MARCH | REVIEW
Rennie. “It’s about balancing the mini-
festival with the racing show, and this year
I thought we’d got it right. But it ended up
being an expensive mistake - we actually
had enough show content without the
bands and the general consensus was they
were too loud and didn’t attract that much
interest - but you have to try these things. If
we hadn’t had them we’d have saved almost
£10,000.”
Following the tragic death of Colin
North, a legendary motorsport sponsor
and supporter, in an accident at an event
in November last year, a special tribute at
MWA was organised, and the MWA Trophy
for Best in Show was renamed The Colin
North Trophy.
Rennie said, “It was a shock and a sadness
for everyone in grass-roots motorsport
that had knock-on effects on the industry
too. It became more difficult, and crucially,
much slower to organise our insurance.
The nightmare scenario of having to cancel
the whole event was even considered at one
point, but the venue team pulled out all the
stops to give us the extra time we needed,
and we managed to ensure the whole event
was covered appropriately.”
Not without some compromises
however, as Rennie admits: “We had a few
late cancellations including the company
scheduled to offer passenger rides on a
rally stage, but with only three weeks to
go it wasn’t possible to get an Institute of
Professional Drivers (IOPD) insurance and
find a new provider in time.”
There were other problems too, but
nothing beyond what the events suppliers
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and services were able to deal with. “Our
specialists, Event Fire Solutions, took care of
the inevitable few engine fires professionally
and quickly,” said Rennie,” and APMS
Ambulance provided our medical cover -
both companies are now part of the MWA
set up and will be here for 2021.”
“There are still plenty of lessons to learn,”
Rennie added, “both in terms of planning
and producing the show. I’m especially
grateful to our event manager, Pamela
Newbould at the Arena, and Abby Freed our
Health and Safety officer who took care of us
and worked tirelessly to get the whole event
over the line.”