It's The People - ZCON 2010
 

What Whet Wrong...
 

NOW; What Went Wrong...
It is not my intent, with the below comments, to in any way disparage the overall event or the very, very hard work that I know went into it. I truly hope that these observations will lead to even better conventions in the future.


REGISTRATION: Anybody who had preregistered should have had ALL materials prepared and put into their bags and there should have been at least one totally separate line for those who had preregistered for at least the heavy days then combine/reduce lines if the flow of people allowed it. I know the cash flow is very important but one of the benefits of people preregistering in the first place is so that you CAN have all the registration materials, goodies, badges, etc done ahead of time.

I know attendance was large but the organizer should have had at least some idea of how many people might walk up and register on site and even if they didn't; people who wait to register on arrival ought to be expecting/prepared to wait in line. In total and without any exaggeration, I waited in line over TWO hours to get my materials...I was registration no. 58! To me, that kind of screw-up is inexcusable.

TROPHIES: The biggest single event at the convention IS the car show...why do people enter a car show? To hopefully WIN and get a trophy of some kine and a little recognition from their fellow Z owners. I realize that whatever trophy company they used bears some of the blame but I don't understand how they weren't on top of this days if not weeks before the event...it's reasonable to assume that whoever was supposed to ride herd on getting the trophies ordered, proofed and delivered screwed the pooch on this.

Unlike the Peoples' choice people, at least the judged show entrants found out if they won but winning and not getting the trophy at the banquet is a BIG PROBLEM - this one may not be inexcusable but it's close.

PEOPLE'S CHOICE CAR SHOW: There was more than one problem with the people's choice part of the event. Firs of all, the classes should have been staged together...expecting people to walk all over the grounds and try to remember which 2nd gen or 4th car was the best is pretty ridiculous given the number of vehicles involved. Likewise, putting stock and modified into the same categories is also a mistake...there is nothing fair about putting a totally original 350Z up against a 350 that someone has spent $50K on in modifications.

Again, people put their car in a show to hopefully win something and many people only go to an "AWARD'S BANQUET" to get an award (they sure as hell don't go for the cuisine). Not having trophies for winners is bad enough; not having the results is truly inexcusable.

Based on what I have been told, part of the problem with having results was with the new electronic system they had this year but I have to wonder, was this new system before the Saturday car show? If not, why not?

In any case, the people's choice ballots were PAPER BALLOTS - whatever the problem with the new system, the paper ballots could have been counted manually - someone should have realized that they had a problem at which point they should have grabbed volunteers, as many as necessary, to COUNT THE BALLOTS!

Again, overall, a great convention and a great time but the above absolutely needs to be addressed

Ouch, that's not a positive reflection on the event. ZCON is something I've been wanting to go to since 1996. Every year, something gets in the way. I hope they fix the mistakes and learn from previous shows. Savannah is a great place. I might have to bring the family to that one as a summer vacation.

Well, I hate to complain about an event; especially when my club was asked to be the host club for this year's ZCON but we had to say "no" because we realized that we just didn't have the manpower or the finances to pull it off; so...a big :tiphat: to the ZCCA guys for putting the convention on themselves.

It WAS a great convention and I don't for a moment regret the time/money I spent to be there but I would like to see it improved.

The Savannah site should be great and assuming I can keep my schedule clear I'm definitely going to be there next year!

Great first post, I agree 100% people is what makes owning a Z that much more enjoyable, there is something different in our DNA

The second post are great observations, I also agree that things could/should have been smoother in some cases but the impact was very small in putting a blemish on the event.

I think overall considering the magnitude of the event and the fact that no one organizing it was local I would have to give it an A minus, I had a hell of a good time and do not hesitate in making plans to be at the Savannah one.

Bob, It was great having dinner with you at the opening banquet. Your observations are spot on. I stood in registration line for an hour right before the banquet, and they gave me the armbands for dinner, and said 'come back later'. Had to wait in line twice. Other than that, it was a great event.

Hopefully you've already sent this a message to the meet organizers to address these concerns and make future meets run smoother.

Another member of our club is gathering comments from myself and others and is going to pass them along as i know a couple of other clubs/groups were planning to do. :)

I just saw the Middle Tennessee club is based in Nashville! I got the impression there was no club there which is why the ZCCA went at it on their own, which they usually do not do.

I did see the club just rejoined the ZCCA this year so maybe that is why there was also no interest or could not really hold a ZCCA convention without being a ZCCA club

I don't believe we re-joined; we joined but it had nothing to do with us not hosting the annual convention.

ZCCA asked Middle Tennessee Z Club (MTZC) to run the 2010 Convention after it had already decided that the 23rd annual international convention celebrating the 40th Anniversary of the Z would be held in Nashville (a departure from the normal chain of events for how the convention winds up in a particular city). In other words, they decided where and then hopped we would take on the responsibility for hosting it.

The problem was that MTZC is a completely member run club; there are no elected officers. We have hosted 8 ZAttacks in our history (we were founded in 1999) - most people who have attended will tell you that that ZAttack is a quality event but the bottom line is that putting on that (essentially two day) event (around 80 cars for the show) is a huge effort for our small group and we generally have just enough money left over after ZAttack to be seed money for the next year.

Bottom line is, MTZC didn't have the manpower nor the finances to even begin to host an annual convention; much less one nearly 10 times larger than our own ZAttack. Our decision was communicated to ZCCA early last fall (about the end of August I believe).

Personally, I was disappointed that our club had to turn down the request to host...I wish our club was big enough and had the finances to have hosted the 23rd...we didn't; it's as simple as that.

As I've said and will keep saying, ZCCA put on a great event and deserve the credit for doing so but even a "perfect" event can be improved upon and I hope the above comments about "what went wrong" will be taken to heart and acted on.

that is great you guys joined, the stronger the ZCCA is the stronger we as clubs can be as well.

With the issues that came up, I hope they can be improved next year, the ZCCA guys did a great job specially when you consider they are volunteers and do it for free, the money made at this convention will be seed money for the next guys to start organizing and put deposits down.

I totally agree with what Robert had to say! I came in second in street mod 370Z class behind a tuner shops entry(I had more done to my car also). I've judged and helped organize VW/Audi shows for about 8 years and this was never allowed. Customers against shops and their resources just isn't fair!

I also waited through the long dinner and left empty handed. I then proceeded to drive home and fall asleep at the wheel multiple times due to how late it was.

The peoples choice awards were next to impossible to figure out unless you've seen these cars for multiple years and new in advance to some degree.

I waited near my car as long as I could and not one judge ever came by, but I did see them in line for autographs.

I heard a rumor that I may have won the 370Z peoples choice, but don't really know.

Overall I did enjoy meeting some great people and seeing some great cars. I really was not planning on doing it again formally based on this experience. But we'll see!

Also, was there info on judge criteria? I listened to them talking to each other and the reasoning for point deductions sounded completely foolish!

OK, enough ranting for me!!
Thanks

here is link for judging http://www.zcca.org/downloads/ZCCA_J...anual_2009.pdf

This year the judging was kept electronically and contestants should be able to get results and see where they lost points

Normally People's Choice is one award for all cars in the judged and non-judged car show. There is no breakdown in People's Choice based on car model it is strictly a popularity contest.

I agree with many of your observations and I highly encourage you guys to email the convention team. Your feedback helps the next convention team as they plan the 2011 ZCON.

Z Car Club Association - 40th Anniversary of the Z.** July 28 - August 1, 2010 in Nashville, TN

the people's choice is by model, it just doesn't take into account mods, it can be from stock to ultra modified

At least it was in 2007 where I won 350Z people's choice, I guess I was popular :)

Actually, the only significant difference between a "People's Choice" show and a "judged" show is simply that people (and usually only those registered for the show, not just people attending) "vote" for the cars in the various categories rather than having a team of judges judging the cars by a set of rules.

I've been in many, many, "Z" "people's choice car shows" and every one has been broken down into the generations and usually at least a stock and modified in each generation; sometimes even between roadster and coupe. Further, the ZCON 2010 website specifically breaks down the generations for the people's choice show.


In most cases, there will be at least a first (and likely a second and perhaps a third) place for "peoples choice" in each generation - which ever car gets the most votes in that generation gets first place, second most votes, second, etc.

ZCON 2010 is one of the only People's Choice shows I've ever experienced where pure stock vehicles were placed in head to head competition with cars that some owners had spent tens of thousands of dollars in modifications on (at least two cars were rumored to have had more than $100K spend on them).

Even worse was the fact that the cars were not parked in generational groups; again, that is a rare occurrence.

I'm no expert on the international convention but my observation over the years tells me it's primarily a big, prestigious car show with some other activities thrown in. As such, the car show is the one major event of the convention where I would expect the least amount of breakdown in the system; after all, they've been doing this for 23 years now.

In this case, however, between trophies being a no-show and all the other issues, it's probably the single worst part of the 2010 convention experience.

Adding to (at least my) frustration is that early this week, ZCCA sent an email to some (but not all and I've not idea whey their email delivery was so haphazard) saying, among other things, that the people's choice results would be posted on both the ZCCA.org and the ZCON 2010 websites "by the end of the week". I'd say that to most people, the phrase "by the end of the week" would generally be a Friday (yesterday) and at least as of a few minutes ago, nothing has been posted...I at least hope they get them posted by Sunday (tomorrow).

I honestly cannot think of a single, substantial reason why all the ballots weren't counted immediately after the show and before the awards banquet - that we are still waiting for the results more than a week later is inexcusable.

Robert I stand corrected. When we hosted ZCON in 2009 we gave one award out for People's Choice which made things much more simple. I know that cars during this convention were being judged until very late in the afternoon and with the closing banquet being held the same day the pressure the convention team had on them was truly intense.

I have sent an email to Chris Karl with some of my observations and I encourage you guys to do the same. I hope that some of the suggestions we all have will help the Georgia ZCON Team put on a great event in 2011.

I can understand your confusion, then, but I'm also a bit stunned to hear that ZCON 2009 had only one "People's Choice" winner...I can't even imagine driving hundreds of miles (aprox 970 to be more precise) to be in a People's Choice show where every car, daily driver and $100K garage queen had to compete head to head and there was only one winner. But yeah; I guess it makes things simple.

This is starting to confirm something I've had a gut feeling about for a while now; that being that the "People's Choice" part of the car show and the convention is something done more to to give those who don't get in the "real" car show something to do while the important event goes on.

In other words, that the only thing that really matters to ZCCA is the relatively small handful of cars that get to compete in the judged show and that everything else is ancillary to that one event.

Which would also explain why, now, nearly eight days later, we still don't have the results of the "People's Choice" show...one person working alone should have been able to tally the ballots in a day or two; two or three people should have been able to knock it out in an afternoon.

Someone from my club who worked more closely with Chris that I did is supposed to be taking my comments and those of others and making them known to Chris...whether that has any impact on future events...who knows. I'm a bit doubtful if only because ZCCA itself doesn't typically run a convention as they did this year.

It will also be interesting to see if anything near the attendance of this year's show is seen in succeeding years.

If I go to the 2011 convention (and I likely will), I'll probably skip the car shows all together; save the frustration as well as the $30 for the car show and skip the awards banquet and spend the free time driving!:driving:

Not to argue or say your issues are not valid, so I will give my point of view and background in Z's.

I am a relative noob in the Z world when compared to others I have met, I have been in it for 8 years although an admirer for many more.

I currently own 3.5 Z's LOL, pre-ordered my 350Z in Feb 2002 and took delivery August 2002, after that I got a 1990 300ZX Twin Turbo and then a 1971 240Z and my son bought an 07 350Z last year.

Having the various models I have met a lot of people in the Z community and Zcon offers a great opportunity to meet them in person plus go with some of my members and spend time that I otherwise would not locally. So to me a big part of Zcon is social, hell I went without a Z this time.

Now for the show, first I agree that the results should have been announced and also agree that cars should have been placed by model to make it easier to judge.

I would still spend 30 bucks to enter the people's choice, 30 bucks wont break the bank and for me it is about having it in the event and being part of it not about winning it, after many years of entering shows and thinking my 350Z was the bomb there is always someone else that has done more than me, so I just take it in stride.

I would agree to have the models broken down to modified vs stock if there was no judged show, but there is so if people are adamant that their stock Z compete with other stock Z's then enter the judged show, from personal experience the issue usually arises with newer model owners, because lets face it was is to judge in a stock 370Z? how clean it is? Stock condition becomes more important as the car gets older, a stock original or restored 240Z can compete with heavily modified 240Z because a lot of work went into both whether it was restoring or keeping up an original 240Z or modifying it, where as a stock 370Z all it needed was a car wash so yes it is going to lose against a modified 370Z, probably will happen with 350Z's as well.

I enjoy the event from Wednesday to Sunday, and as I mentioned I did not have a Z with me this time, but got to see people that I have made friends with over the years like Mike on here from his 350Z days, Carl Beck from 240Z's, Mad Mike, and hell I got to meet and get an autograph from Mr Matsuo the designer of the 240Z.

So in my point of view if people are just going for the car show and to win a trophy they should probably concentrate on attending events that are strictly car shows and skip Zcon where it is a Convention not just a car show.

As 300twins said let them know your issues as it might help in future events.

I have registered and gone to Z events when I didn't own a Z...it isn't about the $30.

It's about keeping promises.

Generational and stock/modified issues aside, if you are going to have a People's Choice car show and charge people for it then the people you charge have a right to expect to know the results...otherwise they should have simply let people park/display their cars on the lawn and charged them nothing for it and no voting needed.

If you are going to have a "Closing Banquet and Awards Ceremony" then you had darn well better have the results tallied and some awards to hand out at the award's banquet.

Were there some reasonable explanation for the results not being known by the time of the awards banquet this would be a much more minor issue but there simply isn't one...they say the ran out of time...I just don't buy it. Counting ballots simply isn't that difficult.

I know of at least six people from the Middle Tennessee Z Club and the Smoky Mountain Z Club who had volunteered to help with events; were at the car show...asked multiple times what they could to help and were never given an assignment...if they needed help counting ballots why didn't they ask people who had already volunteered? There were lot's of bodies there who could have pitched in and helped.

By the way, having a "new" Z doesn't mean all you do is run through a car wash...I have an '2010 Roadster...I spent at least 24 hours in prep time for the show as I do most shows I enter and I also drive it as often as I can (meaning it's not a garage queen)...yes it is easier to make a new car look good than one that's 40 years old but don't think for a moment that people who enter People's Choice shows aren't "adamant" or care any less about their vehicles or the competition.

I registered in February and had a registration number under 60...I could have easily been in the judged show but I didn't want to take up one of only 125 spots when there was a People's Choice show that I assumed would be taken seriously - had I known the People's Choice was going to be handled so poorly I would have done something different.

IMHO, running a event like ZCON is a huge task and you do it for free while you are doing your own full time job itself. This is no easy task. Yes there should be complaints to let them know what they did wrong, but IMHO, if you have never run one, you can't really speak yourself. As we ran the 09 one, and it was HARD, and it took up a years time of our life. Would I do it again, NO. Never will. But was it something we were appreciated for, hell yeah!..

There will always been people unhappy every year. You won't fix that. My only issue is that this years convention should have looked at some of the stuff we did for ours and used it. But they didn't and they had massive problems.

Yes; you can't please all the people all the time and every event has its minor issues but this isn't a matter of a few people being "unhappy" or minor problems.

I am not and I don't think anyone else here is discounting the effort it takes to put on a convention like ZCON - I've run several conventions (some "car" related and some not and some larger than ZCON and some not)...that's one of the reasons I knew our club could not be the host club for 2010.

The problems with registration and the awards are bad enough but at this point there is no excuse for not having counted the ballots for the People's Choice show and have the results published...no excuse whatsoever.

ZCCA is a non-profit business but it IS a business and when you are in business and you screw up the business does whatever has to be/can be done to make it right...that's what separates a great business from an mediocre one.

This is my advice to Chris and what I would do were I Executive Director of ZCCA...

1. COUNT THE DAMM BALLOTS and post the results TODAY - if that meant I had to take a vacation day or two from my job or hire people to come in and count that's what I'd do.

2. Refund the People's Choice car show registration fee of everyone registered for the show - it's a minor gesture that could go a long way.

3. I would include the refund in a formal, personalized, hand-signed letter of apology for screwing up the show, and

4. in the letter, offer a HUGE discount off of next year's registration in some slim hope that the people who got screwed will come to another event.

I would suggest (and this is just my opinion) that in terms of size and prestige, the annual international conventions were becoming almost irrelevant in the larger Z community - this year was a huge departure from that slide into irrelevancy. Because of the participation this year, ZCCA had a tremendous opportunity to reverse that trend and build upon it but sadly, the major screw-ups in Nashville may have ruined that opportunity and certainly, the continuation of the People's Choice car show screw up (now almost nine (9) days post event with no results) is only making it worse.

If you notice, the NISMO 370Z winner was never announced at the convention. :(

I noticed and you are right, it wasn't announced.

The alleged winner spent a good bit of time talking about winning it in this thread : http://www.the370z.com/zcon-2010/14454-who-going-4.html

If you start reading about post no. 32 you'll see when he came on and said he had won it then later, claimed that his wife wouldn't let him keep it...I don't know if they didn't announce it because he never actually went to the convention and/or if it might have been because he had already told them that he wsnt' going to keep the car and maybe they decided it would be a bit embarrassing to announce it knowing he wasn't keeping it???

Of course, who knows if this guy ( krsplsh ) was even telling the truth or not!

musings
 

And this my friends is why Bryan Settle - CEO ZDAYZ - is the fargin MAN! I mean sure, there is always some unforeseen issue that may disrupt a scheduled sub-event, but lack of preps is, as the OP expressed, INEXCUSABLE! I could only afford to go to one major event this year (daughter got married in June) but if I would have traveled as far a Nashville to see as many fails as described here, I too would feel like the promoters should have been on their game and would consider scratching it off the list for next year.. I heard the heat was relentless. That should have been the only down side to a CORPORATE SPONSORED EVENT HELD ON THE PROPERTY!

I did hear from official sources that the winner was from Florida and chose not to come to the convention to receive the Z.

maybe they should have added a clause that winner had to go to the convention to receive the prize, oh well

Zdayz is not a fair comparison, a 3 day event cannot compare to a 5 day event with less than half the activities and half the attendees

LOL http://www.the370z.com/370z-sale/228...ismo-sale.html

ZDayZ is hardly "half" as big; especially compared to most ZCCA conventions; especially most recent conventions - I don't remember how many attended ZDayZ in 2010 but I know 2009 had in excess of 446 registered attendees/and nearly 300 cars and you can generally increase that by about 25% for those who come and don't register at all (since anyone can come to he Dragon and/or stay at Fontana).

Technically, ZCON 2010 was a five day event but the only things hat happened on Wednesday was registration (which was screwed-up) and the opening banquet (which of course the hotel actually does most of the work for) - quite a few people couldn't even get into the banquet because they couldn't get through registration.

In any case; preparation is preparation - whether preparing for 100 cars or 1,000, the steps are pretty much the same and it's seems pretty clear that when it came to registration and trophies, it wasn't done well.

Just to clarify; the annual convention is not/was not a "Nissan sponsored event"; at least no more so than most of the sponsors.

Nissan was a sponsor and allowed the event to be held on the grounds and they provided other support (opening the fist floor, handing out free bottled water, etc) but like most any "Z" event, it only happens because of a lot of sponsors (in the case of ZCON 2010 that included Z1 Motorsports, Yokohama tire, and many others).

ZCCA is wholly the event organizer.

You are right Zcon was not 2 times bigger than Zdayz only 1.6 times, my bad just almost 300 people more

I would not call Zdays a 3 day event either by your logic, the first day is just the dinner, the airstrip event is not one attended by the masses and organized by Forged. And not much else to coordinate either, no autox, no real track event, not dinner in nearby downtown, and just vendors throw beer parties, the rest is just unleashing people on public roads.

I also do like the fact that the Z convention has stayed true to a Z event not like Zdayz which is really a Z/G event

I guess we can agree to disagree, I had a hell of a time and will go next year again even if same issues came up.

Z/G event? I guess that's true of course but so what??? I didn't do an exact count but I was a judge at this year's ZDayZ car show and I think there were less than 10 G's there for the event (registered or otherwise) and somewhere in the neighborhood of 400+ cars total so the non-"Z" part of the event is not what I'd call significant. Also, maybe you didn't notice all the "non-Z" vehicles at ZCON this year as there were quite a few.

I actually didn't say anything about how many days ZDayZ runs :confused: I mentioned the number of days for ZCON because I generally throw out the "arrival day" of any event I attend since nothing much happens except getting there (which is pretty much what happened at ZCON this year).

How many cars/people did Cleveland have in ''08...I heard some incredibly low numbers (like 40 cars for the car show)...how many did San Antonio have?

From what I know of recent convention history, this year was not "normal" in terms of recent attendance figures so throwing them around saying the convention is so much bigger than "ZdayZ" or so much bigger than some other event seems a bit foolish and at not very helpful.

As far as next year goes, I'll likely go but I doubt I'll register as I see little benefit in doing so...as the saying goes, fool me once, shame on you...fool me twice, shame on me!

Agreed. ZdaysZ only had like 1/4 of the attendee's ZCON 2010 had and way less events. It can't be compared as it's a much smaller event. Also the fact that ZCON moves around every where and logistics of location, people are always different every year play a huge factor into ZCON while ZDaysZ it doesn't.

Actually Nissan had a HUGE PART in sponsoring this event with a huge fat check. They give ZCON a check every year for sponsorship and they are the largest sponsor every year to do this. This year they were the sponsor.

This year ZCON had close to 800 registered and paid.

We had around 300 last year in San Antonio. The car show itself, I can't remember the exact number off the top of my head, but it was around 75 cars I think only and the rest were peoples choice only. So probably 100~.

I most likely will not go to Georgia for the convention there as the guy personally didn't even have a good presentation and had no clue if they could get the stuff (as he just said if we can get it) so he has no idea. The hotel rooms are much smaller than this years so fitting 3 people would be max per room. Also, there isn't anything to do in that town. I rather wait for Phoenix. If I do go however, I will fly, and only go for the important days this time.

Look...I work for Nissan...I'm aware of NNA's level of involvement; it's significant but not nearly as much as you probably think and the "huge fat check" you refer to is small compared to the actual $$$ needs of the convention; especially this particular convention.

At the time my club had to make a final decision about taking on the responsibility of hosting ZCON 2010, NNA was not even able to commit to providing any funds for the 2010 convention due to the general lousy state of the economy and in particular, the industry.

ZDAYZ is not a convention. ZDAYZ is a gathering of Z enthusiasts doing what Z enthusiasts do... Drive their cars, Show their cars, and talk about their cars in an unparalleled setting, deep in what may arguably be the most beautiful mountain highways in the US. Yes their are a few organized Events thrown in... Car show, TSD, Group photos, and such... But a pole taken after last year's event, (which sometimes had two events happening simultaneously,) voted Down the number of events, in lieu of having more time inside Fontana, & More time relaxing, like one should when on vacation. Some describe Zdayz as a Drinking party with a Driving habit... and while I am sure some parties ran late into the evening - I don't think I saw one person "Under the weather" (except when I looked in the mirror)during the whole event. So what are we arguing here... Cause I can't figure it out. Are we arguing that ZdayZ was easier to put together cause it was smaller? Or are we complaining that money was spent on ZCON and it came up short. I think it must be the latter. Because every one paid their registration fees... and there was Sponser money too. There is no excuse with that kind of horsepower of cash to make excuses and not have important things like trophies ON HAND at the end of a car show. They KNEW the categories before people ever began showing up - they should have known the categories before an private money from attendees was ever accepted!

ZCON 2010 had 722 registrants; they have not said how many cars but since many people came as couples it's reasonable to believe that there were in the neighborhood of 500-600 cars. ZdayZ had somewhere in the neighborhood of 400 cars this year; hardly 1/2 the attendance of ZCON...in any case, such comparisons are rather meaningless and not productive.

ZCON 2010, despite the noted problems was a great event. It's my hope that ZCCA/host clubs will be able to make some changes so that the same issues aren't experienced in future conventions.

Event results, including the People's Choice results have been posted on the ZCON 2010 website (and I would assume the ZCCA.org site as well).

This thread has been moved from its original location (which is fine). Also, from some discussion at Z1 Z Nationals it became apparent that some had still wanted a chance to respond/chime in on the discussion and weren't able to do so because I had closed the thread before they had a chance to post.

I'm not sure how long I'll keep the thread open but for now, the thread is re-opened and if anyone would like to add something they feel would be helpful; please feel free to do so.

I still haven't gotten my trophy from ZCON! :shakes head: