Is BG4x4 Fest 2026 the Best Off-Road Event in Ohio?
Rachael London of BG4x4 Fest joins Jeep Talk Show to preview the third annual family-friendly 4×4 event on Saturday, October 3, 2026 at the Wood County Fairgrounds in Bowling Green, Ohio. Admission is free for spectators while participants can register for the downtown convoy, Park & Shine, mud pit, sled pull, and burnout pit. Proceeds from the 501(c)(3) Local Drive nonprofit fund scholarships for Wood County students heading into agriculture and the trades after more than $9,000 awarded over the first two years. Hear event details, vendor info, camping options, the Friday hype night at Thayer Family Dealers, and plans to grow into a multi-day festival.
Timestamps
Key Highlights
- Free community admission Saturday, October 3, 2026, 10 a.m.–5 p.m. at Wood County Fairgrounds with a 9:30 a.m. downtown convoy
- Paid activities: Park & Shine $5, mud pit $25, sled pull $25, convoy $45 (includes event T-shirt)
- More than 5,000 estimated attendees last year; proceeds support Wood County agriculture and trade scholarships
- Friday hype event at Thayer Family Dealers with packet pickup, car crushing, food trucks, and a practice hill
- Vendors, kids pedal pull, RC crawlers, hose-off area, camping, and indoor/outdoor space rain or shine
Like the video if you’re heading to Bowling Green this October, comment which activity you’d register for first (mud pit, sled pull, or convoy), subscribe for more Jeep Talk Show interviews, and get the latest details at bg4x4fest.com or @BG4x4fest on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.
Support the Show & Shop Jeep Gear Thank you for watching and listening! If you enjoyed the conversation with Rachael London, consider checking out some of the great products and upgrades we discussed.
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Episode Transcript
[00:00:00:06 – 00:00:28:08]
A’ighty-ho boys and girls, it’s time for another Jeep Talk Show interview. We’re gonna be talking with Rachel. Rachel London is one of the organizers for Bg4x4 Fest. That’s for X4 Fest. This will be her third year planning Bg4x4 Fest. She is looking forward to another great event. Rachel, I guess you’re doing okay. You’re doing okay job if you’re doing it for the third year in a row, or you’re kin to somebody or you got some dirt on somebody.
[00:00:29:23 – 00:00:45:18]
I think it’s going all right. We’re having fun and providing some events for the Jeepers and the four by four enthusiasts that wanna come out and use their vehicle or show it off or anything like that. So the website is bg4x4fest.com,
[00:00:47:16 – 00:00:52:01]
bg4x4fest.com. When is the event? What’s the date?
[00:00:53:09 – 00:01:24:21]
It’s October 3rd, 10 a.m. to about 5 p.m. We have a convoy that goes through our downtown a little bit beforehand, about 9.30. We end up at the fairgrounds around 10, and then we have a bunch of events that you can participate in with your vehicle. Very good, and it’s not a Jeep only event. Correct, it’s all four by fours. Sometimes we get some side by sides even through the mud pit, but all four by fours. Is there a place for them to hose off or are they responsible for their own cleanup?
[00:01:25:27 – 00:01:40:15]
There’s a place to hose off at least before they go back out on the road. Good, good, good. I could see, I mean, some people don’t care, but I mean, I could see that they’re thinking about it afterwards. Like, you’re not getting in the house, no. You’re not getting in my truck, that type of thing.
[00:01:41:29 – 00:02:53:18]
Very, very good. Okay, so tell us a little bit about the event. Who is it to benefit? Why do you do this? I mean, it’s always great to have a good time, but what’s the benefit behind this? So a handful of us from our town came together because we wanted to give back to the community, and we found this as a way to do that. We have the National Tractor Pull Championships here. We have the fairgrounds. We have VisitBG and Thayer Family Dealers. And so it took all of us to kind of come together to put this all on. And we made a nonprofit, 501C3, so that all of the money that we raise goes towards providing scholarships for Wood County residents that are going into agriculture or trade schooling. And so for the last two years, we’ve given a total of $9,000 in scholarships to nine kids. And it was either towards tooling, towards school, agriculture school, trade school, anything like that. So it’s cool to be able to give back and help in a little bit of way.
[00:02:54:21 – 00:03:07:06]
Now, you know where the event is, and some people recognize the name, but for folks that maybe are in the area and they’re not aware, maybe it’s a little outside their known area, where is this being held?
[00:03:08:10 – 00:04:08:21]
So we are in Northwest Ohio in Bowling Green, and then we have our fairgrounds is where the event takes place. And that’s just outside of a downtown Bowling Green. Very good. And would you say it is kind of out in the boonies or is it close to places to sleep, places to eat? I mean, like if you wanted to drive in and there’s hotels and things that you could stay at. Yep, we’re also a college town. So we have lots of hotels around, lots of different food options, lots of pizza bars, anything like that, lots of stuff to do here. We have a hype event the night before, so you can come in and crush some cars or take our hill and try out your vehicle, pick up your packets and all of that, and then check out our downtown with some shopping or food and hotels. We also offer camping at the fairgrounds. So if you do come in, you can stay right there.
[00:04:09:27 – 00:04:40:01]
Very nice. All right, so I’m sorry, you gave a date. I don’t think we got a time. And is it a multi-day event or a one-day event? It’s a one-day event on October 3rd. We start the convoy that goes through our downtown about 930, and then the event starts at the fairgrounds at 10, and goes to about five o’clock. And we have the car show, we have a vendor row, we have kids activities, a kiddie pedal pole, we have a sled pole. You can try and hook your truck on and see how far you can pull the sled,
[00:04:41:14 – 00:05:06:29]
a burnout pit and a mud pit. So how do you get involved in the drive thing that you were just talking about? Is that something you need to sign up for? Or I would think that you gotta at least communicate out where you’re meeting up. Yep, so it’s a free event for the community, and then we charge a little bit for each, if you wanna participate in any of the events. It’s like 25 or $45, just depending on which one.
[00:05:08:00 – 00:05:20:22]
And so right on our website, there’s a place to register for those events. So you can register ahead of time. You get a T-shirt with your convoy registration, and we start that on the south side of town and then drive through.
[00:05:21:28 – 00:05:36:09]
And I would assume that’s any legal vehicle, motorcycles, if it’s side-by-sides or legal in your area, just any legal vehicle that can be on the street. Yep, yep. The more the merrier, I would think too, because a lot of people go, what the
[00:05:36:09 – 00:06:24:23]
going on? And then some of them go, oh yeah, I remember this from last year, yeah. All right, we have a good time, and there’s lots of vehicles that come out and some really cool ones to take a look at and see. It’s really, it’s cool. Very cool. A good time. Very cool, so it’s not a multi-day event, but you have a hype event. The day before, correct? Yep, at the dealership, we have a place for packet pickup, and we do some car crushing, we have some food trucks, music. We have a hill in the back of our dealership that we kind of set up with railroad ties and tires and stuff like that to try out. And somebody’s really busy. When do you guys start working on this? You gotta be working on it at least a week ahead of time. Yeah, almost as soon as the last one’s over, we start again, so.
[00:06:25:27 – 00:06:32:13]
So the tires and the train ties, all that stuff stays up year round?
[00:06:33:16 – 00:06:46:11]
No, we take that down and put that stuff up. Yeah, about a week ahead of time, I guess, for that stuff. All right, I hate to even ask this, but, and you probably picked this time of year because you really don’t have a problem with rain, but what happens if it rains?
[00:06:47:15 – 00:06:55:25]
We got the mud pit. If it rains, just come. (Laughs) Bring it up, Bella, is what I hear. (Bella Laughs) Rain or shine, yep.
[00:06:56:29 – 00:07:23:21]
All right, so we’ve already covered the purpose of the event. Oh, and that was the other thing. Whatever you’re paying for the event, it’s going towards the charity. So it’s a good thing. And I think you said 501(c), so it would be a write-off? Yep, it is. Very good, very good. All right, so who is this primarily for? Would you say family, serious competitors, casual enthusiasts? Yeah, all of it.
[00:07:25:00 – 00:07:47:21]
(Laughs) Kind of a family event. We do, we have some competitions with the burnout pit and this lead pool this year will also be a competition. And we have some fun little awards that we give away along with some money. So a little bit of both. I mean, mostly a family-friendly event that we want the community to come out and see and participate in and have a good time. Sure.
[00:07:48:27 – 00:08:03:27]
So I think you’ve mentioned this a couple of times now, but what are the main activities that you’re focusing on during the event? What is it that you really want people to enjoy seeing? I mean, burnouts are fun. The mud pit certainly is fun. Yeah.
[00:08:05:11 – 00:08:15:13]
We’d like the community to come out and see the convoy that goes through town and see all the vehicles that are gonna be there. And then they park right at the fairgrounds. So we have the car show there,
[00:08:16:27 – 00:09:00:24]
the burnout pit and the mud pit. And then the sled pole is right at the stadium where they pull for the National Tractor Pool Championship. So really all of them are fun to come out and see. And we get people lined up for the mud pit right away and they pull their cars right up and just watch all day and see the mud flying and have a good time. At the first year at the end, we let the kids play in the mud that had kind of splashed out of it. And I think they had fun with that. Have you changed the dates at all year to year? Have you found, I mean, if somebody was aware of it, maybe they’re not paying attention and they’re going, “Oh yeah, yeah, I know, it’s this time every year.” Has it been basically the same time of year every year? Yep, the first Saturday of October.
[00:09:01:25 – 00:09:07:12]
Very good. Does it get cool at all up there for you guys? Yeah, it does.
[00:09:08:16 – 00:09:36:28]
The first two years have been great weather-wise. Maybe a little sweatshirt in the morning, but by bright and sunny in the afternoon, you have a little t-shirt and pants and you’re having a great time. Yeah, I mean, it’s like 97 degrees down here right now and I’m looking forward to October, but it’s gonna be mid to late October, if that, before we get a cold front. We’re starting to cool down now. We’ve got this week at 80s, next week at 70s I saw, so kids are going back to school and it starts cooling down here.
[00:09:38:00 – 00:09:45:26]
So are the events that you have, are they scheduled? Is there a schedule that people can see on the website?
[00:09:47:01 – 00:10:35:03]
Yeah, most of them go all day long, so you can go to any of them at any time and watch it. Yeah. So nothing like if you wanna do the mud pit or you wanna watch the mud pit, you go and do that and then maybe you can go over and see something else, you can go see that and it’s just always kinda going on. Yep, yep. We have the vendor row open all day, the car show open all day, and then it’s however long they’re pulling and mud pit’s open all day, so. So for the folks that have heard one of our interviews before, is there anything new this year, any kinda special, special vendors, anything? Pretty similar to last year. I think we’re working on more next year to maybe make it more of a weekend event and two day event. Well, that’s interesting.
[00:10:36:05 – 00:10:52:14]
So you’ve been getting a good turnout if you’re looking at making a multi-day event. Yeah, we’ve been growing each year and being able to do a little bit more each year. So we have the room, we have the space, and so I think we’re ready to kinda take that jump to the next level. Do you recall what your turnout was last year?
[00:10:54:11 – 00:11:24:24]
We were over 5,000 estimated that attended the event. So it’s not like a huge event. I know some people, they don’t like a lot of people. They like a little more room. I mean, you guys would like a lot of people, but going out there, it’s an easy way to keep up with your kids too, because you know how the kids like to run around and go do things, which is wonderful. Yeah, we have lots of space though. We’re able to spread out a little bit too and see everything.
[00:11:26:17 – 00:11:53:19]
So I think we’ve covered this, but let me just ask the question, what activities do you need to pre-register for? The run in? Yep, the convoy, the mud pit, we have a registration for, and then we have the sled pole and the burnout pit. So four activities. Is there anybody that can’t be involved in the sled pole? I would assume they would need a vehicle. They can’t strongman it. Correct.
[00:11:54:23 – 00:11:56:00]
(Laughs) A vehicle with a hitch.
[00:11:57:22 – 00:12:01:19]
So have you had Jeeps out there? And if you did, it’s probably an XJ.
[00:12:02:19 – 00:12:16:04]
We did have a Jeep, but we can adjust the sled so that it fits the vehicle and it’s not like so much that you can’t pull it or there’s risk of blowing your motor or anything like that. Like we can adjust it and we do different classes
[00:12:17:07 – 00:12:37:22]
to kind of set that and have fun in the kinda zoom. I mean, I know you got a crowd there, but do you have anybody dedicated to do videos? So whenever you got your XJ set up, you could– Yeah, we have Toledo Aerial Media does all of our videos. That’s neat because you know they’re gonna wanna use it for social media. Yep.
[00:12:39:20 – 00:13:07:18]
(Laughs) All right, so is this general admission or is there a ticket to get in? I know that you pay, you have to do the other things, but can people just show up and go to the movie and not buy the popcorn in the coat? The $40 popcorn in coat? Yeah, it’s free for the community to attend or to show up. It’s just the events that cost a little bit. Yeah, so you can just attend and there’ll be food there with vendors that you can buy.
[00:13:08:28 – 00:13:15:13]
Do you guys, oh, I always love talking about food. Do you know what your food vendors are already?
[00:13:16:20 – 00:13:23:24]
Yeah, we have like a kettle corn, a slushie, a lemonade, pulled pork, a barbecue stand.
[00:13:25:02 – 00:13:34:01]
We have a Mexican stand, the donuts, all the fun things. Fries. We’re gonna have to take a break. I need to get some food.
[00:13:35:03 – 00:13:35:04]
(Laughs)
[00:13:36:05 – 00:13:45:13]
Lots of good things to come in out and check out and eat. Oh, give me an idea of what the costs are to do things like the sled pull, the mud pit.
[00:13:46:18 – 00:13:51:12]
Oh, you have a show and shine too, don’t you? Yep, yep, that one, the show and shine is just $5.
[00:13:53:02 – 00:14:32:25]
The mud pit is 25, the sled pulls 25, and the convoy through town is 45 because that includes the t-shirt. Okay, good. And a packing of goodies from all the vendors and stuff like that. So the t-shirt, is there an example of the t-shirt? I can put it here in our video. This one’s the one from last year. Oh, okay, nothing wrong with that. It’s a heather green color for this year. So, and you can buy those while you’re out there, I would assume. Yep, you can buy them. They’re $25 with all the sponsors on the back and our logo on the front. We have picked a different color each year for. Oh yeah, because you don’t want somebody,
[00:14:33:26 – 00:15:08:19]
like I bought a t-shirt, it’s the one from last year. Right. Do you have anybody coming out with the year prior t-shirts, is supporting the event? Yeah, yep, and we see them around town all the time, so it’s fun. Do you guys do stickers for the event? I mean, handing out stickers or selling stickers? Yeah, we have some stickers. We’ve made up different sayings to go with them too. Like if you can see paint, you didn’t do it right for the mud pit and different stuff like that, that some of the people that have attended have said to us and were like, oh, that’s a good idea, and we put it on a sticker or a t-shirt or something like that.
[00:15:10:01 – 00:15:30:20]
So, I think you said that you can go to the website, bg4x4event.com and buy tickets, but is there any other way you can buy the tickets? Is it just online? Can you do it when you’re out there at the event? We’ll be able to at the event. We prefer ahead of time, just so we’re kind of more ready. Well, everybody wants change,
[00:15:30:20 – 00:15:32:05]
dammit. Right.
[00:15:33:13 – 00:15:36:14]
(Laughs) Yep, but either way, yeah.
[00:15:38:03 – 00:15:46:12]
All righty, so, oh yeah, this is a good one. Looking at a list of questions I have here. Are there any deadlines for registration?
[00:15:48:09 – 00:16:10:20]
No, again, we prefer probably about October 1st would be good to get everything around and for us to have it run smooth, but we’ll take them day off, it’s fine. And if you’re not buying anything, is it, do you prefer to have registration even though it’s a walk-up event? That way it gives you an idea how many people are coming?
[00:16:11:27 – 00:16:19:16]
Nope, we just have it free to the community, so any walk-ins is fine. I guess in the third year, you got a pretty good idea what the turnout’s gonna be.
[00:16:20:20 – 00:16:59:14]
Yeah, it’s been good and we have fun and I think the community likes it, so we just try and get the word out and when it’s gonna be and I think now that they know this’ll be the third time, the beginning of October, I think we’ll be good to go. Do you have, I don’t know if you have any groups that come out, but do you have any groups or maybe you see a majority of Jeepers or Bronco owners or side-by-sides, do you have definite groups? Yeah, we have a couple that come out. Definitely the majority is probably Jeeps and the trucks kind of do this lead pole more than the Jeeps.
[00:17:00:20 – 00:17:21:29]
One of the clubs helps us with the hype event and then the car crushing during that in Finley, so yeah, we try and get as many involved as we can. Any group names you’d like to advertise? I think the Finley Jeepers is what they call, they come out and help us. Very nice.
[00:17:23:03 – 00:18:33:03]
Do you guys have, I’m mainly thinking for the kids, do you have, not security, but safety people? I would especially think in the mud pole, mud pit, you wanna make sure kids don’t get too close. Yeah, we have a snow fence up and we have some blockades and barriers and stuff that go around there and we have volunteers that are out to help with all that and then we also have the sheriff’s department on staff. We haven’t needed them, so that’s good. Oh, it is good. Well, that’s always a concern, isn’t it? Especially, is there beer available at the event? We don’t sell it, but we don’t say no. Well, I mean, if you’re not selling it, that kind of takes the, pardon the pun, the edge off as far as people getting a little out of control. Yeah, and with people being able to drive around we don’t really want that to become a concern or anything. Right, no, I don’t plan. So lots of kids coming out to watch and we have some tractor rides for the kids so they can sit in the tractor and ride it up and down and we have a wagon that goes through, so.
[00:18:34:09 – 00:18:52:01]
If people were bringing out their small children that have to have diaper changes, is there an area where they can take care of the kids? Yep, they have bathrooms at the fairgrounds that are open for our event and we have them staffed and cleaned regularly that day.
[00:18:53:18 – 00:19:26:00]
Okay, we talked about human babies. What about the fur babies? Do you guys encourage, discourage dogs and animals out there? They can, yeah, we have no problem either way. I would assume that you would really not necessarily demand but require them to be on a leash. Yes, they’d have to be for sure, yeah. Well, you gotta tell me some people like this stuff. I see people walking dogs around the neighborhood here and big dogs and they’re just running around and I just wanna go, hey, are you stupid? Right.
[00:19:27:09 – 00:19:39:18]
It’s like that thing I hear all– The car’s going all over, like you definitely have to be on a leash. Yeah, it’s like I see on social media where the guy says, does my dog bite? Not me, but you don’t know.
[00:19:40:29 – 00:20:08:00]
You don’t know what he or she’s gonna do. Or when another dog comes around if it’s aggressive or anything like that. Exactly, yeah, exactly. So what do you think a good thing to bring is? I mean, obviously there’s food available, there’s bathroom facilities available, there’s chairs or do you guys like, is it okay to bring folding chairs and stuff out there? We can bring chairs, but we have stands at most of the events.
[00:20:10:05 – 00:21:12:06]
Out by the mud pit, we take some out there and people pull up their cars to that. There’s definitely places for chairs there. The sled pole is done in our grandstand, so really no need for chairs there. There’s plenty of seating there. Yeah, I mean, for somebody that hasn’t been there before, they don’t know, like, well, I’m gonna stand there like an idiot watching a sled pole. No, there’s seating there that you can, just like you can at any kind of event that you would anticipate being at. Good, good, good. All right, so I think we’ve already covered restrooms or these physical restrooms. I guess a porta potty is physical, but you know what I mean? Something that’s not a porta potty. We have both because there’s some spots that are kind of open in between events that you may need to stop at. So there’s some porta potties out there, but there’s physical, there’s three separate physical restrooms that are open. Yeah, oh, and we’ve already kind of covered the getting muddy out there and the side by sides. Is that for any vehicle? Can you pull up and hose your vehicle down a little bit?
[00:21:13:08 – 00:21:35:25]
Yes, you can. The mud pit, we try and stick to four by fours because we have had a two wheel drive go through before they get stuck. So the tow truck company is there to help with that, but after a couple, they’re like, no, it has to be a four by four to get through. Do you have this stuff? You got somebody doing the video and everything. Do you have this stuff up on YouTube? Uh-huh, yeah.
[00:21:36:28 – 00:22:08:28]
That’s cool. Yeah, it’s fun to watch and see. They put those cameras right on the car. So there’s mud flying everywhere and on the front of the sled pole, you can see all that going everywhere too. Any drone overhead activity, what we call B roll? Yep, they have all that. Yeah, we’ve never talked about that before. That would be a lot of fun to look at. I’ve never seen that. So that’d be fun to see last year’s. Do you put anything together kind of as a teaser for the event? You know, you take last year’s stuff or even the year prior and put it together as a teaser? Yep, we’ve been doing that.
[00:22:10:16 – 00:22:29:13]
The last couple months really, we do one at the end that kind of shows what happened that day and then we kind of start again. Around April, we start all the videos again. All right, so let’s mention the sponsors again because I want to make sure we get a plug in there for the dealership that you guys are, that you’re with.
[00:22:30:18 – 00:22:50:08]
Yep, Thayer Family Dealers is our sponsor. Visit BG is our sponsor. And then the National Tractor Pole Championships, they’re the ones that put on the sled pole. Their big event is this week. So you got an actual deal there. It’s not some makeshift sled. Right.
[00:22:51:27 – 00:23:06:13]
It is the National Tractor Pole Championships that are there. I mean, like if anybody comes out to our town this weekend, they can see the real big tractors pole, trucks pole, all of that. These are the same people that come back and help us.
[00:23:07:15 – 00:23:38:22]
Again, to get back to the community and show some support of the students in town and help them. Now, I know you mentioned $9,000 in scholarships and things, but let’s talk about where the proceeds go again, just to cover that. Because it’s funny how people will listen and they’ll miss it and then they’ll get interested based on what we’re talking about. And it’s good to hear it again. So where do the proceeds go? They asked the resident of Wood County, the county that we live in,
[00:23:39:29 – 00:24:03:09]
they have to go be going to school for agriculture since our community is a big agriculture area with lots of fields and farming. And that’s what a lot of the career paths are around here and the people that are helping with this event, that’s what they do. So these are the things that we wanted to support and then trade schooling, any tools or schooling or anything like that.
[00:24:04:18 – 00:24:09:28]
We put money towards as well. We had some welding, we had some heavy machinery
[00:24:11:13 – 00:24:16:07]
and then there’s most of them have been going to school for agriculture and ergonometry and stuff like that.
[00:24:18:03 – 00:25:10:07]
I like that. That’s kind of pushing the real jobs, the ones that they talk about, they don’t have enough people for. Right, well, and honestly with AI, those are the things that are gonna be, we’re gonna still need. Right, yeah, those will be going for a while. And I think that even with AI and whenever the robots come out, I still think there’s going to be a group of people and I think it’ll be a large group that want human made, human taking care of things. I worked in a data center where people would call in, customers would call in and I worked in the gold portion of the center because that’s where the Americans were. And when you spoke with American, you didn’t have to worry about accents that you couldn’t understand. Nothing against those folks, smart folks. But if you’re calling for help and you can’t understand what the
[00:25:10:07 – 00:25:13:16]
they’re saying, well, that could be a problem. Yep.
[00:25:14:23 – 00:25:35:28]
All right, so I think we already mentioned the website, bg4x4fest.com, I believe is correct. So that’s where you can go. Oh, and is that the best place to go for last minute information, changes and things? Or would you build the Facebook or? Probably Facebook would be the best for last minute stuff.
[00:25:37:23 – 00:25:58:07]
So I asked you about the photos and videos, you got people out there. How would they go about seeing that stuff? Would they just go to YouTube, go to your website? Where would they go find their stuff? YouTube, Instagram and Facebook. They’re posted on all of them. Very good. So that would be maybe during and shortly after the event? Yep.
[00:26:00:20 – 00:26:30:12]
All right, so, oh, are you guys still accepting vendors? Would it be still interested in hearing from vendors that might want to show up out there? Yep, absolutely. We got plenty of space and we have indoor space, we have outdoor space. That’s kind of why weather isn’t too much of a factor because we have an area for indoor, if we did. Oh, good, good, that’s nice. So, you know, off the top of your head, a few of the vendors that you’ve already got scheduled to be there?
[00:26:32:00 – 00:26:39:26]
Yeah, we have some local businesses in town. We have Platinum Autospa again, when you go through the mud pit, that’s something.
[00:26:41:00 – 00:26:54:24]
They can help clean you up the next day and also retro detailing two of them in town that can help with that. They’ll both be there so you can kind of see what they have and they do a great job detailing, window tinting, all of that stuff.
[00:26:56:25 – 00:27:04:01]
Bass Pro Shops, they come every year. They have some giveaways that they hand out. Jeep Fest is there with some,
[00:27:05:15 – 00:28:03:06]
show you, you know, their event was a couple of weeks ago in Toledo, so they come out to support ours as well. And then we do have a kiddie pedal pole, that’s kind of in the vendor area where the kids can do their own pulling. So, a little bit of everything. We have the RC crawlers. The kids really like that. Oh yeah. Five dollars they can get on, you know, and we have the whole course set up that then they get a chance to win one also. Oh, those things can be very expensive. Yep. So, that’s a good price. All right, so I don’t know if all Bass Pros are the same. I mean, you know, the Bass Pro that we have here in Katy, they have a big place where all the fish are in there. So, I would, you know, before the event, I would contact Bass Pro and see if they can give you, print up some coupons for five minutes in the pool. So, whoever wins gets to swim with the fishes, but in a good way. Right, I don’t know if they do that.
[00:28:04:13 – 00:28:17:19]
That’s when they kick you out. Yeah, exactly. That’s why they don’t sell beer at Bass Pro. Did you imagine? Yeah, that would be cool. No, no, it’s okay, she had a coupon. (Laughing)
[00:28:19:06 – 00:28:35:29]
And of course you’d have to be fully clothed, you know. You couldn’t go in there with a bathing suit. Yeah, that would be one of the requirements. All right, so I think you already mentioned plans for the future. You’re looking at doing a multi-day event maybe next year. Any other plans that you guys have for future events?
[00:28:37:20 – 00:29:00:11]
Nope, just working on that and maybe having our car show downtown and then having the other events on the other couple days. So just expanding and growing and any more we can do to help raise the money to get back. So this is your opportunity to complain. What’s the biggest challenge putting this event on?
[00:29:02:01 – 00:29:57:06]
For me, it’s just finding the time to do everything because this is on top of my other job. Of course. And all that, so just being able to reach out to me and talk to everybody and get all that around. But otherwise it’s been great. It goes so far, it’s gone smooth. Our committee is great and we’re able to put it all together and have a really good day. So I can’t help but think especially on the first one. You’re concerned about liability. You’re concerned about how people are gonna act. You’re concerned about if people are gonna show up. So you’ve already got over those humps because there’s always liability concerns but past performance is kind of a good way of getting the sense of the people that are coming. So it’s not a little thing but on event, there’s a lot of liability one way or another.
[00:29:58:10 – 00:30:39:06]
Yeah and it always comes down to the few things at the end like, oh did we get this? How did we get that? We forgot to say we needed trash cans. We forgot we needed this. It’s always little things at the end with the help of everybody, it all comes together and it’s pretty cool to see how much of the community comes together to help and to pull it off. So you got a lot of family in the dealership, right? Yeah. And I know that whenever there’s siblings and parents and uncles and all that stuff, I don’t know the details about who’s in the thing. They think they can abuse relatives. (Laughing)
[00:30:41:04 – 00:30:47:10]
Yeah, I make them do some stuff at the– Oh good, I was thinking you were the one getting abused. Oh no.
[00:30:49:28 – 00:31:20:02]
I make them get ready and I’ll be out there helping. Yeah, I can well imagine that I would be very fearful of forgetting the trash cans or not having enough. Or the, yeah, or even– Sometimes the nightmares have started and those are the things that like, oh we forgot this. We forgot that but– Well I guess you could always make a run to Walmart or something, right? Buy trash cans. But that wasn’t in the budget. So then there’s all this stuff. Do you guys have meetings to go over this stuff or is it just the left of you?
[00:31:21:03 – 00:32:20:18]
No, we have meetings probably about monthly up until six months out then every other week and now we’re getting to the weekly. I don’t think anybody likes meetings except if you’re the one holding the meeting because otherwise they’re boring. But I would imagine the meetings are great to help keep from missing things. Yeah, we meet at the local coffee shop. There’s a handful of us that go and talk about this and what we need to do. Oh that’s perfect. That’s a good meeting. We talk about them all together. Yeah, it’s a good time. Yeah, enjoy. We can play and focus together. Enjoyable not to sit in a board room or something where it’s not as interesting and fun. All right, well, actually I was gonna say if it’s a Zoom meeting, they’re kind of fun because you don’t have to pay attention to the meeting. You can be all browsing stuff. No, we are in person with coffee. Oh, that way you have to be involved. That’s a good idea. And wake you up and get you ready.
[00:32:21:21 – 00:32:36:28]
Well, there’s coffee, so that’s good. All right, well, you know how the kids love the social media. We’ve already teased about the YouTube and Instagram and Facebook. Where can you be found all those platforms? Yep, all those are BG4x4fest.
[00:32:38:23 – 00:33:03:00]
Those are the handles on everything and then BG4x4fest.com is the website. And what’s the best way for vendors to contact you if they wanna get involved? And it may not be you, maybe somebody, a web email or something. Yeah, info at BG4x4fest.com comes right to me. Any contacts on Facebook, Messenger or anything like that, that comes to us too, so.
[00:33:04:02 – 00:34:53:18]
So I think we covered everything pretty well, but if people still have questions, is there a good place to go to ask questions? Like maybe, I don’t know, like they wanna bring their grandmother and she’s in a wheelchair. And can you get around in a wheelchair, that type of thing? Yes, well, that answers yes, but also on our website, and then there’s a place for questions on the website that come directly to us, to me, and we can answer them. And I would assume you can post up on the Facebook group or whatever too and get direct things. And maybe you can get information from people that have attended before. Right, yep, there’s lots of comments on the videos and the pictures and stuff, and some people see their own and post their own, so get a lot of information through those. All right, Rachel, well, I think you’re the third year, I think that you’ve already gone through this enough times where, number one, you know what’s going on. I bet you you’re really happy by the end of the day. Oh yeah. (Laughs) I mean, I’m sure it’s fun to be there and see it working out and have people that are really enjoying themselves, especially the kids, but I would imagine it’s nice being done and you’re not having to worry about it. But they go fast, it’s crazy how quick, like, oh, okay, I guess it’s five o’clock, we’re done, we had fun, we saw everything and did everything, so it goes fast, but the next day is a good, I sleep in, I wanna sit there. Yeah, that’s the one day you get before you have to start the planning the next year. That’s right, yep. What’s gonna be the difficulty of having a multi-day event? I mean, I know scheduling people and probably having people out to watch everything to make sure it doesn’t get molested overnight. Right, yeah, I think we have the capability to do it. We have the hotels, we have the camping. If people, you know, if we can get the camping there
[00:34:54:29 – 00:35:01:08]
where people are already there, we’re talking about doing a concert the night, one of the nights to keep people overnight.
[00:35:02:15 – 00:36:41:10]
Camping World is our camping sponsor, so they help with some of that. So I think we can just get enough going on each day and have enough activity and keep them wanting to be there overnight and doing things and then, you know, be there for the next morning. How much camping area do you have available? Estimate number of people with hints and things. Really big? Yeah, it is. I am not good with estimating, but I mean, we could– Well, we’re not talking about five. First problem. Like five families or something like that. A bunch of people could come out there and camp. Yes, yes. And would you say– If you would never pull it up, it’s just like, the tractor pulls, that’s four days, they fill it up. And that’s a national tractor pull championship this week. But otherwise, there’s so much space that we got plenty of room. Right, so would you– And water hookups and electric hookups and all that, so. Would you say that that’s a good thing to do if you’re gonna do the hype event, come out for the hype event, you know, get set up and then go to the hype event and go back and– Yep, they’re all within a couple miles of each other. So it’s not a lot of driving or a lot of downtime. It’s all, we’ve got a bunch of stuff going on, so. Very, very cool. I think this is the most detailed interview that we’ve had about your event over the three years. And I think we covered a lot of information. And I’ll just tell people, I don’t mind getting two views for the YouTube videos. So watch it again, folks. Yeah, there you go. (Laughing) Perfect. Rachel, thank you so much for being here and be nice to the family at the dealership. I’ll try. Don’t abuse them. Thanks for having me. Yeah,
[00:36:43:03 – 00:36:45:00]
You’re my friend, you’re my new friend.
[00:36:45:00 – 00:37:31:27]
XJTalk.com LLC and the Jeep Talk Show podcast is attended for entertainment purposes only. The views and opinions expressed by the hosts, guests and contributors are their own and do not represent professional advice, endorsements or recommendations. We strongly advise consulting a licensed or certified mechanic or automotive professional for any repairs, modifications or maintenance to your vehicle. By listening to or using any information provided on this show, you assume full responsibility for your actions and any resulting consequences, including potential risks to safety, property or legal compliance. The Jeep Talk Show and its affiliates disclaim all liability for any damages or losses arising from the application of this content.
