Festival of 1000 Bikes 2023
Postponement of Festival of a 1000 bikes.
It is with much regret that the Club has decided not to hold the Festival of 1000 Bikes in 2023 and postpone non-competitive track events until 2024.
There are three factors we have taken into consideration in this difficult decision: Costs, Risk and Member Experience.
- Financial control and cost reduction is a priority following the outcome of the Members Consultation.
Following the work done in rationalising the Clubs Central Operations over the past two years from11 staff to less than half that number, the true costs of each project are now much more transparent
All the work on this year’s Festival has been performed by volunteers. There were no staff directly involved.
Analysis of the 2022 event showed that, once ALL the indirect costs were recognised, the event lost money.
The costs being charged for use of the circuit account for almost three-quarters of the total costs and are substantially higher than BHR pay for a weekend race meeting. Despite negotiations, and an offer of a discount, the cost is still too high and as such the Club cannot make the commitment.
- Risk: There is little confidence that 2023 would be any better, especially given the challenging economic climate. It was concluded, therefore, that the Club simply could not afford to take the risk on the event breaking even let alone running profitably.
- Member Experience: We have learned:
- that the Club needs to promote events a year in advance to ensure a successful attendance. This means planning for events needs to be 13 or more months ahead of the event.
- the circuit run booking process does not meet with the needs of our members. The issues with booking and ticketing in 2022 caused us exceptional additional work, cost and an intolerable load on volunteers, two of which have now stepped down. Moving forwards, we are implementing our own booking systems and processing similar to that managed successfully in 2022 for the Banbury Run.
- cover for bikes on the track is still a concern for many members in 2022. In 2023 we are expecting to roll out a new programme with Peter James Insurance to include cover for specified events organised by the Club – many thanks to Bob Clark VP for Insurance for this exceptional benefit.
It has also been decided that the Cadwell Track Weekend will not be run in 2023 for both Financial & Risk reasons, although the Member Experience was generally positive.
2023 will also bring us difficulties in dealing with demands of some members who will want insurance for large Club track events and parades but whose policies will not renew till late 2023.
Moving forwards, we are exploring options to run these events in 2024 when all members with VMCC Motorcycle insurance will be under the new cover.
For those members that enjoy riding their machine around a track the Club is taking steps to enable this during 2023.
We are in negotiation with Classic Track Days (https://www.classicbiketrackdays.com/) about including VMCC classes within their existing events which will provide multiple opportunities throughout the year at a variety of circuits. Such facilities would be at greatly reduced financial risk to the Club
We are also in discussion with BHR and looking at other established partners to provide solutions that meet with members non-competitive track needs in this area.
We hope this will compensate for the reduction in opportunities for non-competitive track-based events whilst we make arrangements to run these events in a more sustainable manner.
Meanwhile if you have any questions or suggestions, please let us know at events@vmcc.net.
