Bill
> I'm thinking of taking a huge leap in the wonderful world of crazy things to do,
> and am wondering what the thought is about having a Beltring-type convention in
> Melbourne, Austrailia in about 2003?
I don't want to pee on your campfire mate, but I think you really need
to research this one to the "nth" degree first.
The only real MV meet that happens out here is the Corowa event once a
year, it is really more a casual "get together" than an "event": like
Beltring it occurs in the hottest time of year, only it gets a darn
sight hotter at Corowa than Beltring ever could imagine.
There was an attempt over the last 4 or so years to do an Aussie
eqivalent of Beltring at the same time and the same location as the
regular Corowa event, unfortunately it failed (a lot of effort went
into it), the reasons are many, but one is that the people who normally
go to Corowa didn't want their casual event altered after 20 odd years.
(I think that says that Aussies are creatures of habit?)
Like America, Australia is a huge country BUT with only 19 million
people. A very small percentage have any military interest and even
fewer have vehicles. Distances to bring stuff to an event are huge and
you have immediately disadvantaged at least 3/4 of the collector
community by nominating the south eastern most corner of the country
for the meet. I for one am not up to paying $2000 to transport an
AFV to Melbourne and back - now if the event was capable of covering
transport costs (like the airshows do) then very different story!
The advantage of Melbourne is the large population base to entice
a crowd to the event. My suggestion would be to attach this event to
something like the yearly Mangalore airshow (ex-military and civil)
which occurs about an hour drive from Melbourne, already draws a good
crowd and has most facilities (yep, that includes, the dreaded Beltring
"portaloos" too!). About 1/4 hour drive away is Puckapunyal Army Base
which has both an AFV and a Transport museum.
In Beltring the Poms have the advantage of sheer weight of numbers,
small distances, LOTS of dealers, lots of vehicles and a VERY large
amount of historical interest. They have the disadvantage of
horrendous fuel and transport costs and "iffy" weather, although it
seems to magically behave itself each year for Beltring - Australia
is a very different country.
I would really like to see us have such an event. But we have few
dealers to make up the stall area, who knows how many
AFV owners within practical distance of Melbourne who will fork out for
the transport cost on their vehicles. But you could expect a reasonable
number of Jeeps and trucks and that alone would probably give the event
enougth numbers to be worthwhile!
I suggest you talk to the committee of the VMVC (Victorian Military
Vehicles Club, they have a website somewhere) to see how many
members they have and vehicles that they would realistically expect
to attend an event such as you propose.
Your idea is good, but I don't know if it is practical as a stand
alone, thats why I have suggested marrying it to Mangalore or such.
The other possibility is the annual vehicle swap meet (all types, hot
rods through to vintage) that happens in February (I think) at Ballarat
Airport (also in Victoria and roughly 2 hours drive from Melbourne) no
airshow, but all the space advantages of being sited on an airport AND
it draws lots of people already................ hmmmmmm...............
Just my opinion for what it is worth.
Regards
Doug
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Armoured Vehicles Collector
_______
_/_(_o_)_\_ ____
_/|___|_|___|\_ /____\
/ [___] [___] \ Douglas Greville _/[o]___\_
/\_ [o] [o] _/\ Broken Hill __/=_|____|_=\__
|w||___________||w| N.S.W. /__\__________/__\
|w|\u u/|w| Australia |w| \ / |w|
|w| \_________/ |w| |w|$ \______/ $|w|
[w] [w] [w] [w]
M8 Ferret
dgrev@ruralnet.net.au
Web Armour site at:
(http://members.nbci.com/dgrev/index.html)
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Mon Mar 05 2001 - 07:58:35 PST