First things first... With a Ric Flair Wooo!!! How much fun did you have at PGP 2K18 Elgin this year?!? The Parking Garage Party is a collaboration between myself and my boys over at Stay ILL. What we've created together has turned into one of summer's most highly anticapated automotive parties.
What people may forget to see is how much planning and work it takes to put something at this level together. This year's PGP turned out to be our biggest challenge we've faced to date.
There wouldn't be any beautiful endings to any story without it's own trials and tribulations along the way that must be overcome. Our PGP story is no different. Facing a serious time crunch, the workload amount, city issues and even our own personal issues couldn't stand in the way of bringing our dream to all of you.
What we normally do in three months was condensed to be done in two months. Which in itself is quite intimidating. Like the countdown on a christmas tree at the dragstrip, we built boost and hit that two step for the perfect launch right out the hole. Or in other words just hit the gas, keep it straight and hold on for the ride.
As anticipated, the PGP gained a lot of traction from the start like a GTR from dig. Things were looking very good and then shit happens. We noticed after a couple of weeks that the PGP page was getting stagnant and plateauing. We were beside ourselves of to what could be the cause of this... Or is it multiple things?
I'll tell you what didn't help was another free car show held during the day by another popular chicago based car culture brand. So we had to adjust slightly our marketing plan to compensate for that inconvenience.
How mobsters back in the day would say "this town ain't big enough for the both of us", I beg the differ. I think once people actually saw the value and production we deliver, then there really wasn't a comparison. The shows were on two different levels.
It was at this plateau moment when two out of the three of us were hit with personal issues. Pile that onto the mountain stress we were already under. What seemed like an eternity was only a few days before we got things back to normal. Like getting squirrely at the top of second when full boost kicks in and the rear tires break loose. We had to feather the throttle and shift gears in order to get back in a straight line.
Once we re-gameplanned it was almost like regaining that traction we lost and we started to make up ground quickly. Soon we had multiple cars and a vendor registering every day. Now we can't forget that this isn't just a car show but also a legit concert.
We started to hit the EDM pages and market through these channels to promote the concert aspect of the show. This year we increased the budget for talent and the stage. What we got in return was one hell of a show. Each individual performance by the artist was lit.
Meela through down a killer set to open the show for us. She was followed by Hi Five which had the kids in the crowd starting to dance. Next up was Dj Shane So ILL and he was OK ;). Then came turn up time with AyJay, the energy really started to get going on the top level at this point.
As the sun ever so slightly began to set is when our direct support artist Axilon went on stage to kill their set... before.... the main act..... Yookie!!!! Yookie just completely destroyed their set like it was a set of tires ready for a smoke show of a burnout!
I almost forgot to mention that toward the end of axilon's set it started to drizzle. The drizzle turned into rainfall and something happened at this point in the night.
Some fled to the lower levels of the garage to be dry but some also stayed at the top, in the rain. It was when the T-rex came running into crowd and started dancing that I knew things were gonna get a little weird from here.
Essentially, the rain only lasted for a brief moment and everyone was having some good old fashion fun. Aside from the rain, we did have some other quarks along the way.
One being judging, some classes were taking longer to judge than others and that turned into some frustrated drivers because they weren't judged yet. Which is understandable, but just keep in mind we are judging 250-350 cars in the matter of a few hours.
All I ask is for your patience and understanding as we implemented a new scorecard numbers judging system this year. Which worked well but we just need to redesign the scorecards themselves.
Even with the expected and unexpected hurdles, somehow we pulled it off. I didn't even mention the challenges the city put in front of us with only 24hrs before the show. Still, somehow we pulled it off. I really think it is because of the each individual's effort that is apart of this PGP team which is the reason why we were able to pull this off.
Now as we cross the finish line of this drag race, I would like to thank the sponsors that made PGP happen this year. Go like and follow their social media pages!!! Thank you Audi of Hoffman Estate for being our Trophy Sponsors, Thank you LEC for yet another amazing stage, Thank you Distinct Visual Solutions for all our marketing and promo materials, and lastly thank you LLOYD Agencies and Full Frontal Graphics for being event sponsors as well.
The real question though is..... Are you ready for round 2?!?!?! PGP Milwaukee!!!!
