NATIONAL MEET

[HJ-ETEX]

Roadmaster - That is where it is good to talk to your Division Director and your Regional Manager. You could have a lot of cars - but for only 2 days. You could have a lot of members - but just not at the host motel. You could have a lot of members, but not see them during the day because they are out sightseeing. One gauge is the number of people that show up for the Banquet.

[HJ-ETEX]

To be more specific, a good number at the banquet is around 300 or fractionally more than 2 tickets for each convention registration. If you have an overpriced banquet or if it is in a difficult location, you get a lesser turnout.

[Roadmaster49]

300 is a great banquet number.  150 cars for a "small" club like KFOCI is a great number. I asked my Buick friends for numbers for 2008-2010 and basically I need to do some more digging but for Batavia, New York in 2005, the number of cars was 400-500.  But I don't think we had 800 to 1000 in the banquet.

The Buick banquet is not everyone's favorite event. It can get long and tedious, to some. Many folks skip it that don't have a judged car.

[ben-tex]

I think 150 registrants means something different than 150 cars. I can't recall a meet where there was actually that many present.

[Roadmaster49]

Well, no 150 cars, no.  I have never owned a restored car that I have driven to a National meet or car show. I have attended all Nationals sans car. Went to 1 banquet. 

[HJ-ETEX]

If you have a big car show, the ratio of people at the banquet to number of cars displayed goes down. I have been to a number of SDC National Meets and NEVER went to a banquet. I have been to 25 KFOCI Nationals and missed only 3 banquets.

[kaiserfrazerlibrary]

Banquet ticket sales CAN NOT be equated to either registrations or cars.  The experience Barbara and I had hosting Midwest Division meets is that there are some people (not great numbers) who know they will not arrive until the afternoon of the banquet and do not register or bring a car.  Other times couples come with other people and these groups sometimes do not bring cars. Each of these people in the group usually buy a ticket so you could sell 4 meals with only 1 car (or no old car) registered.   When we hosted the meets in Cave City average was around 50 registrations, 35 or so cars and 130 people for the banquet.  Considering Cave City KY is not near great concentrations of members (Chigago Area, Northern Indiana, Pennsylvania, etc) this was a very good turn out.

[HJ-ETEX]

Exactly - Banquet tickets can not be equated to the number of cars promised to show up or actually end up being there.
However, I believe banquet tickets can be linked to the number of registrations. After all, you should have to register in conjunction with buying a banquet ticket. Notice I did not say the number of people that show up with KF cars.
I have attended several Nationals where a lot of former members and some people with KF cars who didn't intend to join the KFOCI showed up.
It take real Chutzpah to show up during judging and insist on having your car judged even though you aren't registered and you aren't a current member of the Club - but I have experienced this. The people who mail in registrations are the people you can count on being there. The number of people who wander in during the meet and pay for a registration are a bonus.
There is small category of members who tell you they will be there but do not pay in advance. That makes the host want to put out their hair. About 50% of these people actually turn up.

[kaiserfrazerlibrary]

Remember, 4 people in 1 car = 4 banquet tickets but only 1 registration as a rule.

2 people in 1 car = 2 banquet tickets but only 1 registration as a rule.

That's why it's not good to equate banquet tickets to registrations because you may have problems averaging them out.  Why not equate the number of rooms to number of registrations and number of cars showing up?

Many times there is no solid way to match registrations with banquet tickets.  Oh, don't forget that we have some people (like Barbara and I) who of late have not taken a K-F product to a meet but registered anyway.