(22 Aug 2022, 5:50 am)omnicity4659 wrote I think the trend of parking up in a paid-for field or car park to show off your vehicle to the public is dying off.

Personally, the atmosphere is always better down at car meets in a Tesco car park. I'd imagine that those who own buses like to do things in their own little groups too.

Would be much better for everyone if the councils and police stopped taking a hard approach on "unauthorised" meets and just let them get on with it. Then maybe the need to attend fields and car parks nowhere near anybody will also die off.

The Police don't take a hard approach on unauthorised meets. It's the small minority of idiots that attend, the ones that think they're clever tooling it around a car park with no real control over their car, or the ones popping their (usually road illegal) exhausts, that they take a hard approach on.

I don't think car or other vehicle meets are dying off. They seem to be thriving outside of the North East, and there's no reason they wouldn't thrive here either, if they were well organised.

Whitley Bay bus rally had the best attendance the other weekend, than it had seen for years previous to that. I'd suggest it was more down to the weather, but I think it shows the appetite is still there from people to attend such events. 

(22 Aug 2022, 9:39 am)Jimmi wrote Whenever I've seen pics/notice of these rallies/events with cars it's often just stuff from an older generation and I can't imagine most of these events held would want relatively modern kit with massive exhausts and the like that those unauthorised car meets tend to attract.

Much like with bus rallies there's somewhat of a generational gap, you hear some going around saying how stuff is too modern (or x company has brought their current fleet) and that it shouldn't be in preservation, sent to scrap etc whilst younger spotters tend to lean towards more like Dennis Dart's and are less interested in say half cabs.

The generational gap has always been there, but as people have grown up, they've supported the problem instead of bridging the gap. But on events themselves, I can't see why you'd even bother to have one, if you're not going to organise it properly? Or if you haven't got the skills to do so, seek some volunteers.