Less good.. The more open, the more easy people are willing to try. If they need to enter some stairs and be in a closed environment, the less inviting it is.
Among my many sketches of trailer plans, are designs of the simulators in RV's and Buses. I REALLY want to cram or hide some living space in there some where, a crapper, shower and bed, does not have to be fancy just usable and hidden when doing races.
For now, I opted to go with a shorter vehicle and a lower cost to get started. That meant this trailer...
There is a guy down south, I forget what state, but he has 8 Simulator seats in a bus running nascar software, likely Iracing. I think it was called RaceDayBus or something. I thought about a bus, but while the bus itself would have been cheaper, getting it cleaned up and fixed so it looked nice enough to do events, would have cost way too much cash and time.
The trailer offers a lower floor, although my trailer it may actually be TOO low. I can take the two rear most seats off of the cockpit, which should allow a wheel chair to access the rear two simulators, although the Fender may be in the way, or the cockpit may be too wide to fit between the wheels of some wheel chairs. Just gave away the wheel chair I had in the garage for testing, before I got the trailer ready (poor timing).
I will be doing another fairly large event next weekend, this will likely be the first time I charge per-race. I was going to charge $5.00 for a 10 minute race, but I think I am going to change gears, and charge $10 for a 20 minutes of racing, divided up into 5 separate 3 lap races. This way if they crash early or screw up it is not too long until they can restart at the start line. It is surprising how few people can get OUT of the pit and onto the track......... without pretty much doing it for them.
I guess I need to add more pylons and arrows on the pit lane... showing the way out.
When you FIRST see black woods pit exit it is down a hill in a blind spot, everyone instead heads toward the little dead end next to the exit where the gas pumps are.
I also need to find a way to have the car start in 1st gear, after it is reset or a race starts... takes too long to tell people to shift up once before the car will move.
Could be a nice suggestion to Scawen. We could have an option in the driver tab to tick whether we want the car to advance automatically if in automatic transmission mode. Pressing the accelerator would engage the "drive" or 1st gear automatically and pressing the brake while the car is stopped could engage the reverse gear.
Well the first event that I tried to charge $5/$10 a race is over.
Friday was very slow, not many people, had 0 races sold.
Saturday, was the main event day, was packed, in a large park, sports field and parking lot was elbow to elbow, and thousands of pre 70's cars.
Sunday, was slow again, but I sold a few races.
Only sold about $300 in $5.00 races.
Event cost me about that, if not more, in vendor space, gas, and insurance.
A few things contributed to the low sales.
* Trailer is still just WHITE, no wrap, or signage on the side.
* I was in one of the two exit/entrance paths, so only about 50% of the people that where there saw me, the rest likely came in and went out the other side. And even those that did see me were hurrying in to their spot, or already decided to hurry up and leave.
* Not many wanted to pay $5.00/$10.00 (I did have two pairs of people each buy $10 races though)
* There was a Mobile 1 Race Trailer there, with a $8000 single-player simulator, with small actuators, running iRacing, for FREE. My only saving grace there was they were only letting people do 1 lap on a small nascar oval, so it was about 30 seconds. I was told there were no other games or rides of any kind, that I was the only one, I suspect Mobile may have copied me after day 1... they had it setup in the back of their semi trailer.
Many people asked about the software I was running, and liked it, maybe a few will download and install the demo of LFS, maybe some will actually buy S1,2,or 3.
Too bad you didn't make any money, but take the good points of the experience and build on them. Being a bit more visable next time and be able to spread the LFS-word (so to speak) is a bonus for the whole community. Keep it up.
It sounds like you're learning more and more each time you're setting up the trailer. $300 for your first shot doesn't sound shabby at all considering you know you weren't in a prime spot and didn't have trailer advertising.
Have you considered crowdsourcing a design for your trailer here on the forum? You could plaster a phone number, website and/or Facebook link on it too to advertise that the trailer is available for event hire (if that's the way you want it to go).