Motor Sport Musings Ramblings of a racing enthusiast…

A damp squib: Autosport International

Maybe I’m missing something. I don’t think I am. But, Autosport International, the curtain-raising event on the motor racing calendar?

What nonsense.

Billed by the marketing types at Haymarket as the ideal way to beat those post-season racing blues, the annual event, which is now in its 20th year, is anything but. It is more akin to an ageing donkey that is carted out for all to see each January, and I, the naive fool that I am, continue to hold out hope that maybe, just maybe, the event will actually cater for the general public’s interest in all things motor racing and warrant its hefty ticket price.

Think what the average family of two adults and two children could spend £108 on. A weekend away in cottage in Devon, or perhaps a pulse raising day out at Alton Towers with change left over to spend on sweets and fizzy pop? Or how about four tickets and a car parking ticket to visit what is essentially a glorified motorsport market, with precious little in the way of racing cars to look at?

Welcome to Autosport International, the show that doesn’t really know what it wants to be, but would like you to believe it is for racing enthusiasts like you or I.

Three hours was all it took for me to walk around the whole thing twice this year, trying to find something genuinely interesting and original to look at. The majority of my time spent trying to avoid the scantily clad women who insisted I take up their offer a free catalogue full of car accessories, almost as if my life was incomplete without it. I suppose I should be grateful at least that they weren’t part of the massage chair, garden furniture or chamois brigade who appeared to have been drafted in to boost the exhibitor numbers.

But who can blame the lack of companies attending this year? Stands at shows like Autosport International are essentially marketing expenses, and unless there is genuine business to be secured at them, then that money falls straight off of the bottom line. One person I spoke to, who works for a performance parts company, suggested they had spent £16,000 to attend last year and never made anywhere near that much back. Another suggested yesterday that he heard stand uptake was down 30% this year, as potential exhibitors grimaced at the thought of forking out £275 plus VAT for each square meter of space.

A crowd-puller: Jenson Button © LSPhotos.co.uk

Yet while the number of exhibitors may have dwindled, the visitor size appeared to have increased this year, with reports suggesting in the region of 107% on 2009. How can this be, with the country only just beginning to climb itself out of recession? Well that’ll be the ‘Jenson Button effect’ then.

For the first time since 1997, the reigning world champion made an appearance at the show and was the headline act this year. His presence drawing in a large number of the public, most of whom have probably never attended before, perhaps never even purchased a copy of Autosport in their lives. If ever there was an ideal opportunity to tap into a new market and keep them coming back for more, this was it.

Accept it wasn’t all a bed or roses where Button was concerned. Here was a man whose time was in much demand throughout the weekend. One minute being interrogated by Henry Hope Frost on the Autosport stage, the next on the F1 racing stand, participating in interviews whilst walking around several cars masquerading as 2009 F1 machinery, before being carted off to one of the live shows to do a victory parade lap in an open top Mercedes driven by Terry Grant.

It’s no wonder then that the bloke could only manage to give ten minutes of his time to sign autographs, to the anger of the autograph hunters who had forked out an additional £6.00 on top of their already hefty ticket price for the pleasure of standing in a queue for three hours, on the off-chance they might get to see their racing idol face-to-face.

If these people weren’t severely disappointed by wasting hours of their lives for no reward, then I doubt the bitter taste in their mouths would have subsided by the sheer lack of anything remotely interesting to warrant their return next year, and the only way these people are going to come back is if they feel they’re getting value for money - which they are certainly not getting at the moment.

Factor in the ridiculously high ticket price, travel, food and souvenirs and you have an expensive day on your hands. And for what? The off-chance you might get to meet a racing car driver in the flesh if you’re prepared to run the autograph gauntlet for several hours? A carrier bag full of tat that will get thrown straight into the recycling bin upon your return from the show? That’s something to whet your appetite isn’t it?

To Haymarket it’s just a business and when people stop attending, due to the high cost, exhibitors will stop attending and the show will be finished. It would be a shame to see it die like the normal UK Motor Show did, but something needs to be done to bring in the punters year after year. The show needs to injected with some proper originality, and I don’t just mean a little thing here or there, or the shambles that was the ’60 years of Autosport’ feature that was supposedly the main centre piece this year.

There is a massive opportunity being missed with this. OK, Macworld or CES it’s not, but with a bit of effort I’m sure it could be something good, something that would have pride of place on everybody’s racing calendar and hold some relevance in their lives. Something needs to be done to entice more teams and participants from a wider range of racing series to the show. Otherwise I’m sure I speak for a large number of average Joes who will save their hard earned cash and put it towards a proper motoring event like Goodwood instead.

Please can someone stop the rot before it’s too late?