Lessons Learned Post(Indy08) from other board...

Craig

Here's a few so far:

Banquet:
Have only one entrance open at first to collect banquet tickets before they go into the room.

We ran out of roast beef sometime before the last row of people were served.

PA System:
Need one in gasoline alley.

I'll modify this post as I think of more.


GregF

Suggestions

Banquet:
1) 1 buffet line per every 200 guests going to banquet.
2) Make sure to schedule people to start babysitting banquet hall by 3 hrs before the banquet starts.
-Or keep banquet hall locked until 30 minutes before then have people checking tickets.
3)


Track Coordination
1) Make sure to go through the schedule with the track and confirm the schedule they are giving the 'yellow' shirts.
2) Do not say 'banquet ends at 9', leave end of banquet open-ended if possible. If not possible, move banquet to another venue.


General-will sort later.

1) Have volunteers get together for a meeting for training the weekend before the event.
-Things to go over would be FAQs from site, rules, give out main organizers cell numbers, and put together volunteer schedule. Leaving volunteer scheduling wide open is a bit cumbersome. Try to schedule 3 hr blocks

2) Have lunches planned and preferably ordered BEFORE the event. Do not do an on-the fly decision for it...Friday wasn't too bad, Saturday was a nightmare.

3) Change is required. If you are selling a hot ticket item either round to nearest 10 or have a load of change on hand.

4) Radios...get rid of the CICC Radios and rent real radios. On a normal day like friday or sat they are fine, but on Sunday, during the lap, you need to be able to really talk to people w/o fear of no one hearing you.

5) Set up a 'decompression' place Sunday after the lap. Even if the club doesn't buy, people will want to get together to hang out and talk about what just happened.

6) Tshirts aren't enough of a gift, club members should get either free banquet or possibly heavier discounted banquet tickets if money allows.

7) Use the Brickyard hotel as the host hotel. Saves bus time.

Only have Shuttle bus Friday PM and Saturday.

9) Get letter from GM endorsing show and use it to present to sponsors and vendors. Go after Vendors ferociously and immediately after show dates are set.

10) Need to run committees. No one person can have entire show layed out in their head. Need small groups to focus on parts of event. While plenty of volunteers appeared and were willing to help, need to have these teams of people focused so they know what's going on. Can play it by ear for parking and general event help, lap of track, parking, and registration need to be heavily staffed with folks that have attended and know what will be happening.

11) Need more banners. Simple sign for Event Office isn't enough, need banner to hang from roof of building. Also need the same for seminars and banquet as well. If not posibble, layout of show area on map given out may work or have a sign out in main entry area pointing toward where things are at.

12) Need detailed map of show area as opposed to large map of entire track area.

13) Need better defined schedule and where things are going to be.

14) DJ, DJ, DJ!! Need way to make announcements over loudspeaker during the event.

15) Lap of the track-Do NOT collect the window cards before the cars file single file through the gate. Yellow shirts can take over directing traffic at a moments notice and botch up the best laid plans.

16) Grease the skids with the yellow shirts on Sunday AM if show went late Saturday night. Bring box of donuts to yellow shirt hive at 6th and Hullman.

Deanna

My only item I want to post is an explanation of how Sunday was supposed to work.

The whole point of the cards and the needle and yard was to do this:

Cars are to come through a check point, like the gate, single file and hand off their card to the person with the needle and thread. As they come through they all get put in order as they are going on the track. This helps to keep photos in order as well as keep a slow but steady flow going onto the track. What we had was cars and cards out of order as the yellow shirt staff took people out of order of what we had planned. And we also had cars bunched up trying then to get on to the track. Most people never went over 15 mph, as I've read on the boards, because of this backlog.

We'll have a card and photo matching party sometime in the next week. They should be in order somewhat. I tried to make notes of the last car that went through before we had a break in the order, but I don't know if I caught them all.

I fully accept fault for this as I should have been up near the front explaining this instead of outside the gates trying to direct traffic. I apologize to Chino that this got out of hand.

This was a good lesson learned for the next time (as I am sure there WILL be a next time)!


GregF


1) Radios-Need better radios for Sunday AM
and
2) The comment about giving cards at the final checkpoint.

I'm going to add another one too..

3) HAVE A LARGE SIGN WITH RULES OF THE TRACK ON IT TO REMIND PEOPLE ON THE WAY IN...too many guys were doing hard launches and being idiots on the track.

SteveE

Have a schedule of people working. what point are they working. No walk ins we need a times to work not just show up and point. we had people to work but not in shifts and most may not have known the whats and wheres for the day.

Commettiees a must.

a meeting the night before the event

a meeting every morning or the night after event

a suggestion box

a meeting after the event to dicuss the weekend maybe also a group breakfast

MikeL

Deanna as I mentioned at one of the meetings, on community day when you take a lap, get picture it goes like this:

Line up in north 40 and recieve waiver/release to fill out/sign, and card to fill out IF you want a picture.

Then they take you around back just like we did.

There are assistant(s) to the photographers at the opening to the track and if you want a picture they take your card right as you enter the track. Once in single file and you enter the track the order shouldn't change.


As for the speed, I was first to go behind a yellow shirt in a Colorado. He stayed right at about 15 MPH and that pretty much set the pace for the beginning anyway.

You know I was going thru my club stuff to stick the new stuff with it and I came across the "IndY2K Event Program" that was made for that show for participants. Basically all the hand-outs, welcome page, GM page, Do's & Don't, sponsor sheets, a page for each meet&greet speaker, etc., etc., etc., put in a booklet with the plastic binders for the spine. I had forgotten about those and thought they really looked classy, well thought out, and a nice way to keep everything together and organized. I'll try to remember to bring it to the next meeting for those that have not seen one.

One more thing. For Y2K we had a fairly large dedicated show staff (I was not on it), however it was made clear that ANY CICC member could attend any meeting with GM and the Speedway if they so desired. The day we had the poster shoot I did attend one of them and it was quite informative, and YES, I did keep my trap shut!
For Y2K there seemed to be much better communication with what occured, was discussed, and decided on at the meetings. For Indy'08 sometimes I really felt out-of-the-loop so to speak and had no idea where we stood on many issues.

Security at hotel. Clarify what the 'extra security' means in the hotel contract. Would recommend never using Holiday Inn again due to problems with Meet 'n Greet and then Security issues.

The food left many in distress over the next couple of days in more ways than one. The tan & brown color scheme of fried things, weird tasting roast beef and underbaked cookies & brownies were the highlights!
A different caterer with more stations, food not left sitting out for so long, and a better menu with some veggies or green salad are some thoughts to ponder for the next event.
Other than the banquet situation, the event was superb.
GregF

Need to have shirts set aside for pre-buy folks. We ran out of some size of shirts before people got them picked up. Not exactly fair for those that prepaid. Even if we don't sort them out, need to have prebuy ones in a separate area...