors. This year, we begun looking for companies in the MV parts business to partner with and two great companies, Eastern Surplus and Memphis Equipment stepped up and wanted to be a part of the rally.
Eastern was our primary sponsor and they have been great to deal with. They were enthusiastic and asked how they could help our event grow and be more fun. Their support helped the rally in 2016 and will continue to help us in the future, as we now have a little safety cushion of $$$ in the bank for any emergencies we run into for 2017.
Eastern was recently a big help to me in building an M931A2 into an M932A2-they were able to source some parts I needed that no one else could get. The great thing about a big vendor like Eastern is that they may not be the cheapest source out there, but when you need that unobtanium part, they can usually help.
I want to thank Eastern and all their staff for helping us out with the 16GMVR. It was a great experience and I hope that not only can we continue to partner with them, but that rally attendees and anyone who enjoyed looking at the pictures and videos of this event will give them an opportunity to earn a return on their investment in the Ga Rally.
www.easternsurplus.net
215.332.0500
Our secondary sponsor was Memphis Equipment and they have also been an enormous help, for all the reasons I listed above. Memphis also sold me some stuff for the M932A2 project that I was unable to source anywhere else and they have been great to work with. Big vendors like Memphis can source all the oddball stuff our beloved military machines requires, like 10" pipe for a hydraulic tank.
Without Memphis' support, we couldn't put the rally on at the level of quality we do or without having to charge attendees money-it's that simple. So when you can show up with a tractor trailer full of stuff to sell at the swap meet and the guy running the field says "You can have all the room you need, go for it!" and you don't get charged anything for that, you can email Memphis and tell them thanks for supporting the rally.
Like all of our vendors, I hope that all of you will give them a chance to see some return on investment for their help with the rally.
www.memphisequipment.com
901.774.0600
Also, thanks to the Sign Bros, here in lovely Athens, Ga, who hooked us up with our posters and banners at the very last minute!