Confounded
A high energy podcast with its own video channel featuring interviews with amazing people who have overcome adversity and life’s challenges to be successful in unique and wonderful ways.
Confounded
Revving Up the British Motor Show: A Tale of Resilience and Innovation in the Face of a Pandemic
Meet Andy Entwistle CEO of The British Motor Show
Prepare to be taken on a journey of automotive revival, as Andy, a true veteran of the car industry, joins us to recount the adrenaline-fueled adventure of breathing life back into the iconic British Motor Show. Discover how he steered through the unpredictable roadblocks and high-speed turns of reinventing the illustrious event, which vanished in 2008. From securing the legendary name to crafting a show that drove nearly 50,000 fans wild with excitement, Andy's tale is one of passion, perseverance, and the power of four wheels.
Buckle up for an exploration into the challenges that came with the COVID-19 pandemic, throwing a wrench in the gears of event planning. Andy opens up about the momentous decision to hit the brakes and postpone the show, a strategic pit stop that led to a roaring comeback, defying the odds of the industry's pandemic paralysis. We celebrate the event's success, highlighting the last-minute ticket surge that crowned the show a phenomenal spectacle, reinforcing our belief in the magnetic allure of motor events.
As the episode shifts gears, we address the electrifying topic of EVs and their pivotal role in the future of driving. With Andy's insights, we learn how transforming car shows into an immersive playground, where petrol heads and the EV-curious can get hands-on with the latest electric models, is accelerating the shift toward greener wheels. We wrap up pondering the delicate balance between scaling up and keeping the authentic charm of the show, much like tuning a classic car for modern-day performance. It's an episode that drives home the value of innovation, experience, and the timeless love for automobiles.
So welcome to Confounded TV, andy. Hi also how you doing, I'm all right. Yes, you certainly had an interesting few years. That would be fair to say, I think.
Andy Entwistle:That's a good way of summarizing the last two years. Yeah, interesting.
Alastair Campbell:Interesting. Yes, I took the podcast off here because it was just depressing, so it would be great to hear somebody's gone through it and is bouncing back out of the other side. I think Absolutely. Could you start with, just to give us a bit of background, what you've done and how you ended up picking up this mantle.
Andy Entwistle:Sure. So I've been an automotive industry man and boy as I deliver on the Inlet TV saying that I've worked for Friday manufacturers in automotive. I've worked for support companies in operational roles and then I went and joined a company called Blackball Media. They produce automotive trade magazines and I was there for quite a while. We got very involved in events, amongst many other things. I became great. I'm great at it and that's how I ended up in this part of the industry.
Andy Entwistle:I'm a huge supporter of the industry. I'm a big fan of it, big fan of the trade side of that as well, and I get very upset when people pull our industry down. I was involved in a couple of consumer shows in and around London and decided it could be done better. And I went to a few of the big motor shows globally as well and I just thought do you know what? They're not moving on? They're not moved with the times, and too many of these shows there's just a bunch of cars sitting in a room, even the big ones. You can get there and do them in a couple of hours. I thought this isn't what people are looking for.
Alastair Campbell:I remember reading people who go to them and say they're supposed to be. Oh, I walked six and a half miles according to Stravinsky. That's the best thing you've got to say about a show.
Andy Entwistle:Absolutely, and I went to one of the biggest European shows back in 2018. It was a big show but it was all static and under two hours I figured actually I think I've done it. And I was then wandering around trying to find stuff to do and I thought I'm not going on a press pass. I thought other people are looking at the price of these tickets, thinking this is a lot of cash for a couple of hours, and I just thought there's an opportunity here and, despite some of the naysayers, there's an opportunity to do something really different that supports the industry but also delivers something really really different to the consumers. And you look at some of the shows that are really successful now. They're all about entertainment and dynamic stuff. So that's how I set about doing this, and in 2019, I got the rights to the British Motor Show and we launched in November 19. We were going to be relaunching. We hadn't had a national show since 2008.
Alastair Campbell:I was just going to ask that question what was the reason for the sort of why didn't we have a national show in 2000? Because it was a big thing, the British Motor Show at one point.
Andy Entwistle:It was a huge thing. There's a lot of reasons. It depends who you talk to. Combination of things, I mean 2008,.
Andy Entwistle:The world was having financial challenges. A lot of the global manufacturers were probably marketing budgets. That was one of the issues. There were too many big shows at that point in time. Every country had a big show. With those big shows came huge budgets and if you talk to some of the manufacturers I Water and they were spending.
Andy Entwistle:The other issue was these were 10 day shows, so they're over two weekends. So it's not just a matter of oh, it's going to cost me X to go, I've got to put people at 10 days. The costs were spiraling. You were looking at seven digits for a lot of people. So people decided, in a market that was struggling, they weren't selling cars, I'm not going to throw millions at these shows and Geneva did a great job in kind of holding on to their show and that became the one show that most people did not For a while. They were saying well, we'll do one in the Middle East or in the East of Japan actually just one and then you've got one in America and then you've got one in Europe. So the others fell by the wayside rather than adapting.
Andy Entwistle:Just about what I said about not being very dynamic. It was just a bunch of cars in a room, so lots of reasons behind it. They just felt that they couldn't actually keep it going. The other thing as well is it was bi-annual. At the end, if you remember, it went from being Birmingham in London, birmingham, london. Then it was every other year and then it was just London every other year, and I think people kind of got confused when is it and when is it happening? And you know it is and you see it's not just the old most shows. So a lot of there's a few try shows that go on this way. They've gone every other year and I get it because they're trying to help budgets for people. They're actually from a visitor point of view. I think it's the death of most shows You've got to go every other year. Then you're losing a lot of your customers.
Alastair Campbell:You're a student. You're a student Two south from the lands. You're literally students for gas.
Andy Entwistle:We've all got a calendar of things that happen every year.
Alastair Campbell:Yeah, so there's good word, there's Le Mans or whatever. Absolutely, we haven't been born for five years. I thought we were going next year, this year, but I haven't been for five years. But I know it's roughly the end of May or June every year, so I could just choose a year and go. It was every other year, but is it all in this year? I can't remember.
Andy Entwistle:Is it this year, or is it the classic, or what is it? You know it's bridge, go on pray. It happens every year. We all know when that is roughly. You know the classic car show in the NEC. There are these things that people look forward to every year. I think, if you go every other year, that just so that show it was. You've bounced around. It had lots of different venues.
Alastair Campbell:It wasn't very exciting.
Andy Entwistle:It wasn't exciting at the end. And actually now the other thing it also London is not the right place for a motor show. So, no matter what people say, you don't it. London is not a great place. London is a great place but not a great place for those kind of shows. So all of those things together really hurt it. And obviously you know 2008, the way the economy was, that was the death knell. So it went away. But I decided look, we are one of the biggest automotive markets in Europe. We still are, even though you know people think that we don't have an automotive industry. We do. We should have a national show. So you know, I was the idiot at the end of 19 to kind of gave everything up, threw what I had into the business announced in November 19. This is it, we're going. And then a couple of months later, this annoying bug came along.
Alastair Campbell:I mean just briefly. The question I was going to ask you is I mean, I think it's what you did was an amazing leap of faith, because you're between, you, had some experience. Obviously you love the industry and you're going I'm going to do this and everyone. I think usually when people say they're going to do something, like the thing to not listen to normal is your friends, because they go yes, great idea, I'll see. Stephanie goes. What did your friends say when you said I'm going to do this?
Andy Entwistle:Well, a lot of people said to me it won't work.
Alastair Campbell:Oh, the industry doesn't need that. They don't want that. So what?
Andy Entwistle:Yeah. What was interesting, though, is it you talked to them, and I was led by talking to consumers, talking to car fans. They were saying but actually we did, consumers want to show, and actually what we did in the last year's show is they do, we want to go and do this, we love this, but the trading on people don't want it. She's going to do what they do, the important on the ultimate industry. They say no, don't do it, you're crazy, we don't want. No one wants that show, because I am my target audience, I don't show and therefore there's a lot of people like me. So that drove me from. The feedback from friends drove me to come up something completely unique.
Alastair Campbell:And did you have? Am I not a commit mistaken? Did you not have the first one all planned before COVID arrived in March 2020? Literally.
Andy Entwistle:So when was it going to be? It was going to be August 20. That was the original relaunch and we were all systems go. We launched it, we were selling tickets, we had exhibitors, we have cinch on board as the headline sponsor. It was all looking great and we were well into planning and then we hit the first lockdown and I'm looking and thinking, oh, we might have a problem here. And my initial concern was keeping the lights on for the business. How do I do that? And thankfully, the government, although they didn't specifically help the events industry.
Alastair Campbell:In fact they didn't help the events industry at all.
Andy Entwistle:But with the furlough scheme, I was able to keep the team on board and I got a bit of financial assistance, so we were able to hold on to that. But of course, do you remember, back in March 2020, we thought this thing was going to blow over until three months and really up until I reckon. But certainly in May of that year we were still looking and thinking, oh, by all of us, we should be OK, and we made the difficult decision in June, I would just say this isn't going to happen. And then, of course, everything started unraveling anyway. So we made the decision in June we're going to push back a year, we're going to go 12 months. Other people were saying, oh, it'll be fine by February, but we said, no, this isn't indoor, outdoor show, we're not going to be in the February, people are going to freeze. So we pushed it back 12 months and, hindsight, that was actually the right thing to do and it was actually a blessed idea, because we were the very first big national show that happened after lockdown.
Alastair Campbell:At least People were just let me get out of here. I want to go and do something exciting.
Andy Entwistle:It was a bit of a bug. So you know we, I think so you fast forward. The challenges we had bringing people in, of course, is you're talking big companies on our exhibit I love the big brands and just pulled all of their events budgets because they said we don't know what it's going to look like, we're going to do nothing this year. So we had to challenge that. We came up with different ways of getting people in. So you had that challenge. But then you, equally, as you said, you got all these consumers desperately get out and they've been locked up. But equally, what we found was that we had this group that would desperately get out, but they just had this group who were very fearful Because we were in.
Andy Entwistle:We were six weeks after that officially released lockdown and we only really start. It was the 19th of June. I remember that it was the 19th of June that was supposed to announce that lockdown was lifted. That gets two months and they said we're just going to hold off some of the restrictions for another four weeks. And we were all sat down thinking, well, do we go or don't we go? We're going to go, we're going to have to take this risk, we're going to go and the biggest challenge for any event, particularly something like ours.
Andy Entwistle:Of course, a lot of your revenue comes from tickets and people don't tend to buy tickets until about three months out.
Andy Entwistle:It's the way the world works for events Unless it's a Rihanna concert, that's very limited and known as a big event like this people will buy the tickets much closer to the time, but of course, people work buying tickets in April, may, june, because they didn't know whether they were going to be locked down a lot.
Andy Entwistle:I know we're going to lose our money. So we had this real issue and even with four weeks to go, we were at less than 20% of where we hoped to be and it was as Alec Trudin since he says it's squeaky belt time and thankfully, you know it was amazing. And then, before we went, we said we're going and everything opened up and we sat down and I have to friend Finch particularly because they put their hands in their pockets and said, right, okay, that's really good for this and they used a lot of their budget as well to really support the show. So, with the support from Finch, we obviously we trawled our money into those few weeks. We had a couple of other partners, suek Carly, some being one of them who gave us a lot of assets, and we just absolutely went for it, and each of the tickets were sold in a two-week show. That's amazing.
Alastair Campbell:But it's scary as hell.
Andy Entwistle:But it went down really well and I think you're right that there were two types of people people who really were desperate to get out and they loved it, and then the other people who were a little concerned, but they came along. They were buying tickets on the day, yeah, so 80% of the tickets came from the last couple of weeks in the run of the show.
Alastair Campbell:Two weeks before the show started. So you must have been sitting there going every time the little thing ticked and went bing and you sold a ticket. You must have been going, come on, come on.
Andy Entwistle:Absolutely that was the point of the harvest big for us, Because at this point in time we'd got a great show.
Alastair Campbell:We knew we had a great show.
Andy Entwistle:Everything set up, all of our partners are on board, we've got all the vehicles, all the live content, everything's done, everything's paid for. I know at this point in time, I've got a show that's going to be amazing and I do. I know this. My biggest fear is that no one's going to get to see the show, and we had a huge site. You know the size of the site in Flamber is not just the indoor, We've got acres of outdoor space with Liberinas. So even you know four or five thousand people on that site, so a lot of people would make it look very quiet. So that was our biggest fear.
Andy Entwistle:As it turned out, ticket sales flew. We got just under 50,000. And it was a huge success. But it was right to the Y4. We were the first really big event, so a lot of people have been watching us and people have pushed back after us. So everyone was watching us very carefully. But it worked really well, thankfully, and we delivered, and one I'm proudest of is my original vision back in 2019. It was as close to that vision as I really could have wanted.
Alastair Campbell:It's cool. It sounds just so painful. I'm just getting there. Would it be wrong to guess that if those people hadn't flooded in the last two weeks, it would probably never have come back? Would that be fair, or would you have managed to find a way to do it this year?
Andy Entwistle:We had the support. Our partners particularly, were behind us. We committed to Fulmra for five years. We've got Cinch's headline for five years. I had a number of other partners.
Andy Entwistle:So from a point of view being able to put the show on in years two, three, four, five, we were fine with that. We didn't expect to make money in the first year. You don't end up in that same time. It's all about reinvesting. It's a five-year plan so financially it wouldn't have been a putt. But if we hadn't delivered enough people to the doors then you'd have found it much harder to go to exhibits and say do you want to come back? But of course and that's absolutely key With a big event like this you've got two types of customers that both could be happy.
Andy Entwistle:You consumers have got to come back because they've had a great time. That's really key to growing the business. But most importantly, all your exhibits you've got to deliver something amazing. So they're knocking on your door for the next year and thankfully we've managed to tick both boxes and we had a couple of the big manufacturers within weeks that picked up phone. One of them particularly did more test drives at the show and they've done any other event in the UK ever. So that was a really nice bit of feedback. And they follow me up and said can we come back? Of course you can, yeah.
Alastair Campbell:And I'd like to know more about the event. I just got one question about the change of the growth of EV, because it strikes me that actually for manufacturers, it's actually quite a good time to be able to get in front of 50 or 100,000 people every year. This year, because the need built in these cars, because once somebody's been in them this is my personal experience then they're like I'll buy one of that. People who've borrowed mine go off and buy one. So this growth is going to be. It's logarithmic. Now, yeah, for you, that's what they want to do is get there to see the, to get these people into the test drive these cars yeah, and that's the whole point.
Andy Entwistle:So the two key parts of the show is educating, and so the entertainment groups, people in, and while they're there, we educate them. And it's particularly you're right at the moment the key part of it, which is EV. So we're a, we've got tech theater, so all the way through that, the four days, we've got people on stage answering all of these different questions about range anxiety and wavering work, why range anxiety isn't the thing anymore. The infrastructure and, like you said, how to drive a car, and I was talking to someone the other day and they said well, look, it was, it was. We want to get people into EVs and they've talked about getting them into cars. I said the car and what you want to do is get them into. And we've got the electric mini that we're using to promote the electric side of the show. And I said use the mini because when someone sits in a mini, it looks exactly like a normal mini, which you've got an automatic gearbox, whereas if you're going to an off Honda, it's a great car, it's a fantastic car, but you've got to be an EV convert to actually get back to drive that car, because it's a bit funky. So, for someone who just wants to drive a normal car. It is quite a piece of putting them in the cars is really important.
Andy Entwistle:So what we, you know we had so you can test drive, you can sit and press buttons, and then we also have them to live arena. And the whole point about the live arena is they, we bring them in, they do a few laps. We've got Mr Brewer, who's straight in the arena, he'll their chat to not forward. They brought the Mackie. So you know, talk about the Mackie and we then we encourage people. So they've seen it dynamically, we've had a bit of fun with it and then we said, well, when you go over there, you can actually go and sit in one and you can test drive them as well. So bringing that all together is really important for the manufacturers and there's not many places where they can get it dynamically, statically on a stand and then get people your arms on seats. That's where I see my trade back.
Alastair Campbell:Yeah, I think it's interesting because you can go and look at the moldy along with it. I don't think it makes a difference, You'd be able to get in it. But also you're giving them an environment I'm guessing here which is slightly different than going to the dealer for a test drive, because here you're saying you can get in it, Nobody's ever going to try and sell it to you, you don't even take your details if you don't want to hand them over. Whereas you turn up, the dealer should say can I test drive you a new, whatever it is? That is a different thing, isn't it? You're making it part of that entertainment package as opposed to part of a sales package.
Andy Entwistle:It's a subtle thing. We bring people in for a great family date. That's the idea. One you're there, you're having fun and then you go and sit in this car. Actually, I'd really like this. I'm either going to go and test drive it here or when I buy my next car and this is where the switched on manufacturers get it I might sit in that. And the latest, let's use the mini-gun. I might sit in the latest mainly and say this is great, I'm not going to go and buy one at the show because I'm not ready for any car Six months, 12 months later, I was going to try to make my purchase decision.
Andy Entwistle:You're right in that. That's what we're trying to do. We want to create that atmosphere of song and along the way you get in the cars and it does come back to what I was saying. It's my trade background. No, you put a bum on the seat. That's a really good thing to do.
Andy Entwistle:I get so frustrated with some of the big glitzy showers, with some of the manufacturers. Put these huge gin power systems, stupid money, and they stick their brand new car in the middle and they broke it all. How are you going to sell that car? We actively discourage this. We're saying to exhibitors it's not the money you think, it is. In fact it's very reasonably priced. But rather than come on board, take a load of space, create something gin palace-like and then put a car in the middle, put your money into putting cars in the test, put your money into having a nice number of cars on the stand where people can just inch, you might think, well, this works. But the normal, everyday brands like Tiers, the Renault, the Scrooge, it works for everyone. It works for everyone. We had McLaren with us last year and they were selling cars. They actually took the leads and sold cars from the show and that's a top-end vehicle you wouldn't expect. I met with JLR they had a retailer there, but great show.
Alastair Campbell:JLR know this works, sandy, because they go to Burley at all the horse stuff right and they have the Land Rover experience. You'll be right next to the eventing course and you'll wade your ticket Brand new discovery Stick it into a three-feet of water. You'll take it over the top. Then they've got the one that their own drivers do and the Q. I was always amazed going to Belton or Burley and all these things around here, because the Q's for JLR are bigger than the Q's for everything else at the event. Because people want the experience and even if they're not going to buy a Land Rover, a Land Rover is cemented in their minds that this is the off-road car. If you ever can afford it, this is the one to buy, absolutely.
Andy Entwistle:And whether it's new or used, because they'll be that. You need a healthy used market. So even if they don't buy a new one, they buy used one. It props up People buy the new ones because they've got good residuals. Do you know what it's like on the train? It's all about that. And that actually is exactly the show. It's all about that Duranani calendar. So what you saw there, the Land Rover experience is we've got a load of those.
Andy Entwistle:You're doing a bang across so many more, whether it's catering or we've got supercar rides or go-karting or electric bicycles. Why did I not come to this? I wish you didn't get into your inboxing times. So actually that was a bit of a challenge for us because in lockdown we didn't do a lot of marketing, because we went and told it, sure, we hoped it was going to happen, but it was no point because we're a new business, we didn't have tons of money to throw it in, so we had to be very careful and actually one of the biggest challenges I guess it's a good challenge. So the number of people that's seen it have said I heard about the show, I think I know about it beforehand and it's frustrating for me, but it actually means for 2022, we've got a fantastic opportunity. So we've just done a couple of media deals with Greatest Hits Radio, we're working with Auto Express, so we're going to be getting the message out much further and wider this year as well.
Alastair Campbell:What's the maximum capacity you can take?
Andy Entwistle:Oh, it's crazy. Over the four days we could get $180,000 in there without too much difficulty because we've got such a large site. We're expecting somewhere $80,000 to $90,000 this year, so any significant increase.
Alastair Campbell:That's a bit of a secret, feliz. Your role was doubling at the top end of that. Absolutely, that's quite a loss of administration, to deal with it is, and that's the challenge for us.
Andy Entwistle:The difference between $60,000 and $190,000 is quite significant. It's a little thing like catering Toilets. Actually, that was a toilet and catering was a real doubt. That was the biggest challenge we had, actually in 2021, because we were the first big show out the blocks Lots of these little catering units. They'd mocked all of them for nearly two years. We were the first time that they'd come out, so they were very rusty. We were obliged to use the onsite caterers for Pharma. They discovered that they outsource it, but the agency that they use discovered that a lot of the people that they had on their books were no longer training.
Andy Entwistle:Catering was a real challenge for us. Now we're addressing that this year, which is better, but it is things like that. What we didn't want and you see this at shows is you turn up there and it's just burgers, because it's a family show. We want good food. Then you queue for an hour for a pizza. It's not the experience we wanted. That's the challenge for us. We're going to go to $100,000 with people, a lot more catering, a lot more car parking, a lot more toilets. We've got another whole issue. So we are building a third hall. We'll have more space for people.
Alastair Campbell:Yes, I remember that's why it was sort of being up front here. Obviously, I've exhibited it a couple of years ago and that's why I brought the barista and the coffee machine. Because the coffee in the location in the first and the couple of the early shows wasn't very good, I brought my own. Then I did it with email. All the potential customers say do you want a really good coffee? Come to my house. Absolutely. Then we had a queue out the door, not because they wanted to see our product or meet us, just because they wanted a really good, proper cappuccino or a flat white or whatever. It was amazing. Then the next year everybody brought coffee machines, but then you fixed it, so it didn't matter.
Andy Entwistle:This is what we say to everybody when they come along. There's a way to do a show as an exhibitor, which is you turn up there and you have a little pod let's say it's 3x2, and you're trying to hand out flowys. We've given away 50-pound notes and that's not going to work, because people will walk past you. What you need is something different, be it a coffee machine, or be it a Batac wall or just something to draw people in. We're trying to work really close with them and give them that feedback, because that's also important for us, because that's part of our whole show. The coffee machine is always a great idea. Racing simulators is another one. Yeah, I think we have six.
Alastair Campbell:In the space, I think, especially. I wouldn't say which brand it was because it wouldn't be fair, but I had an order on the electric car which was pre-order for one of the first ones. Then, at Atee's other show they had invited you all, the pre-order, to come and see it. Then they had it literally glassed off in a big glass box. Before I write the check for 40 grand, can I sit in it? No, no, no, no. Yes, that's weird. It was that plus other reasons that I canceled. But it was just interesting how I think, if you look down a generation, everything's experienced and all you're going to do is realize that the reason that is is because that's what they want. Actually, if you offer it up the generations, it's exactly the same. It's just not been done before.
Andy Entwistle:Absolutely. That's a good example of where we went wrong for a while. You can't go near this. For a while, I think some manufacturers thought there are some of them. We don't need a network of retailers actually, because people will buy. Some people might buy, but a lot of people will. Even if it's at a show like ours, they're going to want to sit and look at what they've got. Ideally, I'm quite drive, but you've got to have a lot of blind faith to go out and spend 40, 50, 60 grand on a vehicle that you've never even been near. It might be an amazing vehicle, but we're all different. You get that kind of thing. The color of that is really annoying, or the brightness of that screen. There might be something. You've got to live with that for two or three years, I do think. Matt, I'm starting to realize now that once they can do the maturity of selling online, they do need to get that product in front of people and physically.
Alastair Campbell:When's the next one?
Andy Entwistle:Next one is 18th to 21st of August. It's back at Sombra.
Alastair Campbell:Nice and hot as well.
Andy Entwistle:Great Nice and hot Good weekend. It brings us across. We're there for five years. It's the same place. We are not resting on our laurels, though. We've got more space. We've taken this additional hall. We've got an additional live action arena, because that went really well. We've taken additional space. If you came along in 21, you'll see a lot of different stuff in 22. That's really important. What we don't want to do is just deliver the same stuff. We're not downwell. We don't want to deliver the same stuff All fresh, but we know what we're going to do.
Alastair Campbell:Fantastic. How do I buy a ticket?
Andy Entwistle:So you go to the website. It's that wwwthebritishmotorshowlive. It's £37 for a family of four, so it's normally an expensive day out. Wow, that's brilliant. I thought you were going to say something. Well, this is the thing. It's back to our philosophy of making this a reasonable day out for a family. It's too easy to pay £100 a ticket for some of these bets and it's a really expensive day for a family. It's not easy for everybody. We intentionally priced this Murray Keenley at £37 on the basis free parking, of what you cannot get in many places. So the idea is that people can turn up and for under £100 they've had a great day, including children. She drinks.
Alastair Campbell:That is absolutely fantastic. I mean, I can't think I'm trying to rapidly think of anything which offers me that for that kind of money as a family event, it just doesn't exist.
Andy Entwistle:Well, I went to the cinema with the Australian Whiskey Cinema Refuse. It costs us more than that.
Alastair Campbell:I think the fish and chips you get off a stand. At any other event, I've been to for a family for which it costs you £37.
Andy Entwistle:Absolutely so. The whole concept for us again is it's making it reasonable. It's not just for exhibitors, it's for the public as well. We want people that have a great day and need not to break the bank for that much, and that also encourages more people. So it's intentionally and we kept the prices the same with 21,. Even though we had great year and some people would go in a great year. Let's put the prices at. That's not our philosophy. We can get more people in that area.
Alastair Campbell:It's a fantastic event, but you've got the option of getting bigger right. You could fit a lot of people into farming, absolutely. So just look at the air show right so you can actually keep doing great performances. Make it bigger and more exciting. Charge reasonable amount and you make a good business out of it. And people have a really good weekend, don't they? Absolutely.
Andy Entwistle:That's it and that's half-loss. That's exactly how it's done. You've hit the nail ahead. Let's keep it reasonable, let's keep it fun, let's make it open and accessible to everybody, exhibitors and public.
Alastair Campbell:Well, thank you for coming on. I really, really wanted to record this one, I think, of all the people, I mean a lot of people. As I said at the beginning, I paused this because of COVID and I watched your LinkedIn and the persistence and it's always great to hear an entrepreneur, where there's a really difficult story that you persist to and end up with something good at the end. There's always a great story. So, thank you for coming on. No, thank you very much.
Andy Entwistle:Have a great week and good talk.
