We hope that many of you enjoyed the first York Cycle Festival in June – where the York Rally was joined on the Knavesmire by the Retrobike Show and the National Clarion Cycling Club’s Summer Meet. Grasstrack racing returned, and compared to 2023 there were more rides, more campers and more traders. We were again fortunate with the weather, too!
That said, as we look to 2025, with dates confirmed for 20-22 June, there are a number of areas we’ll improve. The site layout will be revised again, returning the Info Hub (formerly Rally HQ) to its previous location. We’ll also improve the traffic management, especially when the road along the enclosure fence is closed to allow rides to safely gather and depart. And our volunteers and visitors noted, and we will address, numerous other aspects of the event where we can make improvements. Our all-volunteer team do just want the event to be the best it can be for all of our visitors.
We are still working on the full programme for 2025, but we’re delighted to confirm that all three events making up the Festival will return (and others are welcome to join, too!). We may even have two days of racing, courtesy of the National Clarion Cycling Club (and talks will also be rescheduled to avoid clashing with the commentary).
After many years of dedicated volunteering, our auctioneer Tony Stephenson has stepped back for health reasons. We are considering the options for the auction slot; it may be that the very popular Saddlebag Sale extends across both days for 2025. But we have some time to work out these details.
Unfortunately, our all-volunteer team has also been grappling with a more urgent, and difficult subject: the finances.
Grappling with the finances
The revived York Rally is set up as a not-for-profit community interest company. Nobody takes wages or makes money from it. Its only purpose is to run and sustain the York Rally. Accounts are presented at each organising team meeting, which all are welcome to attend.
The Rally was profitable from the very first year that the new team revived it in 2015, and this continued until 2019. These successful years helped us build up a healthy reserve. We had to cancel due to COVID in 2020 and 2021. Then the first post-pandemic Rally, in 2022, was a bumper year and despite fast-rising costs we still made a modest profit.
Sadly, that was not repeated in 2023. We still had a good year but numbers fell back to the longer term average, rather than increasing from the 2022 peak. And rampant inflation saw costs rise fast. We made a loss. This was one of the drivers behind the team’s embrace of the Festival idea for 2024 – it was clear we needed new ideas and new audiences to keep the Rally sustainable.
We also knew that the declining trade show needed to be addressed (good trader turn-out attracts visitors), which we did by making it free for traders to exhibit (if camping) – not such a brave move as it might appear, because trader income was already low and just a small part of the overall budget. This worked, combined with the broadened appeal of the Festival, and the trade show saw significantly increased trader support this year, which is promising for the future.
Unfortunately, despite all of the hard work and a very successful event, the 2024 Festival also made a loss. Costs rose significantly again, not least for extra security. After accounts were all closed, we’d made a loss of around £5000, from an overall turnover of around £30,000.
The Rally is still financially sound for 2025, with sufficient reserves in the bank, but the Treasurer and organising team are unanimous: the Rally cannot survive a further year of losses on this scale. Without major changes, 2025 would be the last York Rally.
Difficult decisions
As you would expect, our all-volunteer team is looking at all possible ways to address the Rally’s profitability. Unfortunately, our ability to trim costs is very limited, without compromising essential visitor facilities e.g. number of showers provided (although of course all costs have been reviewed, and some savings found).
We are also actively applying for grant funding from various sources. And we’re very open to event sponsorship, too. If anyone reading this could actively contribute to attracting this sort of income, please do let us know. But as yet none of these sources of funding is confirmed.
Our supporters’ club, the Friends of York Rally, has provided valuable support over many years – for which sincere thanks to all Friends. We are looking to see how the Friends scheme may be further improved, and grown.
Another often suggested approach – an entrance fee for day visitors – is not really an option. We very much want to keep the event free to enter anyway, but even if we tried to charge for entry, we simply could not secure such a large and open site. But we are looking at other ideas around how day visitors might better support the event.
That leaves the major source of income for the event – campsite fees. And here we came to a decision which could not wait – what to charge for campsite bookings, our main source of income and the only one over which we have a measure of direct control.
Campsite fees in 2025
The organising team is acutely aware that for many people who attend the Rally and Festival, the campsite fees are a significant expense, and that any increase may make attending difficult or even impossible. We will deeply regret if any of our Rally-going friends is unable to attend due to rising prices.
So we have kept annual increases over the years to an absolute minimum.
But for 2025, we must make a significant increase. We have done so only after much debate and with great reluctance, but we believe this is absolutely essential if the event is to continue.
We must return to profitability and rebuild the reserves which have been depleted in recent years. And the only way we can be sure to make that happen is to raise the campsite prices.
We do very much hope that this year’s significant increase will be a one-off, and that we can return thereafter to just inflation-matching changes each year. With the benefit of hindsight, we should have started to make more significant changes sooner, and more gradually.
No increase is welcome, we know, but we must do this to secure the future of the event. And we do hope that campers will continue to see our campsite fees as good value, in comparison to other events, or against the commercial options.
Incidentally members of the organising team who have made this decision are also affected by these price rises – those of us staying on site pay the same fees as any other camper.
Bookings are open now
All that said, campsite bookings for 2025 are open now, and you can see the full fee structure (including earlybird discounts, which end 1st Jan 2025) on the booking page.
If you can, please do book a pitch, and we’ll look forward to seeing you there!
Your continued support is very much appreciated.
Finally
Apologies for this long note – we thought it best to be completely transparent about the decision making process for what is your York Rally and Festival – without the support of its participants, the event cannot exist.
Among those participants are the all-volunteer organising team, who work hard to sustain the York Rally for no reward other than the pleasure of seeing people enjoy the event. If anyone reading this would like to join the organising team, in any capacity (or just to observe, to start with) you would be most welcome – please just contact us.
We can’t wait to see everyone on the Knavesmire again in 2025 for what we hope will be the first of many even better and more enjoyable annual happenings of the York Cycle Rally and Festival!
The all-volunteer York Rally Committee
(and many thanks to Paul Dunn for the photo!)