Autosport International, Jan 2005

[Lyds]

Hey Everyone,

How many UK (or other) Universities are planning on displaying their cars at the Autosoprt International Show at Birmingham in January? Our team is currently looking into going, although the fees for it are quite high! I was just wondering how other Unis go about paying for the stand fees. Do you take it out of your budget or does the uni pay?

Also, of those that have gone before, have you found the occasion beneficial to the team in terms of sponsorship and thing?

Cheers!

Lyds
LU Motorsport

[Lyds]

Hey Everyone,

How many UK (or other) Universities are planning on displaying their cars at the Autosoprt International Show at Birmingham in January? Our team is currently looking into going, although the fees for it are quite high! I was just wondering how other Unis go about paying for the stand fees. Do you take it out of your budget or does the uni pay?

Also, of those that have gone before, have you found the occasion beneficial to the team in terms of sponsorship and thing?

Cheers!

Lyds
LU Motorsport

[syoung]

Hi Lyds

Warwick's not seriously thought about exhibiting at Autosport as, like you say, it's seriously expensive. We do send a few of the team down to go round and pester potential sponsors though http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif

I believe that, last year, Birmingham could be found perched on the end of a sponsor's exhibition stand in one of the main halls - a lovely bit of sponsorship if that really was the case!

[jonno]

Brunel have a stand there for at least the 3rd year, Autosport is an excellent opportunity to show the car off to the various existing sponsors: they see their logos promoted to the autosport world.
Another benefit is the car will be there, and various top motorsport people will question why you have done things on your car: you can learn an incredible amount and get fantastic ideas for future cars (assuming your cars evolve rather than revolutionise).
Birmingham were guests on the silverstone tyres stand last year, but at least 6 other unis were there in the education area: us, oxford brookes, leeds, definately and a couple more.
finally, it is an opportunity for undergrads to nose around and see how the systems they are developing work on other motorsport vehicles.

[ben]

I arranged to get the Birmingham car on the Silverstone tyres stand last year. I can't believe any team actually pays money to take a car to the show.

You all have sponsors right? At least 1 or more of your sponsors attend the show right? This isn't brain surgery as you can see. What company wouldn't want a shiny race car on their stand? Have you actually asked any of them?

Ben

[jonno]

Our sponsor is paying for the trip, Ben. The sponsor is "Brunel University", who want a shiny race car on their stand to attract people to do the new motorsport engineering course http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif

[jonno]

So what did all the exhibiting teams think of the show? i definately reckoned the stand was worth investing in again, all the current sponsors loved seeing the car on the stand, several new ones were found, and over 30 members of Brunel University got in for "free" http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif

[Lyds]

We haven't had time to review all the contacts and what-not that we got at Autosport, but there were loads!! The show was brilliant on all counts, apart from maybe some of our boys' obsessesion with getting (virtually) naked girls across the car when one of our girls left the stand!

One of the best things was that we had lots of Loughborough graduates come to the stand that wanted to help us in some way..one of which is doing some stuff for Brunel http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif They are the type of people that you wouldn't really meet otherwise. They didn't know about Loughborough's involvement before the show and now we have got some potentially good contacts.

Other things include getting some "proper" racing drivers in the car which looks good with the sponsors. In fact, on both thursday and friday when we were being snapped by some media guys, our sponsors where there saying "can you just make sure you get our logo in" they LOVED it!!!

It was definitely a great chance for the Team, and I was talking to Jonno and the other guys at Brunel about doing an "FS Pitlane" at the show. Maybe help get a bit more exposure for the event and stuff. And is anyone thinking about displaying at Goodwood??

Anyways, enough rambling...

Lyds

[syoung]

Unfortunately Warwick had to prioritise rebuilding our car (currently a spaceframe awaiting re-welding) over throwing a chassis together and persuading a sponsor to give us some display space.

Warwick Univerity is unlikely to give us money for our own stand at Autosport. We'd be much more likely to go the Birmingham route of persuading a sponsor to give us a few square feet on their stand; the concept of an 'FS Pitlane' is nice, but would raise the cost for (or exclude) those teams which don't have as much financial support to pay for their own display space in preference to exploiting a sponsor's goodwill.

Lyds: We may well be interested in exhibiting at Goodwood. Do you have any details/contacts at the moment? I've been chatting to Dean Scott by email over the last few weeks - he can give you my address; let me know!

[jonno]

we're booking our goodwood plot possibly tomorrow, best way to sort it is through the website www.goodwood.co.uk/fos (http://www.goodwood.co.uk/fos) they have links to sort the pitch.
Alternatively, the IMechE may invite teams to be on their stand if they have it again... however last year it was quite short notice - about 3 weeks prior to the event if i remember correctly...
finally i was chasing up the feasibility of fs cars running up the track, possibly in the space left by the soapboxes since that has been cancelled after barry lee's crash in the bertrandt box last year, which whilst it is still very unlikely to occur it would provide
1) relatively cheap exposure and
2) top notch exposure
I'll keep persuing that angle if teams are interested...

[Lyds]

The idea of going up the track at Goodwood would be brilliant, but I think that they refused it before didn't they? Maybe to do with the safety/regs issue similar to the hillblimb issue of feet behind the centreline of front axle. But we would be interested in that, depending on the state of the new car, or possibly the old car! Either way we are seriously looking into displaying, will be sorting it out after our exams.

Simon: Regarding Autosport, you should talk to your admissions people about it. I'm not sure of the exact figures at the moment till I sift through all the info, but we got rid of SO many prospectuses and really raised a high profile for the team and the courses. Your admissions will have a budget...maybe they would let you have some money. When I get all the facts and figures I'll let you know...see if it's any use.

Lyds

[syoung]

Yes please Lyds!

Is someone at Loughborough still liaising with Prescott about a possible repeat of your demo there? It would be great for promoting Formula Student within the hillclimb world. I've already told Dean we're interested.

[Lyds]

The Prescott things are on hold at the mo, what with exams, Autosport and designing and building the new chassis. But one of our guys sent an email around asking if any other teams were interested. I think there were quite a few reponses. We were hoping to see Paul Morris from Prescott at Autosport but we missed him. We're definitely keen on doing another presentation run if we get a chance...it was great fun last time! As soon as we know anymore I'll let you know.