Hey, My girlfriend is putting together a Classic Car show August 8th, 2009 to help raise money for her class, she is in the nursing class at North Metro Tech in Acworth, Georgia. She's also trying to raise money for the "Give Burns the Boot" foundation, that benefits firefighters burnt on the job. All of the girls in her class are helping out, if anyone has any sugestions to help it become a success, I'm sure she'd appreciate it. The website, and flyers are under construction, http://www.ratrodnurses.webs.com/ but there isn't much there yet.
Be sure to let us know more details when they are finalized. Henrietta the '38 Ford pickup and I will try to be there.
First thing I would do is not call it "Dirty Nurse." You have to have a name that is attractive to the sponsors. I would also include motorcycles, because those guys always have too much money.
How about "bedside angels" or some a little more respectable. Few real nurses would appreciate being portrayed as some 50's 8mm stag film character
Hot Nurses, gets your attention. Will you have some mail in donation system set up, sounds like a very good cause to support.
(This is Caitlin, the girlfriend) Thanks for all the suggestions guys! We are going to attempt to put up a paypal system for preregistration and donations, but I'm not sure how to keep all the paperwork straight. It's not "Dirty Nurse" we stuck with North Metro Car & Bike Show for lack of anything more creative. I *did* want to do a Nurse Pinup contest, might be interesting. Has anyone done a car show before? Are there things I should make sure to get done?
A FEW THINGS..... dirty nurse was cool.... next.... GET YOUR LOCAL AUTHORITIES INVOLVED ASAP.... THE MORE THEY KNOW AND SOONER THE BETTER they want toy know what will be going on... and if your participants like to do burn outs.... they will be more lenient and let a few go as it wont be a lookie what we jsut stumbled on ... a ticket fest. and they wont shut it down..... supply your own security.... police are expensive. get your city council involved since it is a good cause..... they will help you with permits.... and get your permits.... nothing sucks more than getting shut down when things start rolling. get sponsors.... car wash places, local companies, spa places massage , hair, restaurants, toy places... raffles draw money for the cause. shirts for the event cost money. sponsors can help in this area too.... but can raise some. you will be left with left overs. fence the area if you plan on charging for pedestrian traffic. have a nice place to park for your show participants..... food vendors.... charge them... or work a deal out for a percentage of the days profit. sell water, soda, coffee, doughnuts.... cheap stuff to raise money. awards.... get your catagories going early... small plaques for the cause is great... you can even have hte recovering fire men/ women be the judges and have an award from each of them for a personal favorite.... just no duplicates.... hahaha kids games.... keep them busy and out of the way.... i mean in a safe area. face painting keeps them still for a while.... jump houses, tricycle races..... sack races... egg toss... you know the fun games we all did as kids at the parties we would go to... bring it back home.... you can make great events happen with lots of laughs... the more hillarious the games .... even for adults... the more people will remember.. the old panty hose tied around the waste with 2 soft balls in one leg trying to knock a golf ball across the lawn is always good for laughs.... im sure there are other ideas... but these are some of our basics.... and advertise... get on your local radio stations... call your local car clubs. pass out fliers at the highschools... good luck! and have fun
AWWW man,,, "The Dirty Nurse" is what got my attention and im sure the same for everyone thats opened this thread......................... Thats a cool name for a show...... SURE to attract red-blooded hot rodders!!
Honestly, this is kind of a boring name that won't catch many people's attention. Mazooma had a good idea. Try to think of something more creative and dynamic and less strictly descriptive. Some pinup contests I've seen are run more like strip shows. Keep it tasteful so that you don't offend your sponsors... unless your sponsors are all into that kind of thing. I help organize and run the Hunnert Car Pileup. We're in our 8th year, so feel free to ask me questions. Make sure you have food and restrooms available. Food vendors make money off the show, so they should pay YOU to be there. That will help offset costs. The same goes for any onsite vendors, if you choose to have them. Someone mentioned sponsors. Good idea, but think of ways that the sponsors will benefit by giving you money. Will their names/info be on a t-shirt, banner at the show, on the website, etc. Check with local businesses, not just car-related businesses... bars, restaurants, stores, HMOs, etc... and keep the sponsorship costs low. That way small businesses can afford to help you and get their names out there. Low cost will also allow you to get more sponsors instead of a few big ones. Talk to an alchol distributor. They may have promotional swag (tshirts, etc) for you to give out or raffle off in lieu of a paid sponsorship. Maybe get a tattoo studio to donate 1 hour of tattoo time in lieu of a sponsorship and you can then raffle that off. Guys are SUCKERS for girls. At the first 2 Pileups we tried to sell raffle tickets (50/50 and PBR swag), but could barely get any takers... then some of the guys' girlfriends and some of the PBR girls walked around and came back with buckets stuffed with cash in a few minutes. Seriously. Get your fellow nurses to walk around selling tickets. Don't just sit at a table. Walk around. Since this is a charity event, see if a friend's band or a DJ can donate their time for show entertainment. You may still have to rent a PA. Finally, advertisement is key. Don't just throw flyers in local car shows. After a car show, my car is littered with dozens of flyers. I rarely read them. If you want your show to stand out, make your flyer stand out. Put flyers up all over town and at surrounding towns. Mail them to your out-of-town friends to distribute, too.
Dirty Nurse, you nailed it with that name! Just imagine the promotional poster, t shirt etc, it has massive potential! I would want to copy write that name, what a brand name! Don't change that! Any chance of some dirty nurse pics to silence the critics, maybe they could look the other way! If you do T shirts put me down for one! Hellfish you say guys are suckers for girls, that's one reason the name is killer. How much could a group of dirty nurses in uniform sell!
Perfect advise! Follow his menu and it no doubt be a success. also,hit the local hospitals, nurses will help out other nurses.My wife has her masters degree in nursing and we have the visiting nurses air show..huge turn out about 100,000-200,000 people over the 2 day weekend.Good Luck.
OUR CAR SHOW LESSON #1 IN NOWHERESVILLE............ I LEARNED IT THE HARD WAY! If you have judging and maby even awards of some kind, I would be sure to have a "peoples choice" for the main show or maby one for each main catagory of rod, custom, stocker, bike, tractor, etc. (maby a nurses choice?). We did a car show here in Nowheresville some time back and some guy with an "original" early 50's Plymouth got severly pissed because the award went to a "restored" car and not to his "original" un restored car. He was probably right and we should have thought that through! Whats in a word - right? My feeling is to let others do the judging and not the sponsers/organizers. Keep it fun and maby not too serious.......... SOME PEOPLE ARE SO TOUCHY!
Lots of good suggestions have been made here. A few more. Since the benefit is for injured firefighters, it should be easy to get some firefighting rigs there. Especially if one of the departments in your area or a collector has one or more antique fire trucks that they can bring, will help draw in the crowds, especially people with kids. (Cartersville FD has a beautifully restored 1918 LaFrance pumper, but they don't take it outside the city. It was Cartersville's first motorized fire truck, all the pumps and everything on it in working condition. Cedartown FD has a very sharp '48 LaFrance open cab pumper that was supposed to have been at our show on May 30 but was sidelined with mechanical problems.) Some of the other departments in your area may also have some vintage firefighting rigs that I don't know about. Many departments also have fire safety exhibits and programs that they can do for the kids that are both fun and educational. Some other suggestions. Make sure your web site has good directions to the show site coming into town on all of the major roads leading in. Have good simple signage (reusable for next year's show if you do it again) with just "Car Show Today" and arrow pointing in right direction put out the evening before. At the show site, more basic signage for parking, registration, vendor sign in, etc. Enlist support of area car clubs. I'll take care of getting the word to Northwest Georgia Cruisers in Rockmart. I have a good friend at church, Wayne Turner, who is very involved with the AACA chapter in Cartersville, so I can get the word to that club as well. Post it on the events page at www.fordbarn.com and of course here at HAMB. Find out what other shows are in the area and try for a date that doesn't conflict with too many things close by. There are so many shows and cruise ins in northwest GA now that it's impossible to have a date that doesn't conflict with something. Publicize the cause that you're supporting, I know a lot of guys who only take their cars to events that support good charitable causes. Your local weekly paper and probably the daily papers in Cartersville and Marietta will give you some good ink for an event raising money for a good charitable cause. Joe Hiett is a good contact person at the Cartersville paper.
Keep it pre-1965. No Rat Rods (safe vehicles only) and only original mfg'ers bodys. Give the best in show to the nicest flathead. LOL. OK I was just trying to boost the flatheads chances. LOL.
Nice idea, but hard to define and enforce. We have enough trouble keeping the Pileup to "traditional" style only. The line is often blurry (let's not debate it here!). Keep the rules simple and clear unless you want to get into arguing with people and are prepared to really fight for your definitions. If it's for a charity, you may want to keep the rules a little more loose. Clear directions are good! Good idea 38. Once you've written the directions and provided a link to MapQuest, Google maps, etc, have someone else read them and verify that they are clear and correct. The first Pileup in Morris had all the right directions, but MapQuest had people turning the wrong way off the highway.
Hellfish, I see your point. Especially when considering that it's for charity. I was just thinking about how nice it would be if someone would have a traditional hot rod show instead of a car show. Anyway I hope they have a great show. Wish I could be there.
Ok, sorry about the long absence, it's finals week for this quarter and the show took the back burner for a second. So far I've got a raffle, trying to get donations/sponsorships from different buisinesses, porta-pots have been donated, a few raffle items as well. The antique firetruck idea was GREAT- I have one that can be pieced together for the show, and there's a few others that I've seen around. As far as the vehicles IN the show, I chose to leave it at Classic Car/Bike simply because it's a charity show, and if a 72 wants to show up and help us out, I'd be more than happy to have them. Hopefully, everyone will get along and won't get pissy about cars and awards. The date has been moved to September 12- Rain date the 13th because I kept running into scheduling issues. :-/