The Nantucket Series in Review
On Sunday, July 17th, 2022, we hosted the first-ever Nantucket Series Vintage Land Rover show. Compared to our other events, this event was the most difficult to plan, but at the same time, it was the event with the least amount of moving parts. Through the planning process, we encountered many setbacks, and as a result, we were left with very little time to market this inaugural show. With some creative marketing strategies, we would exceed our projected numbers and host an event unlike any other before. In addition to the great turnout, we reached a new market, with over 90% of the participants being first-time participants, a size greater than any of our other 2 events for the 2022 season. Unfortunately, due to zoning restrictions, we could not sell any product for the event at the event. Despite that, we were able to sell an impressive amount of products through our website via in-person marketing at the event and digital marketing through social media and email. All in all, The Nantucket Series 2022 was my favorite event we have hosted to date due to its simplicity and the enthusiasm we saw from the participants and the surrounding community.
Registered Participants: New vs Returning
After our first-ever event on Martha’s Vineyard in August of 2021, we were met with a lot of demand from vintage Land Rover owners on the neighboring island of Nantucket. We were initially unsure how to approach the idea of doing a similar event in a near identical location during the same time of year as our newfound flagship Vineyard Series event. With nearly half of our attendance from The Vineyard Series event being non-local, we wondered whether or not people would pick one show or the other or attend both. Understanding the high monetary and time investment it would take to attend both shows with the added logistics of bringing a car on a ferry, we hypothesized that the average traveling participant would choose one show over the other. If this were the case, we’d have two diluted shows and none with incredible participation. With this idea in mind, from the start, we decided that the new Nantucket Series Event would be marketed as a local event, focusing on advertising to the local population of Nantucket Island. To achieve this and prevent any sort of confusion as to which event was going to be the event to travel to, we planned to release the dates for The Vineyard Series event far before The Nantucket Series Event dates were to be released. Coincidentally, and unfortunately, we encountered some major delays in securing the venue for the Nantucket event. Due to this, The Vineyard Series dates were released in December 2021 for July 2022, and The Nantucket Series dates were released in June 2022 for July 2022.
In planning The Nantucket Series, we were met with circumstances unlike other venues we had worked with prior, as a result, we made some mistakes but learned a lot. The idea to do a Nantucket-based vintage Land Rover show arose in the Fall of 2021, but it was never looked into until we were approached by a popular local brewery in January of 2022. If we could work out a plan with this venue, Cisco Brewers, it would be the end all be all venue for an inaugural event. Cisco Brewers is a nationally known brand and one of the island’s top destinations. In our early conversations with the brewery, they had expressed wanting to create a co branded event where they control all of the operations, have control of the registration process, and do the creative for the event. While this sounded like a great idea for a successful event, there was very little incentive for us outside of the short term monetary reward. If we continued with this plan, why would Cisco Brewers need us to help host an event again? From the outside looking in, this event would be perceived as a Cisco Brewers event, not a Vineyard Series event hosted at Cisco Brewers. In addition to this, we would have no proprietary information like the registrant’s contact information. Should we ever decide to separate from Cisco Brewers, what sort of advantage would we have when there are such blurred lines on who organized the event? Not to mention, if we were even asked to host another event as at that point, they’d have the full power to do it independently with very little effort. As a result of these potential consequences, we discussed the idea of a non-compete agreement with some mentors and an attorney. Ultimately we decided against doing so as we thought there would be more appropriate ways of handling things, especially considering the implications for us if they chose not to sign it.
After a week or two of progress, we finally came up with a proposal. The proposal was as follows. The event was to be named and marketed as “The Nantucket Series by The Vineyard Series at Cisco Brewers,” we would handle registration and maintain sole ownership of the data, and we would do all of the creative design for the event. In return, we would pay Cisco Brewers an agreed-upon set fee for using the parking lot for 2 hours, feature their brand and name in our marketing, and split profits for all co-branded products sold. We were to host our event on a Sunday morning from 9 am-11 am before the brewery opened at 12 pm. We needed no resources other than their parking lot. No staff, electricity, clean-up, etc., was needed. After proposing this idea, we were met with silence for three months, despite multiple follow-up emails and conversations with employees other than our main contact at the company.
During this waiting time, we reached out to other venues and got the approval to move forward at a pretty good spot, but it did not have the same reputation that Cisco Brewers had. Finally, at the end of May, we were finally contacted by our contact at Cisco Brewers, the general manager. He let us know that Cisco Brewers was satisfied with our proposed plan contingent we agree to a few new additions. He also let us know that he would connect us with their new general manager, as he recently announced his resignation, which explained the long pause in communication. The final plan included the terms as proposed, with a $2500 nonrefundable fee to be paid ahead of the event and 20% of total on-site sales excluding registration to be paid to Cisco Brewers.
We were excited to move forward with this plan but more importantly, Cisco Brewers. We knew that the island’s average vintage Land Rover owner was not necessarily an enthusiast but someone who enjoyed their unique vehicle. That said, convincing them to come to our event would require a sense of familiarity as the majority of these vintage Land Rover owners have never participated in any sort of automotive-based event. We believe that Cisco Brewers was that factor in convincing the owner and their family to spend the morning with us.
Our next setback was obtaining town approval for our event in a 5-week timeline. When we applied for the permit, we were immediately told that we were behind schedule for said permit. The island of Nantucket has a yearly population of fewer than 20,000 people and a summer population of over 80,000 people. That said, applying for a permit in a hectic time of the year for an event just over a month away with 200+ people and 60 vintage and potentially unsafe vehicles was quickly made clear to us by the town to be a lofty goal. To make the deadline and accelerate the process, we sacrificed the two largest factors prohibiting us from obtaining a permit, limiting the event to 250 people and eliminating onsite sales. While these would inevitably hurt our numbers, the event needed to happen, so we were willing to make these changes. With the help of an amazing lady at the police station, we obtained a permit within two weeks and were left with three weeks to market the event. It was not ideal, but it was what we had to work with.
Due to the time restraints and to prevent any sort of miscommunication as they would have to be sold online, we abandoned the co-branded merchandise. Nonetheless, we were ecstatic to have a permitted event planned at our dream location. With the use of digital marketing through our own social media channels and emails, we reached 10-20 owners in the first week. As mentioned, many of the owners were not enthusiasts and would not normally engage in the content we share. That said, our most powerful marketing tool was our in-person marketing. We hired an unpaid intern on Nantucket this summer to help as a boots-on-the-ground resource for us. He is a very knowledgeable high schooler and helped us place over 100 business cards on potential participating vehicles.
Our last form of marketing was through other reputable businesses on the island, including Cisco Brewers. We had support from the leading real estate company and another local publication. We were very thankful for their help in spreading the word about our event and believe that they helped convince those on the fence about attending, as it was another reputable and familiar brand advocating for a new event.
Ahead of the event, we had 52 vehicles registered which was a healthy number, especially considering the inevitable 10-15 that would show up unannounced. We had enough gift bags for 70 vehicles; that said we were very comfortable with this number. It left us room for error as well as additional inventory to sell off post-event. We had all of the products for the gift bags arrive a week before the event. These items included an event t-shirt, decorative grille emblem, plush dog toy, decals, and reusable tote bag. We packed the bags and labeled them appropriately.
After we were all prepared, we made the trip to Nantucket on Saturday for our Sunday morning event. We had lunch at the hosting venue, Cisco Brewers. While there, we spent some time planning how to organize the lot. We organized it on two levels. First, we broke it up based on participants vs. spectators. Once we figured that out, we moved toward organizing the participating vehicle section. Ideally, we would organize by year and model, as we had done for our original Martha’s Vineyard event. We set the dedicated sections and went back to my friend’s house where we were staying to answer all of the emails and to send a group reminder email including answers to the questions asked. We spent Saturday afternoon making sure everything was ready to go. Additionally, we had six cancellations, a couple due to COVID, and the rest were scheduling issues. After working out the final numbers, we packed the trucks with all the gift bags, tables, and tent supplies. We then had dinner with some of our customers and then went to bed, ready for the 5 am wake-up we had planned to prepare for our event that starts at 9.
On Sunday, we woke up and went straight to the venue. We were then shortly met by the four professional photographers we had hired and had a team meeting on what to capture and who to capture it. We set up the registration tent and tables and organized the gift bags.
Just before 8:30 am, we had our first participants arrive. From then on it was a constant flow until about 10 am. After the first five trucks arrived and were sent to their designated spots, we had a family with four trucks arrive, all different models. They requested to be next to each other, and we were more than happy to let that happen as we valued their interest and support of our event. From then on, we had some organization, but not to the level we had hoped for. Nonetheless, all of these trucks look great next to each other, no matter the model. As expected, we had, at one point, 60 participating trucks in the lot.
We had an overwhelming number of spectators, so much so that we had to start turning them away until the lot emptied. We had worked to prevent this by creating a free mandatory registration for spectators, as we knew our space was limited. This registration was attached to all of our marketing. Unfortunately, not everyone respected this; we had far more spectators than registered. That said, it is certainly a more the merrier type of event, and we were thrilled to have the interest and excitement that we had.
At the event, we had people from all over the country who spent the summer on Nantucket, as well as spectators who traveled from the mainland just for the event. We unexpectedly had some automotive influencers, travel bloggers, and fashion models doing brand shoots. These notable guests added an extra element of excitement to our event. People were not only excited to see the cars but also to meet these people.
All in all, the event was a huge success. As mentioned above, we had to sacrifice onsite merchandise sales to get the event approved, but other than that, there was nothing more that we could have asked for. We were incredibly lucky with the weather and the people who attended. We handed out brochures with our event merchandise and QR codes linked to our website at the event. People were bummed they couldn’t purchase products at the event but understood our situation.
After the event, we had incredible post-event marketing by both people with and without cars at the event. This exposure brought a lot of visitors to our Instagram page and website, ultimately leading to many new email signups and product sales.
Before the event, we did a big marketing push to pre-sell the t-shirt before placing the order with the manufacturer. This was a very successful strategy for us. On June 29th, we announced the t-shirt, and between then and our event on July 17th, we sold: 57 long sleeve shirts for a total of $2736, 39 short sleeve shirts for a total of $1638, and 18 posters in various sizes for a total of $1560. While these are less than the number we would have presumably seen at the event for in-person sales, they aren’t terrible, considering all of our marketing efforts are done from our own channels, Instagram, and email. However, as displayed below, our Nantucket product numbers year to date were quite substantial relative to products from our other events. We attribute the success due to the attractiveness of the Nantucket name. We found that a lot of people with no connection to the island wanted to be associated with the island and bought Nantucket product over other product as a result. Due to that, we made two variants of the shirt and created a special sticker for the Nantucket event.
2022 Product Sales YTD ($)
Overall, the inaugural Nantucket Series event was a great success in our eyes. We focused on co branding the event and used our hosting venue as a big marketing point. We learned a lot, especially how to negotiate deals. While we may have been a low priority on Cisco Brewers list this year, we hope that the feedback from this years event will excite them and allow us to finalize a plan well in advance to allow proper permitting for a larger event.