Anybody else make it to 86Fest?
 

What did you guys think of the event?

Met lots of nice people and enjoyed the event myself, waiting for parking was a bit lame though. :mad0260:

Way worse then last year. No communication at the initial entry, an hour of waiting in line before getting towards the front and then being told to exit your car to get wrist bands from the ticketing windows and run back to your car instead of having people handle this through your car window as you pulled up like previous years. After that get stuck in another line in front of the gate that didn't move for an hour or more because the organizer was still trying to figure shit out, security guard was not allowed to let us enter until she got the okay from him. Another event was going on inside the same gate so less space was available for the show. Alot of people didn't even park inside because of this which ended up making it a smaller show. The vendors this year did not have anything interesting to purchase for our cars compared to last year. Also food placement was horrible having to walk in the way of cars trying to get out to autocross or the track added to the congestion. The way they did it last year was much better leaving the fence doors open and having the food trucks on the unused side beneath the bleachers.

Funny you mention that I actually got yelled at by one of the drivers for the track event going on because I was apparently in his way (I was following the FR-S in front of me to the parking spot and there were a couple of other 86's following me so I don't see what exactly he expected me to do :iono:)

sounds the same as last year and the year before

Yeah I was running the infield track with a bunch of other FR-S/BRZ's and AE86's

I was very dissapointed this year, not as many vendors. Very unorganized, everytime i asked when judging for the carshow would be announced no one knew snd i was given a different time each time. At one point one of the organizers actually told me they didnt know who to even ask for that answer. I ended up leaving early and missing it because it was so hot and my wife was starting to get sick. Nice attendees though.

When is 86 EXPO gonna be on westcoast again? @ichitaka05..... sounds like 86 expo is just there to get vendor and ppl's money & zero time spent on organizing.... =__=

went there last year and the year before & it sorta got worse and worse

Made it out there today, but probably my first and last 86fest. Was fun for a couple hours spectating the autox/drift sessions and track event, but as for everything else, basically no organization and from what I saw people didn't even need a ticket for general admission when I paid. Majority of who I saw walked past and noone checked for anything. Parts available were so so.

Smart to have the entry line cutting off the entry/exit point for the autocross guys. Logistics was a shit show.

They wanted me to pay for my 3 year old, and I didn't see the part where parking was an additional 15 bucks. While they let me slid on my kid, I'll more then likely not go again. I mainly went to support my friends who had booths, and didn't get the deals I thought i would from vendors.

I hear you man, noone really said anything so we didn't know who to talk to. Also my friend pre-paid to park non judged with the other 86/brz but didnt know where to go so just parked with me at the parking lot outside the ticket entrance. Again I saw people just rolling through like nothing so :iono:

prop the most disorganized show i've been to. The initial parking line was stupid and no one knew what was going on. The $15 parking fee was BS as well. Not many vendors and entertainment provided.

PS: I was one of 3 minivans at the event :D

Haha FYI 86EXPO is owned by us FT86Club. 86Fest is owned by Antonio. Antonio is a good guy and he's car enthuse for sure specially AE86, he's a diehard fan! Just not organized.... but I can't say much either. We had a hard time organizing few yr's back 86EXPO. We had very limited staff w huge space, we were dying.

As for the tickets, it makes sense for them. To make a event, it need money. One of our staff is pushing to make 86EXPO require ticket... but tbh feel waste of staffs. Rather them help w parking & other stuff. BUT keep in mind, can't compare 86EXPO to 86Fest. 86Fest IS the biggest 86/BRZ event in America. Several THOUSANDS of people comes to 86Fest with countless vendors. We in the other hand, we get several hundreds of people come, which I'm totally happy about, cuz I get a chance to talk w em even for few min or secs.

Now back to bringing 86EXPO to west... not sure. I wanna be fair to members in the East too, BUT I'll keep that in mind what we can do. We don't got budget like Antonio, but we'll try to see if we can do 2 small event, one for the East & one for the West.

Yeah, i ran infield with few AE86 & widebody 86s. Here's my breakdown for this year:

1) Communication regarding parking was bad. Track drivers didnt know where to park vs GTA guys since we were pointed left and right. Eventually they told us to park at the garages/ lots furthest from the show...& this all happened at 7am so i cant imagine how bad things got after 10am.

2) Track organizers kept better control of times and everyone got 5 runs as promised. Wouldve got 6 if we were lucky. Less drivers this year so that wasnt so bad. Weather made cars run really hot so 15 min runs were fair.

3) Show was a lot smaller but the attendance made up for it. Nice to see other make/models but i would've liked more 86s. Again, parking facilitation sucked so cars parking in between garages only slowed people that needed to make it onto the track (we only get 13 minutes to drive max) More food vendors wouldve been nice too.

Overall... it was better than last year for me. But thats because i mainly went to track so time went by faster. I could definitely see how it wouldve got boring quick, especially with the heat.