We hosted our popular annual bike show at the Wakefield May Day Gala, on Monday 2nd May (May Day Bank Holiday), at Clarence Park Arena. We have appeared at the Gala for a good number of years now, hosting the Yorkshire MAG stand and a free to enter bike show, which is a very popular attraction with the 'public' at the Gala.
Our advance party arrived at the site at 09:00am to set up the MAG stand, in the same prominent spot as the past few years: an elevated slightly sloping plot above the main arena, highly visible from the entire site, and conveniently next to the access road.
We quickly erected the Yorkshire MAG stand (well, pending a few head scratching moments as we desperately tried to remember how it had gone up the previous year), and populated it with lots of MAG promotional material, leaflets, posters, copies of the Road magazine, together with Wakefield MAG products for sale. Following the success of last year, we also repeated the tombola, raffling prizes most of the branch had donated.
And last by not least, we also had a 'guess the number of sweets in the jar' game.
So, with our stand all set up, we then waited for the show entrants to start rolling in, which they started doing in considerable numbers after the Gala officially opened at 10:00.
We had lots of coming and goings throughout the day but had around 30 bikes, 8 trikes and 3 scooters in total, which was a brilliant turn-out.
The weather could have been a bit better around lunchtime (it precipitated somewhat heavily) but it nicely cleared up mid-afternoon.
The Gala stunt show was back this year, with trail bikes doing stunts and jumps, a White Helmets style 'lets see how many people we can get on a bike', wheelie'ing Suzuki Jeeps and stunt quads. All very entertaining and highly skillful on a damp surface will little run-ups and short braking distances.
The bike show judging started around 1:30pm and following the MAP rally bike show format, we dispensed with categories and instead had 5 show winners and an Overall Best in Show. This format works well as you never quite know what will get entered. As always, the judges decisions were difficult (downright impossible !!) but we eventually came up with a consensus. With the winners decided, it was time for the prize giving .... cue drum roll:
At the end of the show, people started drifting off. Following the earlier rain, the grass was a bit slippy, and a few bikes struggled for traction, but with our marshals on hand, everyone was helped off, and importantly, no one decked their bikes !!!
Another excellent show and a most popular attraction at the Wakefield May Day Gala. The tombola was particularly successful, as were our product sales and the 'guess the sweets in the jar' game - we made around £225 towards the MAG fighting fund, beating last years amount, and setting a new bike show record !!!
A huge thanks to everyone who visited us, brought their bikes / trikes and scooters along to show, and spent lots of money on the tombola and products. The MAG stand did very well and we gave out huge amounts of literature, fielded countless queries, sold £34.50 worth of branch products, had money donated to the MAG cause, took several memberships and will hopefully see some new faces at the weekly meetings on the back of it.
A massive thanks too for the Wakefield MAG crew (and friends and family) for setting up the stand (and taking it down again), manning it all day, selling tombola tickets by the dozens, manning the bike show and our show judges - Awesome team work guys ... you are the best !!!
We will be hosting another show at the Wakefield Gala next year, so hope to see you in 2017.