Tips for International Car Shows

 Tips for International Car Shows

Attending international car shows can be a thrilling experience. Regardless of whether you are planning to take your family or even your own car to the show there are some things that you should think about ahead of time. Always planning ahead can ensure that you are well on your way to being fully prepared and ensure that your visit to the car show is the best possible.  Never leave things to the last minute to plan a trip if you are going to an international car show.

Your first step is to always ensure you know exactly the dates of the car show.  You never want to arrange the trip on the wrong weekend or at the wrong period of time.  This can be a huge and costly mistake that is not always easily fixable.  Double and triple check those dates to ensure you know exactly when they are, and also determine exactly which of those days you plan on attending.  

Once you have confirmed all of the dates for the car show start looking at accommodations.  Pick out your hotel rooms early and ensure that they are booked well in advance for the best rates.  Waiting until the last minute can force you to pay as much as double for the rooms that you would normally pay which is a huge increase and not something that is unavoidable.  Additionally, determine if you are going to need transportation for the car show.  After all, if you are taking a car to show, you may not want to drive it around the area where the show is.  If you are not taking a car, you probably will not be taking a car.  

Once you have your accommodations arranged and the dates picked out it is time to start handling transportation.  If you are merely going to view the cars this is much simpler.  Either purchase a boat ticket and take a cruise at the same time, or purchase a plane ticket.  If however, you are planning to take your car you need to spend some serious time planning this.  You are going to need to find out about shipping your car, ensure that you have all inspections for the vehicle done on time, ensure you have adequate insurance coverage for the vehicle in case it is lost, stolen or damaged while in transit and even ensure that there will be efficient transportation for the vehicle. This is not a simple task at all and can be quite a nightmare trying to arrange at times.  Start in advance to ensure that this goes as smoothly as possible. 

Some of the other considerations is you need to find out about admission.  Regardless of whether you are taking a vehicle or not it is important to ensure that you know you will be able to get in.  For example, if the show is by invitation only, you may be upset to discover you made all of the arrangements and are not able to get into the show.  This can be a huge disaster, so always ensure that you know exactly what is expected in order to get admission to the show once you arrive.  Call to check with the planning organization well ahead of the car show to ensure that you have the best results possible with this.

As you can see, a bit of preplanning is all it takes in order to ensure that your trip to an international car show is as smooth a process as possible.  Never worry about the show being a disaster, with a good bit of planning you are certain to really enjoy the entire international car show experience.  Never have any worries, with good planning skills you are more than certain to thoroughly enjoy the show and be quite excited about all of the prospects that the show can hold for you.  There are so many exciting things at the international car shows and it is a spectacular feeling to attend.

Using a GPS to Find the Car Show

How are you supposed to ensure that you do not possibly get lost on the way to the car show?  Aside from asking plenty of questions about location before the show, you can always use the newest gadgets on the market the GPS to help you locate the exact location.  Some GPS devices are updated continuously, which will allow you to search for areas of interest, and under this category you may discover that the car show you are looking for is located.

Otherwise, you may need to type in the address you are looking for.  While the GPS device seems expensive they are really quite convenient, and for those who are attending tons of car shows they can be a great investment.  After all, how many times have you driven around aimlessly while you search for the elusive event?  Most people experience this quite often, especially when they are trying to determine a location in an area that they are not familiar with.

You are certainly not alone in getting lost, and you probably will be lost numerous times trying to search for different shows.  It is especially important that you be on time for the car shows if you are one of the exhibitors.  Most car shows do not take kindly to people showing up late, this can be a dangerous and especially stressful situation.   Using the GPS system to your advantage can help you ensure that you are always at the correct place, at the correct time. 

Not all shows are able or willing to give detailed directions on how to get to the car show; this often leaves you stranded at the last minute trying to find where you are supposed to be, especially when you are expected to attend early and set things up for your car.  If you do not use a GPS, it would be advisable to print out directions using an online service such as Yahoo! Maps, or even MapQuest to help you ensure that you are going to the correct destination.

In addition, try to drive by the location for the car show in advance if it is in an area that you are not familiar with, this will help you to ensure that you are well on your way to being there on time, and fully prepared for everything.  Failing to be to the show in advance can result in your vehicle being disqualified from the competition, or worse yet you not being able to participate at all.  These are never good results and if you are well aware of where you are going in advance, you can help avoid these problems.

In the event that you are not able to drive by the location in advance it is also wise to check for a phone number of someone in charge of the event, this will allow you to easily call someone in the event of an emergency and ensure that your place is still being held.  

After all, accidents and emergencies do occur and you do not want to lose your position for any reason.  Using the tools that are available to you can help ensure that you are on time and fully prepared for any car show no matter where it is located.  So kick back, enjoy the trip and have a lot of fun at the show knowing you will not be late. 

What Can You Do at Car Shows?

Have you ever wondered exactly what you can do with your car while you are at a car show?  Aside from the obvious of staging your car perfectly there are some things that you can do to help pass the time, or even help share your love of cars with the different people who are there. From simple things to those that are more elaborate if you talk to the coordinators of the show you can usually have a lot of fun and do more than stand beside your car talking to the occasional visitor.

There are many car shows that would love to have someone doing detail cleaning, or a bit of light bodywork, or even some minor engine work to show visitors what goes into the car.  If you are skilled in any of these areas, you could volunteer to demonstrate these skills and help teach the visitors a few things.  This is something that you can that is very inexpensive, allows you to continue working on your car that weekend and still enables you to share your love of the vehicles.

Other things that you think about doing is bring along a television and VCR and perhaps show a video of you doing some work to the vehicle that you brought.  This would enable people to see how far the vehicle has come and what type of work was put into it in order to get it ready to go to the car show.  Realize that most people have no clue what it really involves to get a car ready for the show.  They generally think that all you do is roll out of bed the day of the show and decide to go.

You could also consider having plenty of pictures and a small table that you set up to depict the work process.  This would be a great way to also allow people to see the process and without the hassles of needing an inverter or electricity for the television.  You would be surprised how much small details like this can really encourage people to spend time by your car.  

Additionally, if you are willing to talk about the history of your car and how you have worked on it this is another great way to share experiences.  Not all people at car shows are willing to talk about the work they have done on their car, if you choose to share you are in the minority.  What their reasons are tends to vary, but for the most part there are few who will openly discuss their work.  Feel free to talk about it and share your experiences.  You may help inspire someone to start getting involved with their own vehicle.  

You should be very careful though and always discuss your plans with the car show coordinators to ensure that there will be no safety concerns.  Additionally, some car shows do not allow demonstrations because they feel that they are distracting or pose large liability risks.  As long as you have received the okay from the event coordinators feel free to have some fun sharing your love of cars and showing off your skills as well as your gorgeous car.  Just always ensure that you are making sure everyone is safe first, so leave the welder and other dangerous equipment at home.

What Judges Look For at Car Shows

Have you ever wondered exactly what the judge’s at car shows are looking at?  Many people wonder and yet not everyone is always fully aware of what they are looking for.  Of course there are different categories have different criteria about what is expected for each car.  You are never going to please all of the judges, but if you know what they may be looking for, you can certainly help increase your chances of coming out well in the car show.

Clean cars, this is something that most people do not care about category for.  The only time you should ever have a dirty car is if you just participated in a race as part of the car show.  Otherwise, your car should be completely clean.  This means inside and outside and no signs of dirt or debris anywhere.  If you need to spend a few minutes after you arrive ensuring that it is clean and doing a bit of touch up work.

Scratches are something to avoid as well.  Judges are not impressed by scratches and there is rarely ever a category or prize for most scratched car.  Ensure that the scratches are dealt with appropriately before the car show.  This will help improve your winning chances and the judges are much more likely to pay attention to how your car really looks, rather than their eyes wondering over to the scratches that you left in place.

Your tires are important as well.  You may not realize it, but this says a lot about the way you maintain your car.  They are looking for simply the best; judges are not going to appreciate seeing a year’s supply of mud caked up underneath the wheel well.  They are impressed by immaculately clean cars, not those that need a through detail cleaning.

Some other areas to look at include paint, this may seem strange but the judges usually like to see something that is unique and creative.  Just because your car was originally the same red color as the other 1 million cars that rolled off the assembly line, looking just like it does not mean it needs to stay red.  Sometimes a new shade or even a completely different color can make a normal and boring car quite unique.  If you have the personality for it a creative paint job can make your car especially memorable.  After all, how many black, blue and red cars do you think the judges will see?  How many do you think they will see that are lime green or even hot pink?  Choose paint color carefully but look for something that is going to be memorable in a good way.

A final area to look at is the overall feeling of the car.  You generally would not take a 1930’s Chevrolet and trick it out with rims, televisions and tons of other high tech goodies.  However, at the same time, you should look for a few modern touches to make the car unique and enjoyable.  Unless you are just trying to obtain the most unique award, try to keep your car styled around the same as it was originally just better if possible.  

Ensuring that your car creates a memorable and positive impression on the judges is not always easy.  After you participate in a few car shows, you should start to gain a good bit of ideas on what exactly the judges are looking for and ensure that you are fitting into their needs and wants.  With some practice, you are sure to enjoy the sweet success of winning a few trophies or even a ribbon or two.

When is the Best Time to Go to Car Shows

If you are trying to decide on the best time of year to attend car shows then you are in luck, there are several times of year when car shows are highly popular however, they do start to subside during the winter months when it is very cold.  Unless you plan on only searching for car shows that are indoors your best goal is to avoid shows in the winter unless you enjoy bundling up and venturing into the areas that are very warm.

Most car shows tend to be held in the spring and summer when it is very warm.  The number of shows in the winter months tends to subside heavily mostly due to the cold weather and the holidays combined together that make it very difficult for organizers to have a large enough attendance to be worth the effort.  If you are looking for the best car shows possible, you need to search heavily during the spring and summer.  

If you are looking for the best car shows in terms of weather, looking in the late spring and early summer is best.  This is the time of year when the weather is warm enough you can skip the heavy jackets, but still cool enough that you will not roast as you walk around the show grounds.  It is very important regardless of when you plan on attending the car show that you dress appropriately.  

For example, in the summer you need to wear short sleeves and shorts most likely, especially if the car show is outside so that you do not overheat while you are there.  In the early part of the spring, you should wear a lightweight jacket in case it is chilly outside.  If you are going to a show in the winter check to see if it is held indoors since many during the winter are.  Choosing appropriate clothing will ensure that you are not uncomfortable during the show.

If you are taking children with you, you may want to look for shows that are in the afternoons.  Late evenings tend to find children rather cranky and early mornings tend to also find children cranky because of having to wake up early.  Looking to the afternoon time frame after lunch usually finds kids in the best moods possible and less likely to get into trouble and misbehave.

If you are going to the car show by yourself or only with other adults, you may find it is best to go during the early part of the day so that you can avoid a good majority of the crowd that appears in the afternoon.  If you are looking for the biggest crowds of people then afternoon is generally going to be your prime time to attend.  Choosing the best time to attend the car show is often going to depend upon your schedule with other activities in the same weekend as well.  

Once you have a good indication of the weather and your schedule, it is usually quite easy to fit a trip to the car show in so that everyone is able to do something that they thoroughly enjoy without a lot of problems and hassles.  If you have any questions about what to wear to the show or the weather always feel free to consult the local weather, or call the organization that is sponsoring the car show to ask.  They are generally able to help you ensure that you are dressed appropriately and have a great time.

If you are quite uncertain over the weather, taking a change of clothes may be your best option to ensure that you are comfortable during the car show.  After all, you certainly do not want to be uncomfortable or you may want to leave early which could have you missing out on a large portion of the show.  Keeping yourself cool, warm and comfortable is a key need to ensuring that you enjoy the car show as much as possible. 

Where to Find Car Shows

Finding the car show of your dream may seem impossible but in reality, it is not.  There are plenty of great places where you can search for your dream car show and with some creativity, you can find the show based on the type of car you are most interested in, or you could just search for any show that is close to where you are located.  The options are up to you, and the fun of enjoying the entire even is possible with just a bit of planning ahead of time.

One of the best places to look for car shows are in your local event calendars.  Most cities and regions offer these calendars and they can usually be found online as well.  They will give you information about the location of the show, admission charges, what is offered at the show and any other detailed information you need to know.  This will usually be a great way to locate those shows that are in your area that do not do much advertising as well.  

Another option that you have is to do a search in your favorite car magazine.  Most magazines have a place where groups can advertise the car shows that they are organizing.  This will allow you to see shows from all around the country typically and possibly even some shows that are located in different countries.  Each place has their own requirements and admission information that may not be readily available in the magazine but you should be able to find the dates and some general contact information to use to get more information if you need it.

If you belong to a car club, your monthly newsletter should also have some information on various car shows that you may be interested in.  This is not always going to be an all inclusive list so be sure to look around in other locations for information as well to ensure that you are getting a good picture of all shows that are going to be available. 

The newspaper is another good source.  Newspapers almost always report on events that are coming up, and this can be a great way to get a good scoop on the upcoming shows in the area.  Anyone who is organizing a car show in your area is going to ensure that their event is listed in the newspaper and this makes the perfect opportunity to find everything in a single place.

Some of your other options include doing a search on your favorite search engine for recent car shows.  This option is most effective if you are not concerned with sticking within a specific region.  It is often much harder to narrow down specific areas but it is still possible.  This can often be a great way to plan out any trips that you have in mind to take for a good while into the future.  This can also allow you to book hotels ahead of time for discounted rates if you are going to be traveling to the car shows. 

If you are interested in attending tons of car shows, you are going to find plenty that will interest you.  There are almost always at least one show a weekend and some weeks are busier with more than just a single show.  If you are interested, you could fill up all of your weekends for a year or even longer without any problems.  This would also be a great way to travel all around the country and check out some other attractions as well.  

Never think that car shows are boring, if you find the good ones you are sure to have a great time and the time spent locating the show is a great investment.  You are going to have a ton of fun planning your trip and searching for the car shows of your dreams as you can see is really a simple project.

Mobile Multimedia: A New Peak For The Alpine Car Stereo

We all know that brand names matter when purchasing car audio hardware. There are brands that are surely more reputable than others. When you are at the store and they offer choice after choice after choice, suddenly you feel overwhelmed on what really to buy. But you can be assured of one thing, if they offer you an Alpine car stereo you can’t go wrong with it.

Alpine car stereo and electronics, founded in 1978, is a world leader in the industry of high performance mobile electronics. They specialize in mobile multimedia, an integrated system approach incorporating digital entertainment, security and navigation products for the mobile entertainment. 

Alpine car stereos are a new breed of units which feature the convergence of high performance audio, video, navigation and telematics in the form of Mobile Multimedia. Navigation systems act as the resource center of the Alpine car stereo Mobile Multimedia lineup. Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS), DVD players, Dolby Digital systems, satellite digital audio radio, mobile data linking and communication through telematics devices will be fused with navigation systems to create a platform of products. Mobile Multimedia integrates Alpine's innovative audio, video, security and navigation products, as well as its new GUI for Drivers, human interface and information communications technology. 

To grasp what the Alpine car stereo Mobile Multimedia is, take a look at the IVA-D901 Alpine car stereo Mobile Multimedia Station/CD/DVD Receiver/Ai-NET Controller. 

The IVA-D901 has 400% more pixels than a conventional in-vehicle display, meaning that it has 1.15 million pixel elements. It has 50W x 4 built-in power and 3 PreOuts (4 volt), SAT Radio ready, a Hard Disc Drive (HDD), and Alpine car stereo Navigation. Key features include:

- 7" Fully Motorized Wide Screen Monitor

- 18W x 4 MOSFET Amplifier 

- Built-in Dolby Digital/DTS Decoder

- Bass Engine® Plus

- Subwoofer Level Control

- Bass Center Frequency Control

- Bass Band Width Adjustment

- Treble Center Frequency Control

- Subwoofer Phase Selector

- Bass Type Control

- 4-Ch Digital Time Correction 

- 3 Position 12 dB/Oct Crossover

- MediaXpander™

- SAT Radio Ready

- MP3 Text Information Display

- Quick Search Function

- CD/CD-R Playback

- CD Text, Text Display, Text Scroll 

- M DAC

- MaxTune SQ Tuner

- 3 Auxilliary A/V Inputs with Remote Control Input

- Dedicated Navigation Input

- Dedicated Camera Input

- 2 Auxilliary Monitor A/V Outputs

- Navigation Audio Mix

- 3 PreOuts (4 volt) 

- MM Driver (Hard Disc Drive) Ready

- MobileHub Ready

- Ai-NET Control Center DVD/CD/MP3 Changer Controller

- "Digital Art" Spectrum Analyzer Display

- RUE-4190 Universal Wireless Remote Control Included

If these all seems too much for you, Alpine car stereos also have more conventional head units to offer. The CDA-9835 Alpine car stereo In-Dash CD Player/Ai-Changer Controller lets you fully customize both illumination and sound, with a range of 512 colors and super-versatile Bass Engine functions like digital time correction and parametric EQ. You can download audio parameter settings and connect and control as many as eight amps. The BioLite display, Menu key and rotary knob make operation extremely easy.

Like most Alpine car stereo units, it is also SAT Radio Ready, giving you a much greater choice of listening options than ordinary local AM/FM radio. You can select from among a wide range of music genres, news, sports, and talk programs with digital quality anywhere. 

   

Duh, It’s A Car Stereo!

Pretty self-explanatory isn’t it? It’s a stereo system in a car, you say. Whoa, hold your horses, it’s not that simple. Although some people like to put home stereos in their cars and vans (out of dire need for some sounds), sometimes it just doesn’t work. Yeah, maybe before it could’ve worked just fine, all you needed was radio and a cassette player (or 8 tracks, for the inner dinosaur in you) so sure, lug those big box speakers into the back seat and you’ll be blaring down the highway. But nowadays there are things like cd players and mp3 players and your popup LCD panels and all that techie knickknack you’d think they’d like to build a home theater system right smack on the console of your van. If you don’t know anything about these things but would like to have some sounds in your car anyway, here are some things to know about a car stereo.

As mentioned above, at first units and speakers from home audio systems and professional markets were just simply installed into vehicles. However, they were not well suited to the extremes of temperature and vibration which are a normal part of the environment of an automobile. Car stereo enthusiasts were not satisfied with the sound quality of regular car sound systems, and with the advent of the CD player, they really had to start modifying some of these home stereos in order to work well in a car environment and voila!, now we have the modern car stereo.    

If you have a new car, first hand bought, say from about 90 to present, chances are you already have a “factory” car stereo in your car. It means the car manufacturer already included a car stereo system in your car, unless specified in the car model but most often this is the case. Some car manufacturers make their own car stereos, like BMW which includes a pretty decent car stereo package head unit and speakers. It is a standard which comes with all their cars (which isn’t surprising considering that BMW is included in the league of “luxury car manufacturers”). Or like Mercedes Benz or Volkswagen, they use car stereo systems from a German audio manufacturer called Blaupunkt.

A standard car stereo (also called a head unit) usually includes an auto-reverse tape deck, a cd player and sometimes the optional changer – a device which automatically changes the cd in play. On newer car models, the car stereo can also play mp3s and other digital audo file types like WMA and AAC, whether on a cd or a memory device which can be hooked up to the head unit. 

The car stereo head unit is connected to several speakers. Older car models usually just had one speaker mounted underneath the dashboard, pointing through perforations towards the front windshield. The standard for car stereo nowadays is a pair of “tweeters” (used to bring out high treble) on the driver side/front passenger side dashboard, a pair of normal “mid” speakers on both doors, sometimes even the backseat passeger doors if it’s a large car and larger speakers capable of bringing out low ends at the back protion of the backseats. 

Your car stereo is probably ok as it is, as car manufacturers ensure that the audio products that come with their cars can handle most dirver’s listening demands. But if you think that what you have isn’t enough, you can always CUSTOMIZE.