[Closed] Caravan, Camping & Motorhome Show NEC

18-23rd so the weekend after

Ah, well spotted. I guess I won't be going this weekend then (embarrassed face)

Can't bring myself to commit to 40k+ vehicle not knowing how the propulsion of said vehicle will be affected I the time I plan on owning it - 10 years or so. No viable green alternatives to fossil fuels.

I have been, its good to get ideas, but basically its mega expensive vans for lottery winners and the blue rinse brigade.
I didn't see any exhibitors of items that would help a self convertor, apart from maybe Dometic.

Really the internet is a better resource, and do you really want to be milling around with 1000's of people who could be carrying a dodgy virus?

I certainly won't go again.

Yeah, expect to get ****tted by a load of old biddies elbowing you out of the way trying to look inside anything.
Most things will be beige, psuesdo-contempory things will be a bit grey & have shiny bits.

You can look around more vans than anywhere else but if it's T5/T6 you're interested in then the vast majority is just yet another pop roof / side kitchen / rock & roll bed clone.

Can’t bring myself to commit to 40k+ vehicle not knowing how the propulsion of said vehicle will be affected I the time I plan on owning it – 10 years or so. No viable green alternatives to fossil fuels.

Been following Glyn's adventures for a while but this got published the other day:

https://dmmclimbing.com/Journal/February-2020/Do-Climbers-Dream-of-Electric-Vans

Can't wait for more EV vans, hopefully in the next few years there'll be some good options in the Transit Custom / Transporter / Dispatch sort of size.

if it’s T5/T6 you’re interested in then the vast majority is just yet another pop roof / side kitchen / rock & roll bed clone.

Precisely what I don't want in a conversion. Think I'll give it a miss then.

It’s on this weekend and only £7 with free parking. Is there likely to be much for the converting a van on a budget crowd or is it more your £40k starting price T6 conversions?

I went to the Scottish one last weekend to convince myself I wanted a van.
NEC is a bargain. SECC was £13/head + £11 parking.

Nothing their that was less than £40k ish; and it just convinced me that any of the T6 type things were too cramped to be useful for out needs and anything bigger was mostly even crazier money and impractical for non camper use... back to the drawing board then.

What baffles me about all the VW Transporter conversions - they are nearly all swb. Surely the lwb would make much more sense?

We went to the Scottish one to get ideas for our new van which will be a self build.

There’s was a small room with a few T6s in, we didn’t really look in there as we have a T5 already and want something bigger.

It was a nice wander around and some nice vans, but ultimately it showed us that no one makes what we want off the shelf. We also don’t want to spend 40k. Did get a few ideas for what works and we mostly wanted to see how much space you get inside a Ducato. Lots.

they are nearly all swb.

Ours isn’t 🙂 Although the layout is kind of SWB but with a massive boot.

Joint second worst-behaved visitors at the NEC with Crufts.  First - Quilting show.

Nope. not a joke.  Rude, entitled and just generally unpleasant.

We went to the October one on a week day which was an acceptable level of busy. Yes, all pretty much standard layout T6, but as people who have never converted a van before, it was still useful to just sit in them, test out RnR beds, look at ideas etc, which we’d only seen online. It did also put the Jerba roof on our potential list. For us it was worth seeing lots of little things in various vans rather than having to drive round Yorkshire. Wouldn’t go again though. It served its purpose for us.