Behind the Event — Keeping a Niche Motorsport Club Strong
Lil Regie Team
Andrew Walbran became part of the Auckland MG Car Club at birth. His family had a passion for MG cars and his dad had been involved with the club since 1969. So it was probably inevitable that one day he’d end up running the club’s events.
A dedicated car enthusiast, Andrew has now been managing MG Car Club events on behalf of its 550 loyal members for years. He’s still fully involved in running about 60 events annually — from motorsport competitions to social gatherings to public displays.
Walbran Family in 1966 with their first MG
In this people story, we chat to Andrew about his vast experience running events for the club. We find out what the largest event he runs is, how the club keeps its members informed and what strategies his team uses to sell tickets and create cash flow.
We also discuss sponsors and sponsorship proposals, the enjoyment of running successful events that have positive effects on the community, plus challenges and lessons learned.
A family passion — and a whole lot of fun
Andrew’s enthusiasm for MG and running the car club is unequivocal. It shines through as he points out what motivates him and why he enjoys organising the club’s events.
“MGs are such good fun cars to drive. Plus, there are a lot of great people in the car club and I really like competing in a lot of the events, helping to organise them and keeping them going.”
Celebrating 100 years of MG with the club’s largest event
Public MG display at the Cloud Auckland
Over the summer, Andrew organised the MG100 National Rally 2024 which was a nine day event that started in Auckland and travelled via Taupo to Napier. About 160 people participated over the course of the event — some even flew in from other countries like the UK, USA and Australia.
Andrew elaborates on the biggest event the club has ever run.
“That was a special week as we do a rally like that every two years with the other MG car clubs around the country. But those are generally 4-5 days, and on this rally we had:
Public display at The Cloud — where about seven thousand members of the public came to look at the cars
Guest speaker — from the UK who used to work for MG
Lots of opportunities to socialise with other like-minded MG enthusiasts
We also do navigation trials which involve taking sets of instructions literally and working out where there’s been deliberate mistakes. It’s a little bit like orienteering — but in a car.”
Old timer MGs displayed at the Cloud in Auckland
Getting the word out via email marketing and social media
It took a team of eight club members to put together the biannual National Rally. The team doesn’t really use any systems as the marketing work is fairly manual. A lot of messaging is pushed through social media to keep members and other MG groups up to date, as Andrew outlines.
“We do use Mailchimp for sending out updates and keeping people up to date. We also receive sponsorship from MG New Zealand for the National Rally — and they push the event through social media to their dealership network.”
"We aim to make sure people receive all the appropriate information. But you always get people that don’t read — so you have to account for that. Even after a morning briefing where we say this is what we’re doing, we’ll get questions afterwards."
Andrew Walbran — Former Auckland MG Car Club President
The early bird gets the worm
Like many organisations running events, the MG Car Club uses early bird and tiered pricing when they need to build up a fund for an upcoming function. The recent MG100 National Rally was a great example where cash needed to flow well-in-advance, as Andrew details.
“The rally event budget was around $200K from memory, so we needed to:
Get sponsors on board early
Pay deposits for social evening venues, and
Offer early bird entry fees — to help build up a kitty.
We actually had a super early bird special where if you registered by the end of February, you went in the draw to win your entry fee back.
Then, we ran the early bird rate until about July — which was actually the rate that we had budgeted everything on. And from there, we had an increased price.”
This strategy meant the club had enough revenue coming in to negotiate with venues and come to agreements. Andrew was able to assure deposits would be paid three to six months prior to the event.
Early bird and tiered pricing Early bird pricing is a discount offered to customers who purchase tickets or register for an event early — encouraging early commitment.
Tiered pricing involves setting different price levels based on factors like time of purchase or quantity. It incentivises buyers to act sooner or buy more to get a better deal.
How a sponsorship proposal can help make your event a success
A well-crafted sponsorship proposal is an important document for running a successful event — one that’s able to attract passionate supporters by:
Helping secure much needed funding and resources
Communicating the goals, value and audience of your event clearly
Outlining the benefits for potential sponsors — such as how they’ll gain visibility and be aligned with your event’s mission.
Fortunately, Andrew had written funding proposals in the past so he had one ready to go.
“We put together a sponsorship proposal that first went to MG New Zealand. We’d been discussing the rally with them and they came on board. They saw the value of being involved so decided to sponsor three or four events and were able to promote them on social media.
Our three other principal sponsors were:
CRC — who have a rich history of being involved in motoring stuff
Global Security — who stumped up cash and provided event security.
Together with MG New Zealand they made up about 80 percent of our total sponsorship budget.”
"We did have some cold calls saying I’ve seen you running this event and I’d like to put some money up for a prize."
Andrew Walbran
Keeping the sponsors happy
As you’d expect, the MG Car Club has interest from parties related to motorsport and classic cars who want to be involved in sponsorship. So, we asked Andrew how the club promotes these sponsors in and around their events.
“The club offered naming rights for certain events, plus write ups and advertising on all of the event promotional material such as programs and mail outs. They also benefitted from social media exposure. MG New Zealand and CRC both got their logos placed on our event merchandise — and MG had a few of their modern cars at each event with some sales people on hand.”
Enjoyment — an important part of running a successful event
The overall enjoyment of your attendees is an essential indicator of your event's success. Positive experiences can lead to repeat attendances, word-of-mouth promotion and stronger engagement — making enjoyment something that shouldn’t be overlooked.
That’s why it was great to hear Andrew respond to our question about what significant milestones or achievements he’d had running events, with how much people enjoyed the MG100 National Rally.
“Our guest speaker at The Cloud had been the head of suspension and chassis at MG Rover and MG Motor for many years. He spoke incredibly well and was really well received. People also came to our track day but were nervous about racing. They eventually gave it a go and then wanted to have another go.
MG racing at rally
The wrap-up evening was also a fun event. A lot of people turned up and stayed till the end of the night.”
"A lot of our events are outdoors. You can’t control the weather — all you can do is try and mitigate it."
Andrew Walbran
A positive impact on the community
As one of the biggest car clubs in the country, the MG Car Club takes an inclusive approach towards getting people along to their events — whether they’re members or simply curious.
“We’re very welcoming of people that are just interested in having a look. It’s a way to advertise the club.
Andrew Walbran
“We have about 200 members that will go to multiple events every year — that’s what keeps the club alive. But from a wider social perspective, we also:
Run a charity event with a big display in St. Heliers every December, and
Work with local schools particularly in rural areas — where the kids enjoy seeing the cars and they might provide us with lunch as a way of fundraising.”
The challenges of running a community group
Even for a midweek club date on a race track offering a good rate, the club needs cash on hand to be able to lock the venue in for their event. As Andrew clarifies, it’s one of their most difficult challenges.
“One of the biggest issues we have is cash flow because we’re a volunteer club. We have a little bit of money in the bank, but when you’re hiring a track it’s a $6,000 exercise — and you’ve got to stump up most of it beforehand.”
Andrew also points out the difficult task of engaging help in a volunteer oragnisation. It can be challenging to get a wider group of people doing the mahi — rather than letting a few committed individuals do most of the work and risk them burning out.
An important lesson learned while organising events
While organising your event, a valuable lesson may emerge that shapes your future planning and execution. Recognising the impact of last minute cancellations that can affect your logistics and attendance is a common problem.
“We always get people pulling out so we’ve got to account for that. We run a lot of weekend events and anticipate that about ten percent will pull out in the last week.
Andrew Walbran
Andrew explains that meal bookings and accommodation can especially be affected when he receives those late cancellations.
“Since Covid, it’s actually gotten worse. When we used to have ten percent cancelling a week before the event, now those ten percent might pull out the day before. Luckily, it’s been fairly consistent and we can kind of plan for it — but it has caught us out once or twice and we had to get a little inventive.”
For the MG100 National Rally, that inventiveness involved asking a few attendees if they wouldn’t mind having someone dossing on the couch in their motel.
A bright future
After the huge success of the recent MG100 National Rally, the club’s premium event, Andrew is confident of continued growth and success on the road ahead.
“The Otago club will host the next one in 2026 and they’re going to think outside of the box again — so it’ll be interesting to see what they come up with.”
Running a successful event often requires passion for what you’re doing. It’s also about accepting the challenges, finding solutions to issues (sometimes on the run) and taking the lessons learned forward to your next event.
Lil Regie Team
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