There are times in life when you need a change of scenery, a new job, a new house or a new car. Most of the time changes are good, but sometimes things can take a turn for the worse. You lose your job, or your house burns down, or your car gets stolen… Or, in our case, the venue in Oosterhout for the W.W. end of year 2K15 event wasn’t available at the date we’d set for the 22nd of November. But sometimes when everything seems lost, things take a turn for the best!
Our friends from Stickerdump pointed us in the direction of an old military compound, which is now being used as a storage facility…
… something the local carnival guilds put to good use! To be fair, we kind of outgrew our old venue in Oosterhout after having held the E.O.Y meet there five years in a row, so the fact that we couldn’t use this location turned out to be a blessing in disguise.
Because the new venue, Hal89 near Venray, is freaking huge! Let’s just say there’s plenty of room to expand, so I think we’re good for at least another five years.
But with a new venue come new expenses, as much as we love to organise these kind of events, we’re not able to fund them out of our own pockets – and lets be honest, you can’t expect us to! So we decided a €5,- entry fee per visitor would cover our costs, I have to take my hat off to each and every single visitor because I’ve heard no complaints what so ever!
A great bonus about Hal89 is that we were able to host a small, invitation only indoor area. One of the thriving forces behind Wangan Warriors is Noud, and his mum’s car, Noud made sure…
… to select some of the finest JDM rides this side of the continent for the indoor area!
I particularly liked loved this gorgeous PS13, and I’ll be paying the owner a a visit soon to shoot a full feature for our humble blog.
But there was plenty to see outdoors as well and without trying to sound too cocky, the best thing I like about our meetings is the sheer variety at our meets and events.
From a stanced city slicker…
… to one of the JT Performance Time Attack monsters…
… to a street driven classic rally monster…
… to an all motor, 10 second, tarmac destroying, very loud drag monster…
… and everything in between. All is welcome and all shall be welcomed!
Minus a small rain shower, it was a perfect day to just hang out and chill with your buddies. Enjoying that what we all love so dear, Japanese cars and it’s community.
For a first time at a new event it couldn’t have gone any better if you ask me…
… and when the dust settled…
… and people where preparing to find their way home again…
… we found out that we had received 500+ cars and more than 1000 visitors!
Editors note; Pets not included!
A number we are certainly pleased with considering that our prep time was cut short and the fact it was a new venue!
– A small side note; I’d like to thank Carlo, the owner of above C210, for showing up at our event! Carlo is a regular at our other meets, but I knew he didn’t have the easiest of weeks prior to this one due to personal circumstances. It’s always good to see you buddy, but I felt honored you choose to join us despite your bad week!
But you see, as I said before, most of the time change is good. Even when things don’t seem to go your way, every cloud has a silver lining and for every location we’re not able to use we will find an even beter one!
Sure, there’s always room for improvment but In the end our annual JDM get-together got even better. The W.W. End of year took a turn for the best!
So if you haven’t paid us a visit this year, you better make sure you visit our annual End of year meet event next year. For those who where there, thank you for visiting and we’ll look forward to seeing you all next year!
Also a big thanks to the following companies for their continuous support;
Stickerdump
New Era shop Ede
JT Performance
Showoff Imports
– Allard van Grafhorst
BONUS IMAGES
