One Month to Monterey
Hi Friends!
It’s almost that time of year once again! Event calendars are taking shape, auction dockets are getting filled and Monterey Car Week is just around the corner.
Over the last few weeks, I’ve been reaching out to people in and around this business and asking them about their plans for this August and I’m getting some surprising feedback. First and foremost, a lot of people are planning not to attend this year (or at least so they say as of right now…). The consistency of reasons why was also a little surprising.
Essentially, it breaks down to three things:
(Listed in order of least frequently to most frequently heard)
3. It’s just plain too much stuff.
For the last several years, 50 plus events during the week-long run (56 officially scheduled as of now for 2024) in Monterey has not been uncommon. To say that this is overwhelming would be an understatement. I can personally attest to this one, too. Last year, I left my hotel daily around 6:00 AM and returned around 3:00 AM the following morning. I averaged about 20,000 steps a day, ate pretty much nothing, and during the 4 days that I was in Monterey, managed to lose 17 pounds and still didn’t see even close to everything.
Between the races, Concours, auctions, meetings, parties, product launches, seminars, you name it, Monterey is HECTIC. It’s clear from speaking to several of our friends, partners and clients alike, that it’s just become too much and not a lot of people are willing to put themselves through it again this year.
2. The “luxury lifestyle” marketers have dug themselves in too deep.
Traditionally, the main draw of Monterey Car Week has been its exclusivity, its laid-back atmosphere and its focus on genuine automotive enthusiasm. It’s becoming painfully clear that those days may now be in the rear view.
Everywhere you looked last year, there was some kind of egregiously blinged out new product being shoved in your face, some kind of corporate sponsored something or other or a greasy influencer opportunity that was specifically geared towards being seen with shiny new things vs. actually understanding and caring about Monterey’s more traditional fare of highly curated, time-honored classics and the artwork therein. Some events seemingly totally flipped the switch and became completely focused on things like showcasing new product launches and selling vendor space to these kinds of entities.
Obviously, the world must evolve in order to survive, and there’s no doubt that last year’s installment of Car Week was from the standpoint of major sponsor dollars (the best funded one I’ve ever seen). The positive of this, is that it does create different, sometimes more thorough experiences, as big companies with dedicated and highly developed event marketing teams are good at stuff like that. The downside is it can also cheapen things a lot, too.
We forget that ultimately, Monterey is largely still a quiet little hippie fishing town. There’s certainly a historical precedence there for significant events as well beyond car week (for example, I have literally stood on the actual burn mark where Jimi Hendrix so iconically set his Fender Stratocaster on fire during the legendary pop festival there), but there’s a line and it seems like if it hasn’t been crossed, it’s certainly getting close and people are recognizing that.
1. Local businesses and the City of Monterey have overplayed their hands.
This was by far the most common reason I heard for people not wanting to attend this year and I’ve been hearing grumblings of this now for quite a while.
Again, this is something I can speak from experience on. Last year I spent almost double what I spent the previous year during my time there (and I brought half as many people as I normally do and was there for one less night).
There’s no doubt that Monterey has always been expensive. That’s part of the experience and it’s obviously deliberate. You get to see multi-million dollar cars everywhere you look, but meanwhile you’re paying astronomical amounts of money to sleep in a more than slightly questionable, 1-star type hotel room scenario that cost somebody else $15 three or four nights prior. Of course, there’s world class resort properties and boutique hotels scattered around the Peninsula too, but it gets even more insane there (if there’s availability). There was a short period where Airbnb was providing some solutions, but that ship has appeared to have sailed as well (from my understanding, courtesy of some questionably thought-out local legislation).
There’s no doubt, that the logic here is that the people attending are coming into town to spend millions of dollars on toys and can definitely afford to throw down whatever it costs. The money that gets spent during Car Week in Monterey every year definitely gets put to good use by the city and its local residents as well. This said, there’s a point where it starts to become insulting and turns people off. That was the sentiment I was getting from a lot of the folks that I spoke with. “I could, but I’m sick of it and I’m not doing it this year,” was the gist of what I heard from people. A hypothetical line in the sand has been drawn. The local powers that be have been creeping up on it for years, but now it’s been crossed and what appears to be a significant amount of serial attendees just don’t want to deal with it anymore. They would rather spend their hard earned funds bidding on their dream cars as they cross the block online (don’t get me wrong – cars will still be bought).
So, although this reads pretty negatively, I don’t want anyone to take this as some sort of declaration that Monterey Car Week is dead or it’s a bad time or anything else. In my opinion, it definitely remains the best, most significant celebration of the automobile in this part of the world. Additionally, it would be hard to disagree with the fact that the Pebble Beach Concours is the Superbowl of cars and is likely the most important collector car event on the planet. If you’ve never been before, you absolutely have to do it at least once. It really is life-changing.
I also don’t want to discourage anyone from attending this year either. Looking at some of the available inventory that the auction houses have brought forth and what some of the major events are planning, it will most assuredly be one of the greatest groups of cars (and car enthusiasts) ever assembled.
There’s also no networking opportunity I’ve personally ever attended in this industry that can even remotely compare. I’ve made incredible business relationships during Monterey Car Week and I’ve forged some of the most cherished friendships that I currently have in my life on the Peninsula during these events.
All I’m doing here is reporting what I’m hearing and making a simple observation that maybe things are starting to get a little too far away from what the idea was even as recently as a couple of years ago. That idea was a good one. It would be a genuine shame to lose sight of it completely.
That’s it for this week…
Darin Roberge