Ng q & a

[Lori]

Since the NG, I’ve gotten some interesting questions about the event, so I thought maybe this was the best way to address them (especially since sometimes I get the same question from multiple people). So here’s the Q & A. If there’s something I don’t cover here, you can feel free to ask in this thread. I’ll do my best to answer.

Q: Where do the funds that are collected by NG go?
A: They go toward things like track rentals, insurance, supplies for packets, t-shirts, equipment, equipment rental, a storage unit for all our crap, the banquet, the car show location rental, all sorts of things.

Q: Would you provide a complete list of this year’s expenses?
A: Would you go to a local business and ask the same of them? Do you expect your local business owner to make money off the business? I would hope the answers are “no” and “yes.” We don’t make any money, but I don’t feel it would be wrong if we did, either. This always feels like an accusation of wrongdoing.

Q: Why did you delete the thread asking for suggestions?
A: First, it wasn’t actually asking for cost-cutting suggestions. It was asking people why they weren’t coming this year and what could be done to change that for next year. We needed to know if they’re just losing interest in the platform, want a different organizer, or something else. It was never intended to gather suggestions for how to change this year’s event, which we were leaving for in a few days. We generally ask for those types of suggestions after the event so we can implement them for the next one. Second, if someone has never been to Disney World, it would be hard for them to tell Disney how they could improve. Most of the suggestions we were getting were from people who have never attended. So while they had the best of intentions, they just weren’t applicable. And, basically, it was pointed out to me that everything I had said was being taken in the wrong way, probably due to my emotional state regarding my life's circumstances right now.

Q: So you got the suggestions now instead of later, who cares when?
A: I do. Please try to understand this… I have something going on in my personal life that is literally taking up 100% of my energy 24/7. Literally. At the same time, I’m trying to run a retail store, get it ready for me to be gone for 10 days, AND get the NG ready. And the NG plans were running behind because of it. I was trying to make sure the bills for this event could be paid and everything could get done, while people were suggesting I make time to implement new things right away, too. At least that’s how it came across to me. I had people complaining about lower attendance, sponsors trying to back out of sponsorship and attendance because of lower numbers, nasty PM’s and emails, and no real enthusiasm for the event. It’s really hard to dedicate all of your time to something that it seems no one wants. I knew they did, but that’s not what I was hearing. People are always quick to post negative things, but not so much with the positive.

Q: Why is it so expensive to attend the event?
A: I can’t control the cost of hotel, gas, food, and other entertainment (except for booking a reasonably priced hotel). Our costs are based on a (hopefully accurate) guess as to how many people will attend and what races they’ll do. We base that on previous years’ attendances. Our AutoX prices are very competitive, and were even less expensive than a couple other events we priced out at NCM. Our road course price is also very competitive, and was actually lower than the suggested price by NCM. Drags are covered in the next question.

Q: Test & Tune at Beech Bend is $15 – why is it more through you?
A: Because they basically run a separate drag race for our cars without charging us a full track rental. We get our own staging lanes, our own timing, our own brackets, everything. So we pay more per car to do it. If you had wanted to race against the other cars there and not ours, then you could have come in and paid $15.

Q: Why shoot down suggestions?
A: What comes across sometimes as “shooting down suggestions” is simply pointing out things that may not work in an effort to get people to come up with a solution for that issue. I’m still considering everything that’s been brought up in multiple places. I have a physical list of things we’re trying to figure out how to implement.

Q: What happens to money left over after the event? Why isn’t it refunded back?
A: Any money that’s left after the event is used as seed money for next year. We use it to secure contracts (deposits are necessary long before registration opens), and it helps us pay for a trip to scout out a new location. We usually end up taking one trip during the planning phase, also, to look at venues for the chosen location. Often times, Alan and I pay for these trips out of our own pockets. Sometimes the event is able to share some of the cost.

Q: Why don’t we combine with other events?
A: I’ve actually tried to do that every year for the past few years, and I’ll continue to try. The truth is they’d rather just keep to themselves and do their own event. They don’t want to share… I’ve even had tracks help us, figuring if there was another smaller group that we could combine with, maybe we could split costs and make some of these tracks affordable for both of us. They usually think they know of a few possibilities, then they don’t pan out.

Q: Why are the t-shirts always gray?
A: Because I’m an idiot and didn’t choose another color. Truth. This year, however, it’s because we weren’t ordering many extras (I think we had 10 total), and ash gray is the only one we can add for the last-minute registrations. This year it was a budgetary thing. I’ll work to change it if we have another.

A little side note, in response to comments that have been made. This year was VERY difficult for me. Because of the situation in my personal life, which I’m not allowed to go into the details publicly, I really didn’t want to do this event. I wanted to stay home and cancel everything, right up to the moment when people started to arrive. The cost to my shop for me to be gone is tremendous ($3-5k each year). I didn’t want to be around people. And I was really tired of feeling attacked. But my name is on the contracts so I went. Maybe that’ll clarify some of what you picked up on… Sometimes I feel people forget that I volunteer to do this. I’m not a car girl. I don’t get into the racing. I tried it this year, and I learned A LOT about how to make this event better, but I don’t know that I’d do it again. I went because I care about the people and I had made a commitment to them. So when I’m struggling to survive each day, maybe I don’t deal with 50 people suggesting I do things differently very well. Each change takes time. Each change takes energy. And frankly, I don’t have it right now. It seemed like everyone wanted change and no one was happy with what they were getting.

And just like some have said that I took their comments the wrong way, the same could be said for them. Sometimes my comments were taken the wrong way, too.

I guess sometimes people don’t realize that I donate hundreds of hours and energy I don’t have into making this event happen each year. I don’t mind, but when I hear nothing but criticism leading up to it, it’s a pretty tough pill to swallow. At that time, I feel like I’ve wasted all that time and energy… It’s hard.

And the last question…

Q: Will there be an NG16?
A: I don’t know yet.

[J-Groove]

Just want to say, I had a blast!

Thank you for my first NG.

-John

[93STLTH]

Q: Would you provide a complete list of this year’s expenses?
A: Would you go to a local business and ask the same of them? Do you expect your local business owner to make money off the business? I would hope the answers are “no” and “yes.” We don’t make any money, but I don’t feel it would be wrong if we did, either. This always feels like an accusation of wrongdoing.

Questions about expenses have to be the stupidest things anyone could ask about. Unless you're an investor in the NG, and as far as I know, there are none, only yearly sponsors who can chose to either sponsor or not sponsor, then expenses are really nobody's business. This is a volunteer operation, none of the organizers are paid to do what they do. If, by some miracle, their efforts result in some money left over, so be it. What the organizers decide to do with any extra money is up to them. It seems any left over money goes into starting the ball rolling for next year.
Here's all you need to know about expenses: Tracks are expensive. Insurance is expensive. T-shirts are expensive. Trophies are expensive. Scouting trips to find hotels and other activities are expensive.
Time is money. It takes time to negotiate with a track or multiple tracks if a location hasn't been finalized. It takes time to arrange for insurance. It takes time to set up registration and an event schedule. It takes time to locate things like a car wash, a banquet facility, or where you can buy race gas.
If you still just have to know how much an NG costs, why don't you call a track yourself? Ask them what it would cost to rent a track for 2 days of racing, with insurance, track workers and emergency services on site. Call a trophy shop and ask them what 20 - 25 trophies will cost. Call a drag strip and see what the options are there, it's usually a long list from exclusive use to test and tune nights. Call a banquet facility and see what a 4 hour rental runs. Oh, and all of these have to be in the same week, so you'll need to make sure you can arrange all of these thing in the same week long period.
After doing all of that, you'll have a better idea of what Lori, Alan and Bridget have to go through, every year, without compensation. And you'll understand why it can be a little insulting to be questioned about the jobs they do.

[Lori]

It appears as though I forgot something that a couple of people have brought up to me, just not in here, so I thought I'd share the answer... Several of you want to know:

Q: Why not reinstate the weekender package?
A: Because in reality, only a handful of people used it each year. It takes a lot more time and energy, and we determined it just wasn't worth the problems it was causing. I believe it was set up for people to arrive on Thursday evening, but even if it wasn't, we'll use that as an example. People would show up on Thursday morning instead, trying to show up at the tracks and participate in activities. We had to police everything so it was fair to everyone. Then we had people who wanted to do a weekender but use it for Tuesday - Friday instead of Thursday - Sunday, and naturally they wanted a price adjustment since they wouldn't be at the car show (which is free to participants, btw, or the banquet). Here's a fact for you... At regular registration prices, the full participants' package is only $20 more than the weekender was.

Q: I think I noticed people who were there without a badge. Did some people not have to pay?
A: No, but good eye! Everyone is expected to pay a registration fee. There were a couple of people who chose not to and decided to skirt around it. Those people will need to pay the balance due before they can attend again. In the meantime, it means we have less money in our account as seed money for next year's event.

Q: When will you announce dates for next year?
A: See above - no decision has been made about next year yet, although an announcement is coming very, very soon that may answer your questions.

Q: How is it possible that you had enough money for this year?
A: We had a fair amount of seed money from last year and sponsors made it possible. We also cut corners wherever possible, including things like issuing certificates instead of trophies, we didn't hold the banquet at a hall where we could do the video display, we used ash gray shirts instead of something more fun, we didn't include museum admission for all participants attending the banquet (that was part of the original plan), we did the west track for road course instead of the full track, and we didn't offer refreshments or goodies at registration like we sometimes try to do. I'm sure there are other things I'm just not thinking of, too, but at least those are a few examples. Our hope was that they were things no one would really notice or miss (like the museum admission that you never knew we were planning on doing).

I'll keep updating if anything further comes into PM or email. Watch for the announcement about NG16, coming very soon. I promise - it's not what you're expecting.

[green-lantern]

Greg (monochrome) mentioned he could make trophies. I don't want to volunteer him but he might be up for building some for 2016.

[Greg E]

Greg (monochrome) mentioned he could make trophies. I don't want to volunteer him but he might be up for building some for 2016.

Yup.

[whitedragon]

Questions about expenses have to be the stupidest things anyone could ask about. Unless you're an investor in the NG, and as far as I know, there are none, only yearly sponsors who can chose to either sponsor or not sponsor, then expenses are really nobody's business.

If you're asking people to spend money, then they can ask questions about what that money is for, right wrong or indifferent.

Or, then it's not really anybody's business why they choose not to spend the money, but we're talking about getting people excited about an event, not trying to turn them away, so I'm not really sure what the issue is.

On the other hand, once you answer the question, then there it is, and repeating complaining about why you think one expense isn't valid vs another expense is just kinda beside the point unless they want to run their own event, so I agree with that, and then people can vote with their wallet and life goes on for everybody. But telling people they should be happy to throw money into the void is never the right answer I don't think.

[green-lantern]

On the other hand, once you answer the question, then there it is, and repeating complaining about why you think one expense isn't valid vs another expense is just kinda beside the point unless they want to run their own event, so I agree with that, and then people can vote with their wallet and life goes on for everybody. But telling people they should be happy to throw money into the void is never the right answer I don't think.

I think it's been asked so many times that it's frustrating, that's all. Alan or Lori should put the question and answer on the main NG page from now on so when a new person asks people can just point them there.

[Lori]

It's not a matter of what the money goes toward. The question that we get is that people want us to break it down, penny for penny, and account for every single dollar we spend, where we spend it, where we get it, etc. Though I have to agree with Paul, too, that people constantly want to know what they're getting for their registration money. We do need to do something about putting that information into one place so we can just direct them there. That was part of the reason for this thread, really. I get the same questions time and time again, so I thought it would be easier to just put the information out there in one place. I thought it would help...

[Lori]

Our current plan is to use this page to develop a Q & A page for the NG website. Should we have another event, I think that could be useful for people. If you have questions that you think should be addressed, please post them here or email/PM/Messenger them to me and I'll see what I can do.