scalford hall hifi show 2011

[dudywoxer]

I have nagged about this for two years, in public and privately to James (when he briefly would speak to me), but the man is scared, chicken shit scared of losing money. Chester Group saw potential to make money out of it as the risk takers (that is what business is) but they wanted to control the anarchic nature of the forums, which is impossible. So seeing as they could only just about break-even against cost (1st year they lost, last year they made a little profit), yet they still had the aggravation, according to Justin Bird at Chester Group the plug is pulled.

As James is just a ordinary working guy who set up a forum, I can understand why he would not want to risk loosing money running a forum show. I, and I'm sure many others would be just as reluctant to risk doing it.

If the forum members are so keen on the wam show (or its ilk) going ahed then the answer is in their own hands.

Find the people who are prepared to organise and staff the thing. Work out the costs per ticket to cover it. Base this cost on the average attendance of the last two shows, and every one pays, visitors and attendee's, but you pay in advance.

That should let the costs be covered and bills paid before the event. Any on the day ticket sales (at increased cost) can be put to one side to ensure that part payment for the following year is available.

 

[flatpopely]

All is not as it seems people. Stay tuned!

 

[Richard Dunn]

I have just spoken to Justin Bird again, as I have confirmed my room booking for Whittlebury Hall, anyway at the end I asked him to confirm again about Scalford as I am being told I am making it up and trouble making. He laughed and said "typical forums, why should we want to be involved in this........" anyway it seems the meeting with his dad was only a couple of days before my conversation with him and the letters to everyone involved have only recently been sent out.

 

[Richard Dunn]

I would be more than happy to help organise.

I would feel far happier about your sentiments and motives if I hadn't seen you try to get away with showing your new products free of charge at last years show, and then kick up a fuss and pull out of it when you were found out. Only to at least partially see sense and attend and negotiate a half price contribution

 

[Fnuckle]

It is a concept that needs nurturing and helping along, but look at the threat it presents to the mainstream industry of manufacturers and retailers and magazines. None will help promote it and most want the concept to die as they lose control of the market place if it succeeds.

There's nothing wrong with Bake-offs and forum-based events, but they present no threat to the industry whatsoever.

Many of those who attend the Salford show and the bake-offs are little more than a cadre of fiftysomethings who haven't bought anything new in 20 years swapping products with one another and spending their time barking about new products without ever trying them. The small army of parasitic companies that base their trade on forums consider these shows important because they are important to them.

It's just another circle-jerk, just like the 'mainstream' shows like Whittlebury. If anything, these forum and geek-led shows are best kept in splendid isolation, because if any normal human being wandered into one of these shows, they'd run out screaming. They'd naturally think hi-fi meant lousy sound, with a half-moon of old men staring at something that looks like someone let off a grenade in B&Q, and should come with its own Scratch 'n' Sniff board.

The threat presenting to audio in general is that it got sidelined. Since the 1980s, subsequent generations of what would have been hi-fi buffs in embryonic form got into game consoles, computers, iPods and a plethora of other gadgets and gizmos. Meanwhile, everyone got cash-rich and time-poor and then cash-poor and time-poor. Add to the mix a music business that now jumps whenever Steve Jobs tells it to and an audience who think 'audiophile' or 'hi-fi' means spending more than £20 on a set of iPod ear buds. That some magazines, manufacturers and dealers treat everyone under the age of 40 like some kind of leper (and anyone over 40 as some kind of leper with a credit card) didn't help either.

So yes, let's have shows like Salford and Whittlebury because they are fun, but let's not get carried away by placing a significance upon them that they do not deserve. Because making second best seem first rate is just perpetrating the lie.

{written from my Anderson shelter, wearing my little tin hat, waiting for the onslaught}

 

[Purite Audio]

Scalford is fun, and it is quite interesting to hear so many different systems from the last fifty odd years of music reproduction.
Ferrographs,Apogees ,Quads, etc

 

[Fnuckle]

Scalford is fun, and it is quite interesting to hear so many different systems from the last fifty odd years of music reproduction.
Ferrographs,Apogees ,Quads, etc

Yeah, and that's why they should stay strictly amateur. It's great for people interested in the hobby to have a show and tell, with other hobby members. If trade people visit or attend, great... but they attend as enthusiasts on a level playing field. Not as some kind of selling event.

Edit: An exception to this is the record sellers. They should not only be there, but be the only possible trade people who could help pay for such an event. Their attendance in a professional capacity does not sour the event and they can legitimately sell music to music lovers who attend.

 

[Purite Audio]

Completely agree.
Keith.

 

[wadia-miester]

They don't need Chester group to organise that show, Chester brought nothing to it.
Keith.

Keith,

Prehaps you could eleborate on this please
Do you feel that something was missing or just not orangised that well?

 

[Purite Audio]

Tony h
Hi, well they booked the hotel, what else did they do, I didn't see any advertising for the show,was there any, what else did they do apart from collect money on the door?
Keith.

 

[Richard Dunn]

I thought they did a very good job, within investement limitation. Lots complained that it wasn't promoted through mainstream magazines, but that costs, everything costs when you want to take the old route to market. It was up to the forums to create the footfall and I think a good job was done creating the awarness for the show through the forums. AND the show was busy with all the right people and the people who should be there.

The problem is very simple, you cannot make the profit required by a profit orientated company purely on ticket entry, for them there must be a seperate revenue stream from people paying for their rooms. The members at Wigwam shot that down but accepted a small charge for larger rooms. So Chester Group had to try to get trade interested to increase revenue. I was extremely doubtfull about this and I was right, the mix between the two just does not work, but I did it anyway as I knew if I and others didn't then they would have made another loss and they would pull out. I ended up the only company to do it and got nothing but insult and grief for my pains, Chester Group saw this and realised no future manufacturers or trade were going to get involved, so they are out of it, it is that simple.

 

[Fnuckle]

I thought they did a very good job, within investement limitation. Lots complained that it wasn't promoted through mainstream magazines, but that costs, everything costs when you want to take the old route to market. It was up to the forums to create the footfall and I think a good job was done creating the awarness for the show through the forums. AND the show was busy with all the right people and the people who should be there.

The problem is very simple, you cannot make the profit required by a profit orientated company purely on ticket entry, for them there must be a seperate revenue stream from people paying for their rooms. The members at Wigwam shot that down but accepted a small charge for larger rooms. So Chester Group had to try to get trade interested to increase revenue. I was extremely doubtfull about this and I was right, the mix between the two just does not work, but I did it anyway as I knew if I and others didn't then they would have made another loss and they would pull out. I ended up the only company to do it and got nothing but insult and grief for my pains, Chester Group saw this and realised no future manufacturers or trade were going to get involved, so they are out of it, it is that simple.

Are you really surprised you got insults and grief from this?


You may have been the person essentially paying for the whole thing, but you would have been the lone 'pro' muscling in on the 'amateur' game. Had it survived this year and some completely different manufacturers pitched in (unrelated to your business), you would have still got into a world of hurt because you were the the first one to taint the venture with the aroma of filthy lucre. I seriously applaud your 'stones' in going there, but you really were on a hiding to nothing.


The Salford show is/was a great idea, but it remains an idea entirely unrelated to commercial ventures. The fact that it was run by a commercial show organiser is almost immaterial, but ultimately the source of its demise.

 

[Richard Dunn]

Of course I was on to a hiding to nothing, I knew that and I didn't care, I just want others to know it as well. I have a view on the future of this market and I state it, I do not hide my opinions, so if I hadn't supported the show then people would have had every right to call me a hypocrite and that is one thing that can never be said about me. For me it was worth the £500, I enjoyed the weekend in a perverse sort of way and many of my customer came and it was nice to meet and talk to them. I actually sold enough items at the show for the profit from those sales to pay for the room cost, and as I say if need be I would do it again if that meant the show would live.

That is also why I am underwriting the costs of the London Bake-Off Show at the end of October, which again will be non trade, though trade guys can come with their enthusiast hats on, but all the bullshitters and marketing men can stay away, they are not wanted.

 

[Fnuckle]

Some of the 'bullshitters and marketing men' are also enthusiasts. The two are not mutually exclusive. A few of the Salford show people would count as both.

What happens then?

 

[Richard Dunn]

Just don't start spouting in front of me!

 

[wadia-miester]

Tony h
Hi, well they booked the hotel, what else did they do, I didn't see any advertising for the show,was there any, what else did they do apart from collect money on the door?
Keith.

Keith,

I am merely curious, not making any judgements, did you feel the same after heathrow this year?

 

[zanash]

There's nothing wrong with Bake-offs and forum-based events, but they present no threat to the industry whatsoever.

Many of those who attend the Salford show and the bake-offs are little more than a cadre of fiftysomethings who haven't bought anything new in 20 years swapping products with one another and spending their time barking about new products without ever trying them. The small army of parasitic companies that base their trade on forums consider these shows important because they are important to them.

It's just another circle-jerk, just like the 'mainstream' shows like Whittlebury. If anything, these forum and geek-led shows are best kept in splendid isolation, because if any normal human being wandered into one of these shows, they'd run out screaming. They'd naturally think hi-fi meant lousy sound, with a half-moon of old men staring at something that looks like someone let off a grenade in B&Q, and should come with its own Scratch 'n' Sniff board.

The threat presenting to audio in general is that it got sidelined. Since the 1980s, subsequent generations of what would have been hi-fi buffs in embryonic form got into game consoles, computers, iPods and a plethora of other gadgets and gizmos. Meanwhile, everyone got cash-rich and time-poor and then cash-poor and time-poor. Add to the mix a music business that now jumps whenever Steve Jobs tells it to and an audience who think 'audiophile' or 'hi-fi' means spending more than £20 on a set of iPod ear buds. That some magazines, manufacturers and dealers treat everyone under the age of 40 like some kind of leper (and anyone over 40 as some kind of leper with a credit card) didn't help either.

So yes, let's have shows like Salford and Whittlebury because they are fun, but let's not get carried away by placing a significance upon them that they do not deserve. Because making second best seem first rate is just perpetrating the lie.

{written from my Anderson shelter, wearing my little tin hat, waiting for the onslaught}

Some of this I can agree with ....yes fifty something ....but as not bought anything in the last 20 years .... my hi fi spend over that time must be about £30k ....so I'd be more careful in your generalizations, otherwise more opeople will pick holes in them .....

agree about the music thing and loss ...if thats the right word to other genres

but where do you get secondrate sound from ? or is that just your opinion .....

laste year the sounds were all first rate or better ...not nessesarily my cup of tea ...but no way were they second rate and yes that my opinion !

 

[sq225917]

I appreciate what Chester did, which was bank roll the show, anything else they did was just to ensure they made money from it, everything else, beyond booking the place and paying was handled by the room guys and James and co from the Wam.

Like Richard I'd happily pony up the cash to cover the cost of the event based on James's continued support and interest, and I've got nowt to do with the industry at all. To be honest neither has the show, it's not an industry show its an enthusiast show ,a social gathering, a meeting and long should it stay that way.


Si

 

[Fnuckle]

Some of this I can agree with ....yes fifty something ....but as not bought anything in the last 20 years .... my hi fi spend over that time must be about £30k ....so I'd be more careful in your generalizations, otherwise more opeople will pick holes in them .....

agree about the music thing and loss ...if thats the right word to other genres

but where do you get secondrate sound from ? or is that just your opinion .....

laste year the sounds were all first rate or better ...not nessesarily my cup of tea ...but no way were they second rate and yes that my opinion !

I expect my opinions to be picked apart. That's the point. And they are generalisations; not everyone who attends a hi-fi show smells like a badger, only has two albums (and both of them are Brothers In Arms) and last bought an audio component when Harold Wilson was in power. But the same faces do turn up to the same shows, ask the same question to the same person every year, pick up a carrier bag full of brochures and walk out. They never change, just grow older... as does their equipment.

A show has the same effect on sound quality, whether that show is amateur or professional. One person pitches up, spend 30 seconds plonking their equipment down in the corner of a room and it sounds magical. The guy in the next room spends two days tweaking, adjusting, running in and bedding down and it still sounds like two donkeys gargling bits of broken glass under a duvet. It's hard to find rules to determine why one works and one fails (although I guess room acoustics might be a factor).

The only difference between the likes of the Whittlebury Hall show and Salford is the magic pixie dust that makes everything sound good gets sprinkled in different places. In pro shows, the magazines and commercial websites praise almost everything for sounding wonderful, whether they do or not. Meanwhile, make any criticism of the sound of the amateur rooms in a forum and may God have mercy on your soul.

We all need to grow a pair. Everyone is too precious about their own sound to allow anyone to dare say that it might be mediocre. Well, in most shows the sound is just that. Last time I went to a show, I asked the same question throughout - "did you expect it to sound like this?" I wasn't the most popular man in the room in most cases, and I got a lot of PR-fluffy answers, but a surprising number of people were quite honest and shocked that no one ever asks that kind of question.

And I completely reject the "not my cup of tea" argument. It doesn't work - you don't walk out of a bad concert saying "well they were off key, out of tune and under-rehearsed, but that just makes them differently good." This is the sort of apology-led mind-set that made everyone think England's Word Cup team was made up of the Golden Generation of players, instead of a mob of moody millionaires who kick a ball with their egos. A system in a room should have the dynamic range, loudness headroom and lack of tonal anomalies to be able to replay a range of music well. I concede that someone who's musical tastes skew the system toward one aspect of performance over another will mean a system that favours a particular end of the equipment spectrum, but we need to forget this cracked notion of the 'classical' loudspeaker or the 'rock' amp, or even the 'British', 'German', 'American' or even 'Romulan' voicing.


In other words, if it sounds wrong, it probably is.

 

[Richard Dunn]

Like Richard I'd happily pony up the cash to cover the cost of the event based on James's continued support and interest, and I've got nowt to do with the industry at all. To be honest neither has the show, it's not an industry show its an enthusiast show, a social gathering, a meeting and long should it stay that way.
Si

The enthusiasts *are* the industry, and the sooner we recognise this the better.