Stay at the Motorhome and Caravan Show Club pop-up

We are staying at Chapel Lane for £28 per night. Thurs/Fri, It won't cost £28 in diseasel to drive to the NEC on the day we visit the show. So quids in.

I fell off my chair pre Covid when the price was, I think, £35. It's now £42 a night for a car park! plus a £1 booking fee! What planet is CAMC on?
Most will want a day and a half at least at the show, so two overnights..£84.

the C&CC have a THS just up the road at Croxall Farm for a tenner a night and you can drive to NEC and park in the normal car park for free.

As I understand it the fees reflect the costs of setting up such a site. Other than the parking surface everything like, electrics, water, waste disposal was to be brought to the site and set up and dismantled at the end of the show. There will always be cheaper alternatives but the opportunity to literally walk from your caravan/motorhome directly to the venue, at any time of day, will be more important to some than the cost. The only alternative is for the Club not to bother and I am not sure in whose interest that would be?

David

the C&CC have a THS just up the road at Croxall Farm for a tenner a night and you can drive to NEC and park in the normal car park for free.

They have hard standings as well.

peedee

Don't have a motorhome at present 🥲 so won't be making use of it. Couldn't believe my eyes when I looked at the cost 😱😱 it gives 2 prices for both paved and shingle pitch butcheapest price only available on the final night after the show closes......

A shuttle bus ride is free, but you have to have electric. 

No wonder members of this club are regarded as wealthy 😉

Well, David, if you think £84 is the going rate for a day and a bit on a slab of tarmac, a portaloo and a restricted leccy supply then good on you...and have you seen the CCEP?? Yuk.
the NEC provides a free car park during the day, it wouldn't be beyond anyone (even the club) to get agreement for vans to stay overnight for for a tenner.

the thing is, vans would only need one night then (arrive at opening time, stay one night, leave van in car park while you complete your visit) not the two nights required for a decent visit due to the way the arrival times are set up.

£84 is a far better take than a tenner.

I agree that the simple option would be for the NEC to allow you to park overnight with no facilities provided but I don't know why they don't do that? Has anyone asked them? Perhaps its a security issue whereby they would have to provide security staff and if that was the case it would unlikely to be free? But I reinforce what I said before the Club have to be able to cover their costs and when they embark on such an operation they have no idea what occupancy they will get, although I suppose they would look back at previous years. Yes I have heard about the waste facilities Whenever the Club provide these facilities people complain about the price, that clearly puts some off but clearly others seem reasonably happy with it otherwise I imagine they would go elsewhere. 

I remember years ago thinking about taking the van to Silverstone for the GP weekend. Whittlebury Hall were running a campsite but with electrics the price was way more than what the Club is charging for the NEC. I suppose if anyone is willing (at the time) to shell out £250 for a weekend ticket for the GP (each) they are not too bothered about the price of other things. In the end we decided to drive up on both days we attended, we are only in MK.

David

I'm not sure comparing Silverstone with the NEC is relevant tbh.

The advent of 'festivals' has seen different cost propositions aimed at the particular punters. Often the costs are set by the company out to make the highest profit, even if it's a charity event like CarFest for Children in Need for example. Where you have multi millionaire tax evaders telling the poorest in society to dig deep, determine the food and beverage rates, and charge vendors incredible fees to pitch up.  £45k for a pizza oven van at the music thing in Somerset for example. CarFest to camp via the CAMC offer was £840 for 3 nights when we looked at it, plus admission. Pub in the park was £80 admission per day, £18 for a G&T and £12 for a tuna tin size meal. Most don't allow you to take your own food, drink and alcohol in.

We did Silverstone this year for the F1 and were so impressed we have booked for next year. We use Woodlands, which has access at Stowe and Vale entrance gates, closest campsite to the circuit. A 16A electric pitch in Family is £132, per adult is £89, kids £29 with unlimited entertainment in the various areas. You buy a reusable cup in a bar at £1 with a pint at £5.4, then fill it with your cans of beer you've got from the supermarket. Arrive Weds morning, depart Monday, a holiday with alsorts going on. Food inside the circuit is expensive and basic beer like Heineken at £6.5 a pint. But as you take your own it it's irrelevant. General Admission tickets are £203 for 4 days, with roaming grandstands Thurs/Fri.Toilets/Showers were individual and better than a lot of CAMC offerings, spotlessly clean given100k+ people on site. The fancy Ox restaurant was sadly lacking, but thats where the London Crowd with second homes in the Cotswolds eat out in the bricks and mortar places. They are in for a shock in a tent in a field.

We enjoyed watching the 5.5 hour queue of helicopters taking corporate bods at around £2.5k per ticket to a nearby airfield to join a queue to get out of the area. Some had a 26hour day door to door, mugs.  They also had a trip round the circuit on a flat bed trailer artic unit. We had a great night of entertainment, a good dinner at the caravan, a good nights sleep and a queue free journey home.

We treat it as a special annual holiday going forward, not jut the F1.

We did Marvellous festival the other weekend. Admission £40 per adult, sensible food / drink prices, although we took our own.  However camping is non electric at £150 flat fee if you stay 1,2,3 nights.  We won't be camping.

Maybe the CAMC is aiming at the London set who have more money than sense and know the price of everything but the value of nothing, not ordinary folk, but are not telling people.

There is surely no need to provide an electric hook up just for a night (or even two) in a MH or caravan. This is where the extra cost is ramped up.

the use of a bit of gas for a cuppa and running the fridge has to be a better option than installing several king sized generators?

whilst I know many members simply 'have to have' EHU at sites, surely at a 'pop up venue' like this, there needs to be a certain amount of cutting cloth.

by insisting on providing a hook up for the few, the club has effectively driven the price through the roof for those (surely the vast majority) who don't need it for one night, and there is no non EHU option.

surely, the majority can manage without it for such a short time and thus keep the cost down for everyone, with the few 'that can't' having to make the compromise rather than the other way around?

at a tenner a night, no EHU, I'd use the NEC but at £42 which is just covering cost for a service that isn't required doesn't cut it.

The point of mentioning Silverstone was that it would have similar set up costs. To me a weekend at the Grand Prix would trump going to the NEC by probably a factor of at least 10 However I did manage to speak to the Whittlebury Hall team at another event and they confirmed that it was the steep cost of providing the EHU that sent the price so high. So would it be any different at the NEC? Of course the Club needn't provide EHU which would no doubt reduce the nightly cost. However I assume the Club base that need on what previous customers have booked?  I imagine the Club base what they provide on previous evidence of demand so it is as it is. Fortunately the NEC is and easy car or train journey from where I live. 

David