We'd like to start off by thanking all of our members that were able to purchase a vehicle pass to be on our stand (despite them selling out very early). We had a great time despite the weather being very windy but let's get into things...
THE DRIVE TO JAPFEST
A few of us met up before the event at our usual spot (Cherwell Valley Services, just off the M40) so that we could convoy in together. We shortly left Cherwell at 7:30am to encounter a 20 minute convoy to Silverstone, this was not the case! Japfest made a statement that they had a "new" traffic management system in place so that it would make it easier to get into the show as well as leave the show. Now we know that there is usually a short queue to get into Japfest (after all, it is one of the biggest car shows on the JDM scene) but this year, we queued for 2 hours to get into the show! With a long queue to Japfest and the on-going d*ckheads that felt they could just push in made this a troublesome start for us, nevertheless we still hoped it would be a good show for us....
FINALLY GETTING INTO JAPFEST
We actually didn't arrive into the venue until just gone 9:30am, giving us less than half hour to get our cars ready before they opened the gates to the general public, none of our tickets was scanned upon entry making us question why we had to wait 2 hours to get into the event but hey-ho! We got directed to our club stand spot by 1 marshal and despite it being moved by the organisers due to the wet weather, we still ended up in our original location. We met with a few others who headed straight to the event and got our stand organised, we wasn't given a lot of space by the organisers but we managed to squeeze all of our squares onto our stand. We promptly gave all of our squares a quick detail and polish and we were gleaming and ready to go!
THE EVENT IN GENERAL
Once we were all prepped for the spectators, we took a stroll into the central part of the showground, passing under the tunnel we took our first stroll down the paddock area. In the paddocks was majority of the trade stands, for some reason they had moved all the trade stands to inside the paddocks which made it extremely hard for us to navigate due to the sheer amount of spectators and enthusiast at the event (so we gave all the trade stands a miss for this event which is a shame as they're usually pretty good). We did however eventually find where to pick up our freebies from the event (you would have thought they would have signed posted where to collect your merchandise from, but that's just Kelsey Publishings organisational skills for you). The ebay stand looked pretty good for this event and had the option to actually purchase stuff for your car directly from the event (sadly ebay doesn't actually stock a lot of parts for the variety of squares we have within our club, so we gave that a miss as well). Just after the ebay stand is the MX5 owners club who were celebrating their 30th anniversary of the MX5/Miata, there certainly was a variety of colours on stand and considering they were allocated extra passes (after the deadline had been for everyone else and being told there wasn't anymore vehicle passes passes) they still had a pretty large stand with a mixture of modified and stock MX5s.
Taking a walk further up from the paddock area we stumbled into the club area where other clubs were located, here is where we took most of the pics in our gallery, we've dropped a few cars that stood out to us here.
OVER THE BRIDGE
For the first time since 2019 they actually had club stands over the bridge! Now they did only move clubs over there because of the wet weather but seeing as they were able to do this, you would have thought they would have opened this area up in the first place. Nothing had actually changed dramitcally over the brifge apart from a new fence to stop spectators spectating from the bridge & banks area and the removal of the little hill, a part from that it was almost like they had been doing zero work over there for the best part of 2/3 years! The walk to the area over the bridge did feel like a lifetime away as there was no club stands or stall in between the main area and the area over the bridge but once over the bridge there was a good mixture of cars but also a lot of wasted space (could have easily got more cars into this event). There was a new feature for the event over in this area and that was the 'drift taxis' but for us that was even further out than what we planned to walk to seeing as it was located next to the main entrance and the furthest point away from the actual show.
SUMMARY OF JAPFEST
Now we've personally been attending Japfest since 2016 and this year (for us personally) seemed to be the worst one we've been to which is making us question if we'd go back next year. Kelsey Publishing/Fast Car Entertainment boasts that every year is the biggest one with record breaking numbers (only record breaking number for this year was the longest conga line on the A43) but we don't care about the numbers, we just want a popular show where we can mingle with other petrol-heads. Everything seemed spaced out and there was so much space wasted which could have been filled with so many more JDM cars & clubs, the new management system needs to straight back to the drawing board and whoever marked out the club stands needs a lesson or two in that not all cars are the same size as a Peel P50.
We did, however, enjoy ourselves with the other Square Society members on our stand, yes it may have been rather windy (sadly we can't control the weather lol) but the atmosphere as a whole was very positive. We spoke to a few members (new and reoccurring) to see what their feedback was, the majority said that their time was enjoyed as an enthusiast but a few things could be improved. As a club/club stand organiser, there is a lot that could be improved.
Overall club rating would be 7/10
Overall club organisers rating would be 4/10
UP NEXT
JAP SHOW
Santa Pod Raceway
Sunday 12th May
£26 per adult
You'll next be able to catch us at Santa Pod Raceway for one of most favourite events of the year, Jap Show! We still have space on our stand if anyone would like to showcase their square with us!
Pop us a message if you're interested in being on our stand for Jap Show at Santa Pod and we'll send you the full details and club password.
For more events, check out our events page on the club website!
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