A weekend in Blackpool; always a pleasure, especially when it’s to attend the 2025 NARSA Rally.
Setting up the 2025 NARSA Rally
As has been the norm for a few years now, Alison and I rack up on Saturday afternoon to meet our friends from the Wales Digital Radio Group (WDRG). We also join forces to help the organisers set up the venue, ready for the masses that turn up on the Sunday.
This year’s rally coincided with the monthly 145-Alive event, so we visited the event tent that the hotel had allowed the WDRG to erect in-front of the hotel along with a modest antenna. We stayed with them for a short while, but then retreated into the warmth of the hotel for a coffee.
Norbreck Castle Hotel
With our stand erected we retired for dinner; a take-away from a local eatery. The food was tasty and hot and, having had our fill, we bid our goodnights and headed for our room. Not generally known for its high quality, our room was a step up from last year – we could actually see out of our windows this year. The room looked like it had recently been refurbished; well, within the last fifteen years is fairly recent for the Norbreck Hotel.
Up early the next morning, after a night of listening (not deliberately) to what was going on in the room next door through the paper thin walls, and we were met with four coach loads of kids, and their incessantly whistle-blowing adult chaperones. Breakfast isn’t bad there, but it was soon devoured as we moved in to the large exhibition hall to browse the wares on the other stalls before the doors were opened to the masses.
Enter the masses?
Sadly, despite trying to spend some money (honest, even though Alison was with me) I couldn’t find anything. The lanes of the hall were well trodden by the time the doors opened to the public, but there was nothing to be shown for it – not a single penny spent.
As the masses, though I’m not quite sure I can call them masses exactly, poured in through the doors, it became very apparent that we weren’t going to be rushed off our feet. By the time ten minutes had passed the hall looked like it was around 13:00 in years gone by – there were huge gaps in the hall with no visitors.
And indeed, so it manifested itself. We had a steady trickle of visitors to our stand, stocked with generally good quality diverse kit, priced well below what they had recently sold for on Ebay. We sold some of it, but this was the first time I have come away from the NARSA rally with nearly as much as I brought. I spoke with other folk who had a stand at the rally and the general consensus seemed to be the same.
The numbers are in – tentatively
Preliminary reports from the organisers of the 2025 NARSA Rally seem to suggest that there were 712 wrist-bands were sold on the day, equating to an 8% drop on last year.
I am aware that some visitors went away without even getting in as the doors were only accepting cash and, as is typical these days, the number of people who go around cash-less is growing. Some I know also baulked at even going at all – the £8 entrance fee being the obstacle.
However, folk do have to understand that holding such a large event at a big venue like this is not the same as holding a much smaller event at a local church hall – economies of scale and all that. Personally, I don’t think that £8 is too bad for a venue of this size.
Best website award – sadly not
There were a number of awards presented at the 2025 NARSA Rally and the Thorton Cleveleys group (TCARS) well deserved the best stand award – it was a very commendable attempt to inform, meet and greet. Maybe we need to take a leaf out of their book for next year and get a few more members involved on the day.
Sadly, we didn’t win the best website award either, congratulations go to the Gilmore and North West Morse Radio Club. The only thing that I can see that we failed on was not having an Instagram or Twitter account; though I thought Twitter had ceased to be a couple of years ago.
Conclusion
I don’t see rallies these days as a place to buy anything I really want. With few retailers attending rallies these days, you can’t guarantee that you’ll be able to get what you want for starters. And then, if you do manage to get sight of your dream radio, will it be guaranteed/warrantied by the seller? I think many people prefer to buy online these days – and why wait two weeks until you go to the rally, when you can have it delivered next day days, if not weeks, before the rally.
Rallies are becoming a place for meeting old friends and making new ones. They’re a place to see what other clubs are doing and getting ideas for your own. They’re a place for getting ideas on how to develop your own personal hobby and maybe even take it in a new direction.
I spoke with two newly licensed radio amateurs at the event and refused to sell them anything. One had held a licence for days and the other no more than a couple of weeks. I told them to go and find a Brickworks Accredited Club, join it, attend some meetings and use the club to find out what aspects of the hobby they’re going to devote some time to. Only then should they start thinking about what kit they should purchase. They were both very grateful for the advice and later came back to tell me they’d signed up with a club at the rally.
That summarises what I believe rallies are these days and I think it’s great. Okay, if I can pick up a speculative bargain whilst I’m there, so much the better – but that’s not my primary focus these days. And £8 for that – a bargain!