Right. Bike Show South West. 28th - 30th April '06, Bath & West Showground, Shepton Mallet, Somerset.
The Manky mob will be there.
We've got 5 unfinished trike projects on the go here in Basingstoke, 4 Reliants & 1 GS850 Suzuki & we've entered them as a job lot. Caused a bit of head scratching with the organisers. They haven't had bare metal rolling chassis on show before so weren't sure what class to put us in. We're going as a sort of unofficial club stand. I faxed the entry forms off yesterday so now we've got about 3 weeks to get organised & do as much work as possible on each trike.
I've rented a 16 x 7 foot tilt-bed trailer & Flap's gonna tow it with his Landy. We've got a stand in the indoor trike hall 50 feet long by 12 feet deep, backing onto a wall with the front & one end accessible to the viewing public. Entry was free & we get 2 free passes for each vehicle, although we compromised on the bare frames & got 1 pass each for them. The trailer works out at about 15 quid each from the 5 of us for 4 days hire so won't cost any more than going to the show as normal punters. Not planning anything too flashy -just thought people might be interested to see some works in progress as well as shiny mega buck show bikes & it's an excuse for a weekend away. Simon & Nigel might camp over but Flap, Rainbow & I all have to work on Saturday mornings.
So any ideas on a theme for the stand? 50 feet sounds an awful big space to fill! They've allowed 10 feet for each vehicle's length but we reckon they'd look better angled at about 45 degrees. Would be nice to arrange them in order from basic rolling frame up to more or less complete trike. Critch, if you read this, any chance of coming up & pinching your bare frame for the weekend? We could sit it up off the ground on a display stand. Not much in the way of props -thought maybe just cut out some big spanner shapes from MDF, spray them up & scatter them around the part built vehicles. Will take the MSVA manual with us cos lots of prospective builders still haven't seen it, maybe knock up a stand for it so people can browse it. We've already got some laminated poster sized prints of the MMMotors logo to lay beside each frame -if they get photographed we'll get our name in the shots! Could do with printing out a modified version of the homepage, with the logo rather than me in the car to explain who we are. As we'll be backing onto a wall I thought perhaps we could have some artwork -the monkey evolving into a man thing, with an ape holding a bone morphing into a bloke with a spanner, or maybe a crouching monkey evolving into one riding a trike? Anyone able to Photoshop that? Where could we get large sized prints done from computer images? The guy who prints our shirts has a printer that'll do about 2 feet by 1 foot, which is what the logo posters were done on. I've checked with the organisers & we're allowed to sell shirts & mugs so I've ordered a couple of dozen black outline Ts, (tan shirts for fellas & red for girlies), & I've got 2 dozen mugs here already, (the Merchandise page will be up soon). Not planning it as a money making venture but it'd help to pad out the stand a bit & get the logo & site address seen. Would love to get the Jag seat/leather sofa finished & take it down to lounge on at the back of the stand while we're there, but don't think we can get back to Steve's workshop & finish it in time. Steve, feel free to do it if you get bored with the race car!
So any ideas people? Suggestions? Or just come along & say Hi over the weekend, gawp at the monkies & poke 'em with sticks. Bring cake with you.