The Honda Owners Club

Each day I get a text with the attendance figures from the previous day. This is provided by the NEC management so we can gauge how successful the show has been. I will post the figures here for people to view:

Trade day (27th Nov) 4854 - down 10% on 2007.

Press day (28th Nov) - 8863 - 15% up on 2007. Overall 5% up.

But nobody is spending like they used to even at the show

First Saturday (29th) - 19,608 - 6% upon last year. Now overall 6% up.

[And I agree, lots of tyre kickers. So, I did my bit for the credit crunch and spent a few pounds]

Well if sales are slow hopefully we can do a bit of bargaining by the end of next week and get what we want at reduced prices .

Regards

Chimpy

First Sunday (30th).. 18173 - 3% down on 2007. Overall 2% up.

I have to say that, working in the Honda stand, if it had been any more busy, we would have been crushed by the crowds - shades of the Japanese tube trains!

Alan

Monday 1st - 11,391 down 1% on 2007 (now 2% up overall)
Tuesday 2nd - down 364 visitors, a 1% drop (no totals in the text today but the figures don't stack up - that would mean the attendance was around 36,000)
Wednesday 3rd - 10522, down 3%.

Could it be the weather is affecting the stats as well as the crowds?

Could it also be the recent economic hits on so many jobs/incomes and the cost of getting to & into the show and perhaps some are staying away to avoid the additional temptation of spending what they can't afford this year? I dunno... but it might be a contributory factor too....? Or perhaps they are waiting for Sunday and all those last minute bargains??

I went today (Thursday) and it was very quiet, one trader told me that business had been "dire" since the weekend.

The George White stand seemed quite busy, probably because prices were very reasonable.

Steve

I very much doubt there would be many more bargins at the end of the show as most of the traders just sell at shows and biking events so they would probably wait till show's like Excel and BMF type shows next year to off load any remaining stock at knock down prices. It was very difficult to get anything off items I purchased even though I was flashing my HOC stand pass.

3% Drop in numbers bearing in mind the crap weather, even later in the year show and economic crisis actually shows that the biking world is being more resiliant than some to this years issues. How has our stand done? The NEC is not normally a big gain for us but it was decided some years ago we have to be there. Is that still the case?

We seemed to have quite a few membership enquiries yesterday on the HOC stand and were talking to a lot of possible members.

One thing that cropped up on a few occasions was visitors surprise that the HOC existed, many had never heard of us before. I guess they had come to Honda ownership through the secondhand market. Some visitors told me that they had received info about HOC from their dealer when they purchased a new bike which is good news. We also had a few enquiries from Ireland yesterday.

Regards

Chimpy

Thursday 4th. Attendance was 9848. Now 3% down overall.

We had a nice couple turn up who had been told about our club night by Erica. Hopefully they like what they saw and will join.

Alan

Friday 5th - 10,872 - down on 2007. Now 6% down overall.

Notice they have stopped giving the daily percent decrease. It must be dire!