How to stoke the competitive flames.... Your input is needed...

[JWright]

Two questions:

What would you as a competitor like to see in a New Soundoff Event ?
What would you as a spectator like to see in a New Soundoff Event ?

As everyone is aware... our hobby has experienced a pretty sizable drop in interest and attendance since it's peak in the 1990's and early 2000's....

What can WE do to get people interested again....?
What can WE do to retain current competitors and draw new...?
What can WE do to get people attending the shows...?

OK, I guess that's more than just two questions.... but you get the idea...

Let's brainstorm on this...

[Hillbilly SQ]

...

[beak81champ]

Noob here. This is an awesome thread! I joined this site simply because I remembered what having a little system was like in the 80's and 90's. I didn't even know you guys were still at it, or what high end companies existed. This site has really opened my eyes to the fact that the industry might still be strong, or could be again. The ideas of multi-functional competitions, in my opinion, is awesome! I think I have 4 car audio shops here in Springfield Illinois, but I'm not sure, and I have lived here for 40 years. If I didn't know the shops from back in the day, I would have no idea where to go for equipment or an install, except for Best Buy!!! I am reinvigorated about doing this again (not competing, just having a nice system), but it was on a whim, not because I heard about our local shops.

I think local shops everywhere should get together and have open houses, competitions, meet and greets, etc. They should think outside the box and have things like bike nights, with live bands, vendors for bike related things, motorcycle audio ideas, bikes with systems to look at and hear, etc. Or a cruise-in, sound off, type of thing in the evening and do some LED lighting competition on bikes, lifted/lowered trucks, hot rods, and everyday cars, so the young kids see what is possible. Maybe have on-site installs for OEM speaker replacements, interior LED lights, etc. as part of an instant purchase. Bike nights around here are held in parking lots of restaurants, like Hooters, BW3's, Quaker Steak and Lube, Steak and Shake, etc. which keeps people hanging around for a while...

Just random thoughts from someone without a dog in the fight....

Show people "normal" cars with small 1 amp, upgraded speaker systems, with no custom enclosure work, to show them that they can have awesome tunes without having to spend thousands on a car they will be upgrading every 1 or 2 years. Maybe have a db meter handy to show them before/after results of a simple upgrade. That may get them excited to keep going. There is also a hugely untapped market of young, old, and in betweeners in the bass fishing market that no one thinks to cater to. These are guys that spend $100k or so on a truck, high performance bass boat, and thousands on fishing equipment, and would probably love to have an awesome system in their boat puller, because they drive hours upon hours to fishing tournaments in these machines. You can look on Pinterest and see the trucks and boats involved here. The newest craze to hit this scene is LED's on your boat, in your boat, and all around your boat trailer, because many times you are getting ready to fish while it is still pitch dark outside.

[AccordUno]

I would like to bring this up, because I haven't competed in a while and been working on getting a car in the lane for the past 5 years with partials installs started and then just punt on the idea of doing a car to compete with.. And this year, I took the plunge and did it. So I went to SBN and ran into some familiar faces that I haven't seen in a long time in the lanes competing, so I felt at home again because friends that I have met along the way had come back as well. Shit when you hear Mike Mineo saying he's gonna have two cars next year in the lanes, that's motivation right there..

So how do you get competitors: 1) you have to cultivate our competitive nature, not keeping up with the Joneses type nature, but our willingness to succeed on whatever we set our goals on. 2) provide an arena for those juices to flow. Where is that? Hmm, that's a good question, but I will say it starts in shops, mom and pop shops, big name shops. Of course, the caveat is that it's profitable for the shops (yes it will always be about the money in the end).. Will they get someone to buy a 600+ processor on the first purchase, nope, but you can get them with radio and 4 speakers, maybe an amp/sub combo. 3) Not everyone is going to be into SQ, so you need to also plan ahead for other types of consumers: spl, bass boxing, or people that just want junk in the trunk.
4) this needs a line by itself: Make it enjoyable and fun, not just for them, but for anyone they bring along. If that means having pizza eating contest, some ridiculous and funny competition, hey, so be it.. Makes the time we spend sitting around go fast and enjoyable. Plus who doesn't like a good laugh every now and then.

I will give you an analogy: In the Gun world we have hunters and shooters, hunters don't believe shooters need to have AR15s to hunt with and shooters believe you don't have to be a hunter to be a gun owner. Hunters lobby against shooters and shooters just lobby to allow everyone to be law abiding gun owners.

I have seen where SQ guys have looked down at SPL guys and SPL guys have looked down at SQ guys. We need to be on the same sheet of music we all want the same thing, except we want it the discipline we are working in (SQ => SQ, SPL => SPL), we want to either be loud or have a great sounding car, but in the end of the day it comes down to music in our cars..


I can tell you that is one of the discussions between a few folks and local Rep that I deal with. So it's a common conversation/theme.

The other item, what Mark (CAF), guys from Sonus, MobileSolutions, Joey (12vTools), Bing, guys that are DIY'ers, Shops, posting up pictures of their installs and the process of what is involved and tips/tricks, has really helped not just the industry but for the common folks that just don't want a covered square box w/ amp screwed on with drywall screws.. So that is helping in many ways and not in just our scene but in others as well.. lots of folks are incorporating those techniques into their setups (air rides, lowered cars, stanced, etc).. Sure we still have the folks that subscribe to the WCC and UAs installs, but the common folks want fresh and clean installs without breaking the back.. (well, except I would like a install like SQ_TSX in my wagon, pictures don't do that car justice, real life is where it shines and you appreciate the hard work)..

[Babs]

Local meets. I think more local meets.

[Sq_tsx]

Local meets. I think more local meets.

Right there we have the answer.... !

Get more people interested at a grassroots level...

[jowens500]

We had more serious sq cars at our g2g last week than pretty much any contest I've been to in the last few years. Only exception to that is the Aggieland show in College Station.

[Sq_tsx]

How do you think we can get the number of competitors up at shows ?

[jowens500]

Money rounds seem to work well for drawing competitors

[Sq_tsx]

That brings up a great point !
To have a money round that gets people's attention. .. you need sponsors....

How do we get sponsors to step up similar to day gone by....?

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

[jowens500]

Have you asked anyone for sponsorship? You would be surprised how many will give you stuff if you ask for it.