Vintage Evening at Duxford - 22nd June 2019

Discuss airshows and other aviation events at the Imperial War Museum
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rockfordstone
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Re: Vintage Evening at Duxford - 22nd June 2019

Post by rockfordstone »

i think the first i heard of it was the may air show, they announced it in a very "oh by the way we are doing this thing in june" kinda way.
i was looking forward to it

Elliott Marsh
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Re: Vintage Evening at Duxford - 22nd June 2019

Post by Elliott Marsh »

Some fair points, and I'm not placing the failure of the event to generate sufficient interest at the feet of enthusiasts. IWM's website and their promotion of this have been woeful. HAC were up against it, announcing late due to the DH-9's first flight (this event being something of an at home day to see that aircraft airborne).

Equally, let's not pretend this event and an OW evening show are even remotely similar. Shuttleworth have decades of experience running theirs, at their own airfield with their established staff, volunteers and roster of pilots. HAC's event requires IWM staff to be paid for their time, a small roster of pilots to fly the aeroplanes and, presumably, IWM's own running costs to be covered at a formative show.

That aside, I'd argue against the line-up being nothing special. The DH-9 debut is hugely anticipated; to see it at Duxford on a evening in June? Just the chance is priceless to me. Similarly the Hawker biplanes - ultra rare, elusive and rarely booked for Duxford shows, let alone elsewhere. There's clearly a divide between those of us who would pay a fair whack for the opportunity to see these aircraft fly, and those of us doing it for photos or for casual entertainment. We all have a varying degree of investment in this game.
Last edited by Elliott Marsh on Mon 17 Jun 2019, 6:07 pm, edited 1 time in total.

DaveBr
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Re: Vintage Evening at Duxford - 22nd June 2019

Post by DaveBr »

If the cancellation is true, it's a huge shame. I for one am keen to support anything new that the private operators at Duxford might venture, especially in light of the current moribund efforts of the IWM.

Nevertheless, the promotion for this event has been woeful. I don't know whether that responsibility sits with HAC or IWM (or both), but for any event at Duxford to succeed the unfortunate reality is that it needs to reach a wider audience than the likes of us...

:sad:

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rockfordstone
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Re: Vintage Evening at Duxford - 22nd June 2019

Post by rockfordstone »

DaveBr wrote:If the cancellation is true, it's a huge shame. I for one am keen to support anything new that the private operators at Duxford might venture, especially in light of the current moribund efforts of the IWM.

Nevertheless, the promotion for this event has been woeful. I don't know whether that responsibility sits with HAC or IWM (or both), but for any event at Duxford to succeed the unfortunate reality is that it needs to reach a wider audience than the likes of us...

:sad:

i think it's fair to say that some of the marketing and organisation decisions this season from Duxford have fallen well short of the mark.

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LN Strike Eagle
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Re: Vintage Evening at Duxford - 22nd June 2019

Post by LN Strike Eagle »

[tweet]https://twitter.com/1940Andy/status/1140710071887912960[/tweet]
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Tom105
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Re: Vintage Evening at Duxford - 22nd June 2019

Post by Tom105 »

Wonder whether one reason is the DH9 doesn't have enough hours yet, same problem AR501 had last year?
Thomas

Mike
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Re: Vintage Evening at Duxford - 22nd June 2019

Post by Mike »

DaveBr wrote:If the cancellation is true...

Unfortunately it is. My information came directly from the IWM ticketing dept.

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Re: Vintage Evening at Duxford - 22nd June 2019

Post by Jakub.Zurek »

That is a shame. I wonder if this is something they will look to re-schedule or in fact is a cancellation due to the rumoured low ticket sales.

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jonny7
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Re: Vintage Evening at Duxford - 22nd June 2019

Post by jonny7 »

I wonder if those "Gilet Jaunes", goons they hire for security :mad: , have asked for double bubble for working after 6 pm :biggrin: . The control freaks
at "Lock the Place Down-"HQ, couldn't balance the books, as their would be more security than spectators :lol: so won't play, because things
don't go their way...with most of the world being short on honesty these days, they will tell you any cock and bull story... :dizzy:
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Re: Vintage Evening at Duxford - 22nd June 2019

Post by PirateTrickster »

Tom105 wrote:Wonder whether one reason is the DH9 doesn't have enough hours yet, same problem AR501 had last year?


I guess with the poor weather people (like me) will have held off buying a ticket, concerned that the DH-9 would not have had the opportunity to get the hours in.

Totally agree about poor marketing - only place I've seen it mentioned is, er, this forum!

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HuwJHopkins
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Re: Vintage Evening at Duxford - 22nd June 2019

Post by HuwJHopkins »

Do people on here not use social media? HAC have promoted it pretty heavily on the likes of Facebook (the HAC page and their individual aircraft pages), along with numerous other aviation pages, IWM and several others promoted it on Twitter and Aeroplane magazine also plugged the event in their DH-9 lead story this month. Perhaps if all the people saying that the marketing was so poor had actually taken a punt and purchased a ticket, it might have been a different story.

In the climate today of ever diminishing air events in the UK, which is much lamented by enthusiasts, a new one cropping up is great news. Particularly when it is an evening event at Duxford, something so many enthusiasts apparently want. As Elliott pointed out, direct comparisons with Shuttleworth are ill founded, as it pits decades long established events with a brand new one. Should enthusiasts have wanted this event to become a success and develop in future as an annual fixture, they needed to take a bit of a punt and support it by purchasing a ticket. With a new start up event like this there's a bit of an investment to be made, as you know the organisers will be up against it and that if no-one goes it won't happen again, so by taking a chance, you're contributing to the return of the new event in future. Obviously, not everyone can necessarily throw £24.50 towards something like that, which is understandable, but in reality for most people, that isn't a huge sum.

Anyway, the event has been cancelled indefinitely and won't be re-scheduled, so this won't really be an issue again.

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Re: Vintage Evening at Duxford - 22nd June 2019

Post by DaveBr »

I bought tickets as soon as the event was announced. I’m keen to support something new and opportunities to see the HAC aircraft are few.

Nevertheless the marketing was weak. The event needs to reach more people than HAC’s existing Facebook followers and aviation forum members. No one will ever stumble across something on the truly awful IWM website, so that’s out. Yes, there were flyers (with typos) at the May show, but you had to be in the right place at the right time to see one.

In any case, do we know that a lack of ticket sales was the reason for cancellation?

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rockfordstone
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Re: Vintage Evening at Duxford - 22nd June 2019

Post by rockfordstone »

HuwJHopkins wrote:Do people on here not use social media? HAC have promoted it pretty heavily on the likes of Facebook (the HAC page and their individual aircraft pages), along with numerous other aviation pages, IWM and several others promoted it on Twitter and Aeroplane magazine also plugged the event in their DH-9 lead story this month. Perhaps if all the people saying that the marketing was so poor had actually taken a punt and purchased a ticket, it might have been a different story.

with respect, i bought a ticket as soon as it was announced, but lots of us are not glued to every single aircraft operators facebook and twitter pages.
IWM haven't marketed as big as they have with other shows and lets be realistic, more people are aware of the Duxford than they are HAC

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rockfordstone
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Re: Vintage Evening at Duxford - 22nd June 2019

Post by rockfordstone »

IWM now confirming it's cancellation

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Pen Pusher
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Re: Vintage Evening at Duxford - 22nd June 2019

Post by Pen Pusher »

> Vintage Evening at IWM Duxford cancelled
>
> We are sorry to have to inform you that the Vintage Evening at IWM Duxford, 21 June 2019 has had to be cancelled. If you have booked in advance for this event you will recieve an email from IWM.


And they couldn't get the date right and is that the current way to spell receive (i before e and all that which I was taught).

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LN Strike Eagle
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Re: Vintage Evening at Duxford - 22nd June 2019

Post by LN Strike Eagle »

I only use Instagram. Having looked up what HAC put out on there, I can see two posts regarding the event, attracting a grand total of 32 likes between them. They have 110 followers. If they’re relying on numbers like that to spread the word, I’m not surprised they struggled to sell tickets. They could have reached out to websites like this to help them - we offered to help yesterday, but sadly it was too late.

It also looks like the weather this Saturday will be decent after all, so the ticket sales were sure to pick up over the next few days. It’s a shame, but I think they could learn from it rather than just throw in the towel.
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Re: Vintage Evening at Duxford - 22nd June 2019

Post by Jakub.Zurek »

Pen Pusher wrote:
> Vintage Evening at IWM Duxford cancelled
>
> We are sorry to have to inform you that the Vintage Evening at IWM Duxford, 21 June 2019 has had to be cancelled. If you have booked in advance for this event you will recieve an email from IWM.


And they couldn't get the date right and is that the current way to spell receive (i before e and all that which I was taught).


Therein lies one of the problems. Absolutely terrible from IWM. I don't recall them ever putting a single post about the event on their own social media. Secondly, not everyone uses social media, forums (didn't see a single post about the event on the Key forum either) or follows HAC. Was the event advertised in magazines or local newspapers?

We're always told enthusiasts make up a tiny percentage of airshow attendees as well, and I don't think the general public or casual airshow fans are going to know or care about what the DH9 is...

LN Strike Eagle wrote:It also looks like the weather this Saturday will be decent after all, so the ticket sales were sure to pick up over the next few days. It’s a shame, but I think they could learn from it rather than just throw in the towel.


Definitely would have had some more ticket sales leading up to the event.

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pbeardmore
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Re: Vintage Evening at Duxford - 22nd June 2019

Post by pbeardmore »

Well it's an interesting case study. You can be World experts in the renovation of classic aircraft and have a very rare aircraft to offer in the display but this means little if you can't get the marketing right. Such a shame as I'm a big fan of evening shows (and we have seen them work at many other locations) and I think there is great potential for evening shows at Duxford but they should be planning 2020 evening shows now and fully integrating them into next year's schedule IMHO rather than squeezing a new show in at relatively short notice. It must be hard when you have little of no marketing infrastructure to build upon.

The Figher Collection (for example) does have great infrastucture and an existing brand to build upon so an "Evening of Legends" or "Legends Evening", "Legends Sunset Show" etc is something that the public would just grasp as a new event but easy to visualise what you will get. (classic example of brand extention)

Such a shame

PS spot on re the significance of the DH9. Joe Public have different priorities.
Last edited by pbeardmore on Tue 18 Jun 2019, 10:37 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Elliott Marsh
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Re: Vintage Evening at Duxford - 22nd June 2019

Post by Elliott Marsh »

The event was advertised in Aeroplane at the very least, in the magazine's leading news story. Flypast also promoted the event via social media channels.

Instagram is pretty new for HAC; they did, however, advertise repeatedly across their numerous Facebook pages (the main HAC page and the respective pages for the individual aircraft themselves, I want to say six in total).

Regardless of whether the cancellation is down to a lack of ticket sales or otherwise, the IWM's ineptitude made the event all but invisible on its website and social media platforms - a poor show from them.

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pbeardmore
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Re: Vintage Evening at Duxford - 22nd June 2019

Post by pbeardmore »

As with the Daks meet, it's interesting when IWM partner with another party for an airshow and I'm always curious re the business relationship/model. Perhaps IWM perceived that there just was not enough cash on offer to make it worth their while to promote properly? Again, with time to plan, the exact nature of the IWM role re promotion can be locked into a contract?
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Re: Vintage Evening at Duxford - 22nd June 2019

Post by Ryan. »

pbeardmore wrote:As with the Daks meet, it's interesting when IWM partner with another party for an airshow and I'm always curious re the business relationship/model. Perhaps IWM perceived that there just was not enough cash on offer to make it worth their while to promote properly? Again, with time to plan, the exact nature of the IWM role re promotion can be locked into a contract?


The thing is, social media can provide a platform for promotion for free. You just need to be active and understand the medium. The IWM Twitter feed is dreadful, it never replies to anyone and seems to love retweeting images and videos clearly taken outside of Duxford. It just shows a complete lack of interest, for the Daks of Duxford event, tweeted the IWM to ask a simple question about the carpark, no reply, tweeted UKAR and got one almost instantly. It's possible to have a very small budget and publicise effectively, just have someone who understands the medium and is passionate about the project.

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Re: Vintage Evening at Duxford - 22nd June 2019

Post by Mike »

You only need to look at what Shuttleworth are doing to see how effective a marketing tool a well-run social media presence can be.

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pbeardmore
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Re: Vintage Evening at Duxford - 22nd June 2019

Post by pbeardmore »

The point re social media is well made but IMHO you have to go beyond that to capture the mainstream market,

the platform is free but the platform on it'sown achieves nothing. You need decent staff who understand all of the ellements. There are some great examples of organisations who have tried to exploit socia media and harmed their brand by not investing in decent staffing...and that does take investment.

the Flying Legends posters have become a traditional part of their marketing for example, and there are still people who like getting a leaflet in the post, I think you need a mixed approach and execute all of these very well in order to succeed, this takes time and investment. Shuttleworth have had years to put this in place (and obviously make mistakes along the way, who hasn't), but, clearly, their evening shows pay off (in every way)

it's tough starting from scratch.
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Re: Vintage Evening at Duxford - 22nd June 2019

Post by clearstone »

From IWM Duxford Facebook and Twitter:-

We are sorry to have to inform you that the Vintage Evening at IWM Duxford has had to be cancelled. The weather forecast for the week and event day means it’s highly unlikely the DH9 would be prepared and able to display at the event, so we have taken the difficult decision to cancel the event today.

We do apologise for the disappointment this will cause but safety standards are paramount. If you have booked in advance for this event you will have received an email from IWM.


[tweet]https://twitter.com/IWMDuxford/status/1140965541504606209[/tweet]

Elliott Marsh
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Re: Vintage Evening at Duxford - 22nd June 2019

Post by Elliott Marsh »

In other news, the DH-9 made its third test flight this morning (photos on the excellent Vintage & Classic Light Aircraft group on Facebook).