It's The People - ZCON 2010

Robert_Nash

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.

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Robert
-My Basset Hound Is Smarter Than Your Honor Student and Barack Obama -

300twinz

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.

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1991 300ZX Twin Turbo

Robert_Nash

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!

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Robert
-My Basset Hound Is Smarter Than Your Honor Student and Barack Obama -

westpak

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.

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Robert_Nash

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.

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Robert
-My Basset Hound Is Smarter Than Your Honor Student and Barack Obama -

NIZMOZ

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.

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SOLD: 2007 NISMO 350Z #0044 Silver Alloy
New DD: 2010 Titan Pro4X CC

Robert_Nash

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.

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Robert
-My Basset Hound Is Smarter Than Your Honor Student and Barack Obama -

NIZMOZ

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

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SOLD: 2007 NISMO 350Z #0044 Silver Alloy
New DD: 2010 Titan Pro4X CC

Robert_Nash

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 : Who is going to this???

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!

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Robert
-My Basset Hound Is Smarter Than Your Honor Student and Barack Obama -

DarkPath

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!

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westpak

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

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westpak

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

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westpak

LOL 2010 370z NISMO for sale

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Robert_Nash

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.

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Robert
-My Basset Hound Is Smarter Than Your Honor Student and Barack Obama -

Robert_Nash

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.

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Robert
-My Basset Hound Is Smarter Than Your Honor Student and Barack Obama -