How to Run a Car Show Volunteer Team (Without Burning Out Your Best People)

There's a rough formula I use: one volunteer per 15–20 cars, plus dedicated roles for check-in, judging support, and the ceremony. For a 200-car show, that's roughly 12–15 field volunteers, plus 4–6 at check-in, 2–3 supporting judges, and 2–3 for setup and breakdown. Call it 25 as a minimum.

Recruit 30 percent more. Of your 25 actual slots, try to have 32–33 people committed. You'll lose 7–8 on the day to life circumstances, and you'll be exactly staffed.

The instinct for many organisers is to recruit the right number and assume they'll all show up. In 35 years I have never had every single volunteer show up as scheduled. Plan for attrition because it is a certainty.

The single most effective change I made to volunteer management was writing specific role descriptions instead of putting people on general teams.

The specific version tells the volunteer exactly what they're responsible for, where to be, when to arrive, and when they're done. It also tells them what they're NOT responsible for — they don't have to answer questions about parking or judging or trophy pick-up. Someone else handles those.

Write specific role descriptions for every volunteer position. Distribute them a week before the show. Follow up with a reminder two days out.

Every show I run starts with a full volunteer briefing at 7am — one hour before gates open. Every volunteer is required to be there. It takes 20 minutes. Here's the agenda:

On any show over 100 cars, designate a volunteer captain. This person is not assigned to any station. They float. Their entire job is to watch for coverage gaps, solve staffing problems, and be the go-to for any volunteer who has a question or a problem they can't solve themselves.

The volunteer captain is usually your most experienced, most dependable person. They need the authority to make minor decisions on the day without checking with you — move a volunteer from a quiet station to a busy one, add a third person to check-in if the line is backing up.

Without a volunteer captain, every problem comes to you. And show day you are already doing ten other things.

The people who come back year after year are the engine of your show. They know the layout. They know the procedure. They know which sponsor needs extra attention and which judge gets snippy if his lunch isn't ready. You cannot replace that institutional knowledge with new volunteers every year.

Take care of your long-term volunteers:

• Give them good assignments. Don't put your best person at a boring station because you needed a body there.
• Credit them publicly. At the ceremony, thank your volunteer team by name if the list is manageable.
• Feed them. If there's food at the show, volunteers eat for free. No exceptions.
• Ask them for feedback after the show, and actually use it. Nothing builds loyalty like being listened to.
• Give them a volunteer t-shirt or hat. It sounds small. It's not small.

Volunteer management is relationship management. Software can handle your registration, your scoring, your dash cards. It cannot make a new volunteer feel welcomed and confident, or make a burnt-out veteran feel appreciated. That's your job.

Call your key volunteers before the show. Not to confirm logistics — they have the briefing document for that. Just to say you're glad they're part of it. It takes five minutes per person and it costs nothing. In my experience, it matters more than any process improvement you'll make this year.