While I don’t need to go into the specifics of just how many years have passed since I’ve graduated high school, (hint: enough,) the Atlantic City Car Show floods me with nostalgia at the memory of skipping Friday classes, waking with the sun, and trekking down to the first serious car show of the east coast car show season. We have bested the cold, the snow, and the public school system of New Jersey, because we are desperate for cars, for the smell of classic exhaust fumes, the undiluted scent of ancient, leather seats.
It has been months since we have seen a car not stripped of its dignity, swashes of salt stain a permanent, winter fixture. We have paid our own cars no homage, for the treasures are packed away, safe from the elements, and the impenetrable malaise that spreads throughout even the most stalwart winter advocate, when the sky matches the color of dirty, city snow, and we wonder if spring will ever, ever return.
But I digress. It’s necessity to point out that the Atlantic City Car Show has the distinct advantage of being the first of the season. In the same way a starving man would be indisposed to comment on the toughness of his steak, we are unlikely to argue over the details of this season-starting car show, since it is knee deep into February, and we all quietly fear that might never see another car in our lives that exists outside the color spectrum of salt, snow, and slush.
Four years have passed since I’ve last been to the Atlantic City Car Show, but despite how desperate I was for a winter car show, I was disappointed. Here are a few reasons why:
The enormous Atlantic City Convention Center could have easily accommodated another fifty to seventy cars. Towards the back wall, past the auctions, there’s a parking lot sized space where far too few cars are being stretched to make the room feel as though it’s more full than it actually is. Unfortunately, the opposite effect is achieved, and by the time one reaches the other end of the world, they feel that yes, definitely, the AC Car Show has lost some of its muster. If you search the entire tri-state area, you’re bound to find more cars looking to go up for auction. Something, anything, it seems, to fill the back of the room.
If the underwhelming amount of cars is a problem, an even larger one is posed when it comes to the vendors. A small 10×10 booth at the show will run you no less than $450, and the larger booths along the edges of the room cost more than $1,000. And there’s no way it can be worth it, because those other booths barely get any foot traffic at all. Still, we need more vendors. If the show were willing to lower their prices a little, I’m sure they’d find it worth the effort.
In the olden days, vendors used to spill out into the hall, finding any space possible to accommodate sign sellers and pinstripings and all a matter of car paraphernalia, from musty copies of Motor Trend, to the distributor cap you desperately needed for your 1972 Cadillac Eldorado. There is an endless supply of car-related things to sell, to buy, to consider buying, to claim are too expensive but then check out on Amazon later, ect., onward, and upward.
While the vendors this year made a fair show of it, it just wasn’t enough. There’s no reason at all that the convention center can’t be lined with vendors, filled to the brim with car related salesfolk. I understand the necessity of appeasing an irritable spouse, and why there exists the occasional fashion or sport related tent. But those shouldn’t feel like a bigger event than the car related tents, not at the first car show of the season. Bring back open expanses of car models, automotive photography, and ancient racing christmas trees. Keep us entertained enough to forgo the mid-afternoon exhaust fume-fueled naps in the food court, for goodness’ sake, make the whole thing a little more exciting.
I’m sure there are many reasons that this show is losing its spunk. The decline of its host city can’t be making things easier, that’s for certain. But the weather this year was perfectly accomodating for travel, even the two and a half hour hike we took, and so mother nature can’t be marked as an excuse.
The truth of the matter is that Atlantic City should be hitting it out of the park. They are the first car show of the season, an advantage that should allow them to take risks, to bring in major crowds, to have live music, restaurant tasting booths, kids’ entertainment, pinstriping demonstrations, and whatever other ludicrous ideas they might be able to jangle up. Unfortunately, the sentiment around the office seems to be that their special calendar spot is now the only reason to go at all. Thank their lucky stars it’s not a spring or fall event, nobody would bother.
So, in order to save this east-coast car-show icon, they need to make a few changes. They need to open their minds, throw some new life into the routine droll of the auction excitement, spice up the car community inside the cavernous AC Convention Center, and make it worth it for people to stay overnight, just to get in one more day.
Why not host a classic car film against the back wall, drive-in style? Bring over the kettle corn booth for a flash of good old-fashioned kitsch, and make the evening worth sticking around for.
Atlantic City needs to take responsibility, and make vendors want to come to them.With the high cost of a booth and weekend spent in New Jersey’s finest gambling township, it’s easy to see why there’s little value for vendors in this show. By implementing nostalgia themed events, late showings of Drag Strip Girl, or Beach Boys cover bands, a larger, more diverse range of automotive vendors might just change their tune. This show need to take some chances, or they risk losing it.
After all, being the first car show of the season should be an advantage, not the only reason to go.
For Car Show Safari’s full gallery of AC Photos check us out on Facebook!