It's pretty clear that this year's show didn't live up to those of the past few decades, the troubling thing is that the inevitable demise of this show, as will happen in time to probably all of them, has been greatly accelerated it appears. It will be interesting to get Don's take as a long distance participant. For all those internet warriors I've read across the www. who are celebrating that "greedy" promoters losses they should be careful what they celebrate...........if they're actual participants and not just letting their mockingbird mouths overload their hummingbird butts.

It does appear that an experienced promoter underestimated his clientele, and maybe his ability to "get it right", even though he's a member of the LA Roadster Club, and successfully promotes the GNRS repeatedly (as well as other events). A reality is that the LAR club is comprised of a bunch of old goats, much as the entire hobby is. They are dropping off as they age, just as the largest part of the overall hobby participants are. That doesn't mean sudden death for this hobby many of us still enjoy, but it does mean at best a slow decline and the necessity to accept changes that will be needed to adjust to fewer participants. Which is one of the troubling things about this event. For many months there has been a bunch of online, and likely in person stuff in SoCal, that leads to a self fulfilling prophecy...............if they choose to boycott the event, it will end up with poor attendance. Which is what looks like happened.

Now what? Some of those yapping dogs are crowing that they "showed those guys a lesson." Well, yes they did......but if they think that will automatically lead to a better event that emulates the past, they may be in for a surprise. Nobody HAS to do this event, it's a WANT to do it thing. It's pretty much a given that the club members are too old, and insufficient in their desire to run the show anymore. Thus they sold/rented the rights to it to a "pro". He ended up with what I would guess is a bad experience. People tend to avoid repeating bad experiences.........well, at least the brighter ones. So now the promoter has to evaluate if the market is sufficient to support this thing without a bunch of volunteer labor. Hiring labor means higher operating costs, and the bulk of the past participants still available to participate apparently have sent the message they aren't willing to pay a sufficient amount to make this thing fly. If that's true, there just may not be any more LARS in the future. Most of the crowing class aren't willing to do the hard work to put one of these on...........hell, I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of them won't support anything that passes the operating cost along to them. If this event was on your bucket list, and you haven't made it out there, you'll be the loser to the extent that your desire may never be able to be fulfilled. It's sad. So far it appears that the bulk of the blame is falling on the "greedy" promoter. He deserves some, it appears poor decisions, not "greed", caused some outcomes that undermined the value of this event. But the hobbyists who "boycotted", if that's what happened, hold some of the blame as well. They need to carry some water too to make an event like this succeed.