How to Run a Car Show: The Complete Guide for First-Time Organisers

Before you do anything else, nail down four things: your venue, your date, your capacity, and your insurance.

The venue sets everything. A flat, paved lot with clear sight lines is your best friend. Grass looks nice but it's a nightmare when it rains and a nightmare for any car owner who's precious about their undercarriage — which is most of them. Figure out how many cars your venue can hold with proper spacing. I run 20 feet per car as my baseline for a judged show. At 20 feet you can walk around the car, open doors for judging, and let attendees move through without bottlenecks. If your lot holds 300 cars at 20 feet, register 340 and expect 290 to show. No-shows run 10 to 15 percent at most shows. Plan for it.

Your date matters more than people think. Check local event calendars. Check whether you're competing with a major regional show that will pull entrants. Avoid the first cold weekend of fall and the last hot weekend before school starts — you'll get killed on attendance. I've found that late spring and early September are the sweet spots in the Midwest.

Insurance is non-negotiable. Get a one-day event liability policy. Most venues require it anyway, but even if yours doesn't, get it. One fender bender in the parking lot and you'll understand why.

Work backwards from show day. At the Great Lakes Invitational, my planning timeline looks like this:

More shows fall apart at registration than anywhere else. I've seen it dozens of times. Someone built their registration process out of a Google Form and an email inbox and then wondered why they had three duplicate entries, a dozen people who registered for the wrong class, and no way to communicate with their entrants two weeks before the show.

You need a system that does a few things: collects the car details you actually need (year, make, model, class, owner name, contact info), takes payment online, sends an automatic confirmation, and gives you a list you can actually use on the day. Whatever that system is, it needs to be something your volunteers can look up a name on in under 10 seconds at a chaotic check-in table.

Always collect a mobile phone number. Email is fine for pre-show communication, but the morning of the show, when you need to reach someone because their car is blocking the entry lane, you need a phone number.

Plan for walk-ins. Always. Even if you close online registration a week out, someone will show up with their '69 Judge and a story about why they didn't register. Decide in advance whether you'll accept them, and if so, have a walk-in process that doesn't hold up your main check-in line.

The first two hours of a car show are the most important. Cars are arriving, owners are anxious about their spot, volunteers are getting their bearings, and anything that isn't set up yet is now a problem. I have one rule I never break: the check-in table is fully staffed, fully supplied, and fully briefed one hour before gates open. Not at gates-open. One hour before.

Check-in should take under two minutes per car. Name lookup, verify class, hand over dash card and dash number, point to the parking area. That's it. If you're doing it right, you have a line that moves. If you're doing it wrong, you have a line that stops.

Your parking volunteers — I call them greeters — are the most important people on the field. They need to know the layout cold. Every car that parks in the wrong row creates a problem you have to fix during judging. Give your greeters a printed map, walk the layout with them the day before if you can, and make sure they know what class is in what section.

If you're running a judged show, your judge quality is your show quality. A bad judge — someone who penalises a driver-quality restoration because it's not show-quality, or someone who scores a car higher because he knows the owner — poisons the well for everyone. I've seen owners walk away from shows and never come back because the judging felt rigged. Even when it wasn't.

Train your judges. Give them the scoring criteria in writing before the show. Tell them what each category covers. Tell them how to handle ties. Tell them not to engage with owners while judging — this is one you have to enforce, because owners will absolutely try to walk alongside a judge and explain their car.

Two to three judges per class is the right number. Average the scores. Have a chief judge who resolves ties and can step in if something goes sideways.

In my experience, the trophy ceremony is the show. Everything else is setup. Owners drove their cars, spent money on registration, maybe drove two hours to get there — and the moment they're waiting for is hearing their name called and walking up to get a trophy. Do it right. Use a real microphone. Announce each winner by name and car. Give the crowd a moment to applaud. Don't rush through it because you're running late.

If you're running late — and you might be, your first time — cut somewhere else. Don't cut the ceremony short.