THE DEATH OF THE CAR SHOW & HOW WE HELPED KILL IT.
Let me start off by saying; Car shows aren’t completely dead, but they are really on their last leg and I’ll explain why. Around the time of 2003-2004 I really became serious about cars and car shows. I started attending every event and really trying to participate in everything I could. Back then Hot Import Nights was one of the biggest traveling car shows and being a part of Hot Import Nights was a big deal. You had to submit an application of your car with photos and a mod sheet just to be approved just so you could enter the competition. (Now while Hot Import Nights no longer has a screening process, we still have shows like that traveling like WekFest but the competition is not the same and I’ll explain that later.) The show would draw in people from every surrounding area of the city or even the state. People would travel to compete, models would show up for their chance to be featured, vendors would immediately try to sign up – no matter the cost, and the car-show scene was flourishing. Fast Forward about 10 years to 2014 – We are now in the era of the car-meet.
This year I personally put together an event called the Mystery Meat 3 for my company V2lab; We had over 65 vendors, 25 artists on display, and over 100,000 people in attendance. The event is very laid back and requires no qualifications to attend (as a spectator or participant) – just simply show up. But the culture of car meets has however created a lot of lazy car-builders. While meets themselves are not totally responsible for this – it takes a big chunk of the blame. Since all you have to do to be a part of a meet and gain attention and notoriety from your peers at a meet is have name brand wheels, good stance/fitment, while being really low, or on the opposite side driving a very performance oriented car that’s reputation proceeds itself (see every Skyline, Supra, or FD that shows up to a car meet) or even people just trying to show up in RHD or JDM cars; regardless the point I am getting at is – we as a car-culture have become really lazy when it comes to building well rounded show cars. The meet-culture has made it perfectly acceptable for you to just have wheels and suspension and get tons of respect instead of putting your heart and soul into a build – making it your own and doing different things (custom or even just searching out and finding rare parts – remember the jdm-trend?).