ReSchedule EMAIL FROM
After a lot of work in a very short amount of available time, we received the final approval from the City of St. Petersburg for the date of the re-scheduled Corvettes @ the Pier show.
I hope this will work for all of you. The re-schedule date is Saturday, August 25th.
While many dates were considered, many constraints were also on us as well, primarily when the park was available and when other Corvette Clubs had either shows or major club events that would have conflicted with the dates of the Pier show. Here are some of the things our Board had to deal with in selecting the new date.
June and most of July and early August would not work because many people are on vacation while their children are out of school or to just escape the Florida heat. Also, some clubs had re-scheduled shows during that time frame. Additionally, we feared that many vendors were already booked for June and July and we were afraid some would not be able to attend.
If we did not schedule the show before October 1st, the start of St. Petersburg's new fiscal year, we would need to completely re-apply for the use of the park. Before October 1st, all of our permits were transferable.
It also turned out that we could not have any dates between October 1st and January 1st, as all events in the City parks must be approved in advanced by City Council and the time period between October 1st and January 1st was already acted upon, and no applications were being accepted for events during that time frame. Even if they were willing to make a special exception for us (which they could not), the months of October and November are slam dunk filled with events already scheduled, both in the Park and by other Corvette Clubs in the state. Forget December as well, as there are many weekend parades, Christmas and New Years Parties and just getting ready for the Holidays themselves. To have the show after January 1st, the park was pretty open, and we could apply without any difficulty, however, January is not that warm and the NCRS show and the St. Pete Grand Prix starts the show season and it gets really full from then on with other shows and events all over the state.
Another option was to just wait until next May and have the 25th Anniversary show then, but the logistics would be difficult, and even though it would still be the 25th Anniversary of the show, it just would not feel the same. We have a really nice show planned with over 30 vendors and really nice two tier trophies for the Judged Classes and even larger ones for the special awards.
Once we had selected a date that would work for us and the park was available, the City still needed to get approval from the Police Dept for the road closure of Bayshore Drive, which we just finally received.
So, the show date is set, August 25th, 2018. Everything else is the same.
We will be re-opening Registration again for those participants who could not make the May show and can make the August show.
Currently, we are maintaining the list of participants already registered. Anyone who was going to be at the show and now can not, please get me that information as soon as possible. Our plan is to either give their goodie bag, shirts and/or coffee mugs and dash plaques to their host club to take back with them or if that is not possible for them, we will ship it to them.
I am sorry we had to postpone the original show, but as it turned out, although the morning was just a bit overcast, it did rain like holy crap between 11:00 and 3:00 here (while we were scheduled to be judging the cars) and all the corvettes would have sank down to their axles in the park, not to mention how much mud they would have had to clean from their undercarriages after getting their cars out of the park in 6" deep mud ruts! I will also be sending this email to everyone in our database, but please let your other club members know what is going on so they can register if they can make it. As always, any questions, please, call. I really hope this change in the show date will work for all of you. More to follow in the next few weeks.
Bob Bryce
Show Director
727-686-2131