What does the Base O'Fest Registration get you?

Hi so I am a new member to the CCA and I am also a broke pre-College student about to spend 120k on an education (engineering!). However, I want to attend O'fest this year and have registered the 30$ fee for myself to attend along with my friend who I am bringing to convince to buy a bimmer and join the club! Does the 30$ registration actually get us into many events and could we still have a good experience? Watching races and meeting people etc Or should we be buying more specific events to keep us busy? Also could we chose to sign up for those events once we are there if we decide to change our minds? Also would those prices be for us both or just one of us? Sorry It is a lot of questions but I would appreciate the help! Thanks!

I don't think that gets you into the main social events - if you look at the fees list and compare that to the schedule, I'd figure everything that there's a fee listed for would be events not included with the basic registration. Doesn't mean you guys might not have a good time, but, it's mostly a social event, the more of that you can do, I'd guess probably the better time to be had. If you're not doing the driving events that cost extra like the driver's school, seems like the social package would be the next logical choice. If you're planning to be there for the week's events, the social pkg. is a logical choice.

Steven S. will have a more complete answer.

First, welcome to the community.
O'Fest can be a fun and engaging experience ... at several levels.

Marshall’s response is completely accurate and he has plenty of experience from which to draw. The social package opens many doors for you but … rather expensive.

Okay … if you’re really trying to work within a tight budget, there are indeed many enjoyable things in which you can take part with no additional cost. Direct participation in events is rewarding but not entirely necessary for a good time. You just need to think outside the box.

I’ll just run through a few examples as they appear on the schedule.

Sunday, July 8 – Club races at Pittsburgh Race Complex – Spectating has been in the past free to attendees. Don’t know for sure this year. Steven can tell you.

Monday, July 9 – Registration and Vendor Hall – Every attendee ends up here at some time. Conversations and introductions are the norm and sometimes quite nice trinkets are given out by the vendors.

First timers meeting - 3:00-4:00pm – There will be dozens of folks just like you hoping to meet new friends.

TSD Rally Meeting – Attendees running the Tuesday, July 10th rally gather for a briefing Monday evening. If you don’t want to enter, you can always volunteer to work at the event. Give your name and contact info to Satch to see if he might be able to use your services.

Tuesday, July 10 – TSD Rally 08:00-1:00pm – If you are a volunteer, the work begins pretty early.

Gymkhana - 3:00-5:00pm -- If there is a fee that doesn’t work for you, same as above. Put your name in the hat to volunteer.

Wednesday, July 11 – Concours Display - 10:00-11:30am – Mingle with the presenters and other viewers and get arms-length close to some pretty amazing cars. No charge unless you want to enter your car.

Thursday, July 12 – Tire Rack Autocross - 08:00-5:00pm – The trend continues – if you don’t care to enter your car, spectating is free. Again, you might offer to help work the event.

Yokohama High Performance Driving Event(?) - 08:00-5:00pm – Racetrack – As with the first weekend, spectating is (or at least has been) free and you can wander through the pits looking at the cars and meeting those participating.

BMW CCA Foundation Charity Rides – 12:00-1:00pm – Racetrack – There is a charge but this can be seriously fun. You need to sign up early as it usually gets a lot of interest.

Friday, July 13 -- Yokohama High Performance Driving Event – 08:00-5:00pm – Racetrack – As above.

BMW CCA Foundation Charity Rides – 12:00-1:00pm – Racetrack – As above.

If you hope to meet and get to know other members, just be there. Everywhere. Volunteer. Say Hi. Ask questions. Take pictures. You’ll make memories.

Yes! All that ^^^

To add some more - check out all the sub-tabs under "Oktoberfest Events" on the O'Fest page here, that will get you up to speed on the different events & what they are -

https://ofest.bmwcca.org/

Volunteers are always needed & much appreciated, if you're inclined!

Links to the schedule & fees are on this page: https://www.bmwcca.org/ofest

You could do everything listed Monday, except the Welcome dinner.

Why do the fun rally or put an entry into the photo contest? Well, the fun rally is meant to be a fun challenge that also doubles as a bit of an area tour. Usually it's by car, last year in New Orleans it was a walking tour. This takes two people minimum, since one has to serve as navigator to relay the rally directions to the driver, and relay the clues to what you're looking for answers to. IF you ace the fun rally by correctly answering all the questions, you might even be able to win an O'Fest trophy for that event, which would be a nifty accomplishment for any O'Fest 1st-timer. One of the O'Fest competitions is between attendees who compete in all competition events trying to win the trophy for whoever does best in all the events. So, there will be folks doing all those - Fun Rally, TSD Rally, Trivia Contest, Photo Contest, Concours, Auto-X, Gymkhana; all those have classes and trophies variably for 1st-3rd (typically) of each category or class.

So, same for the Photo Contest; submit a nicely-done photo, etc., later in the week it will be judged & trophies awarded. Pick a category or two & submit an entry; there's also a category for original artwork if you happen to have that kind of artistic bent or talents.

Part of your registration packet includes a number of door prize tickets - when they put out the door prize boxes, be sure to get your tickets filled out for a chance to win a door prize - you might get lucky!

Not just volunteering, everything starts early w/ the TSD rally - expect to be getting up at o-dawn-early! Looks like the TSD rally is included, so you guys could do that for the 1st part of the day, & the Gymkhana later. The TSD, one person drives, the other serves as navigator following the course directions. Unlike the fun rally, you're trying to follow a prescribed course at prescribed speeds to match the exact course time & section times as done by the rallymaster. Usually scenic, but, challenging, and sometimes confusing for beginners - no matter, the main point is to follow the directions to stay on course and do as best you can with the staying on time, & enjoy the scenery as much as possible. TSD is short for time-speed-distance. Do _not_ miss the TSD rally meeting the day before, & stay tuned to the schedule, last year they bumped up the meeting time by an hour; I strolled-in as the meeting was wrapping (oops). Also, whoever navigates needs to be someone not prone to motion sickness, if you're navigating it's almost as much looking down at and following the course directions as it is looking out the car.

The gymkhana could be anything - some sort of small area or parking-lot course set up with fun/silly challenges - might be driving your own car, just some car, golf cart, wheelchair, etc. y'never know 'til you see it; things like telling someone blindfolded where & how to drive a golf cart, for example... easier said than done!. Usually it's a race against the clock, but it might be a score based on stuff you have do in it; in any case, it's another fun thing to do that also might net you a trophy!

With the Vendor Hall reception in the afternoon from 3-5 there's hors d’oeuvres to chow on, you'd have to figure when to work in the gymkhana scheduled at the same time slot. The gymkhana most-likely won't be very far away, so doing that first might make sense.

Looks like there some chow to be had in the Vendor Hall Wed. AM 7-9, then 10-noon is probably the best time slot for seeing the concours display. There will probably be a lot of cars at the concours this year, particularly 2002's - if you want to have enough time to get a leisurely look at everything, probably would be good to be there by 10. Bring a camera & have enough space on your phone if you want pics of everything, bring along a water bottle or two, maybe even a hat &/or sunscreen. You might be outdoors checking everything out for 2-3 hours.

Doesn't look like anything specific is scheduled for the rest of the afternoon or Wed. evening.

Thursday, everything switches to the track. The auto-x is a relatively low-expense way to have some fun flogging your car around a tight, coned course racing against the clock, but that is some extra expense. I don't think there's additional expense for the Michelin Driving experience, but, that's one to follow how to register for it as soon as possible, it fills up fast. It's not a long time in a car, they have you drive a couple cars on different tires on a small autocross-like course to compare the tire's performance, so it's something fun to do without add'l cost. Registration for that may even be online in advance of the event instead of someplace/sometime @ O'Fest.

If you did the auto-x, you do your runs in one half of it, and work the course for the other half; it also means an early day and early arrival at the track. If there are a lot of auto-x entrants, I wouldn't say it's terribly likely the timing might work out to be able to do the Michelin Driving experience, but if things wrap up in enough time in the afternoon, who knows, maybe. I haven't been to the Pitt Race track, but looking at google, there's only one very small town near the track with not much of anything in the way of fast food options (so it appears), so for efficiency of time's sake not having to rush far away and back for some lunch chow, if you opted for the auto-x, adding in the lunch might be a good idea. Worth confirming the auto-x schedule though - if they split things so certain groups did everything in the 1st half of the day & were done by lunchtime, and it switched to, say, M-cars for the afternoon, the time factors of leaving the track for chow wouldn't be an issue. Or, a little advance planning and brown-bag it by packing a cooler ahead of time for the day. A cooler w/ drinks is a good idea for being at the track anyway.

Track rides with instructors _may_ be possible, but I don't know if that would be for driving school students only or others also; you'd have to borrow a helmet from someone if so, and presumably sign the appropriate driver's school liability waivers. Instructors usually need their sessions for rides for their students throughout the day, so if just seeking a ride, if the first session is Instructor warm-up, that would be the most-likely time to find an instructor who can give a ride. However, the schedule shows they're doing Michelin hot-lap rides the next day, so that might be a way to get a ride for some laps around the track on Friday, but I'm presuming those are on-track; they might just be flogging cars around their small driving-experience course from the day before too.

The charity rides are a fundraiser for the 'CCA Foundation, but they'll have some kind of cool cars & either racecar drivers or folks from BMW's performance center to give you 2-3 hot laps. Cheapest for those might be sub-$100 per, but if so, probably not much less than that - &, they can run a lot more $$ too depending on the cars or drivers. They are cool to do if you can swing it for the budget though!

Friday looks like either the driver's school/car control clinic/'CCA charity rides/Michelin Hot Lap Rides at the track for the day, or the Fallingwater tours - so, the Michelin hot lap rides I guess would be the only no-add'l-cost thing to do at the track Friday, unless you could hitch a track-ride with an instructor who's coaching at the driver's school.

Looks like there's more chow to be had at another afternoon vendor's hall reception Friday from 4:00-5:30, so that's back at the HQ hotel in Pittsburgh.

In many past O'Fests, BMW has also brought a few cars and made them available for a short (20-25 min) drive for attendees to have a chance to experience some of the recent/new lineup. I'm not seeing any of that on the schedule, but, if they do it, it's something to do that's no additional cost and worth signing up for early on - typically signups are done @ O'Fest.

Looks like the weekend, the rest of it is PVGP @ Schenley Park, looks like the basic registration gets you entry to PVGP, but not the Corral or lunches. If you were picking one evening dinner based on cost, the Monday night Welcome dinner is least, @ $70/person, and the Sat. night BMW dinner is next, @ $75; but, for $75 for instance, that could be swapped out with admission to the Corral for the PVGP, although still not the lunches. I've never been to PVGP, but I'd assume the corral is the place to be to be amongst the other 'CCA members attending. I presume there must be a broad area of spectating possibilities for PVGP races though.

Hope that helps flesh it out a little more for ya!

Though I'm highly biased, you could run your car at the autocross at $45 per entrant. You'll find out that it's a lot of fun to have in a car with minimal costs and very safe. This coming weekend (4/28-29/2018) there is an SCCA Match Tour at PittRace. Go either day to view it and you'll get a great idea of what autocross is. There is no cost to spectate. You will have to sign waivers (don't sue, you can't sue, stuff happens, biggest attorney wins) for both the SCCA and PittRace.
info: https://www.scca.com/events/1990278-18-tire-rack-pittsbrugh-match-tour