Hobby Culture Festival China – Entertaining & Engaging the Crowds

Hobby Culture Festival China (HCFC) opened today and on arriving at the huge* Hangzhou International Expo Center for the very first time we were greeted by a very familiar face & good friend of Red RC, none other than Masami Hirosaka.  The RC Racing legend is here at the 3-day show as a guest of the show organisers to give demonstrations & entertain the tens of thousands of visitors expected to attend this very much interactive Expo.  After catching up with Masami and trying his unique ‘1 of 2’ hand built custom radios for size, we would later find out that his appearance on the show’s RC Rallying stand ties in nicely with a category that is currently enjoying huge growth in China.  Chatting to well known Chinese industry figure YST over on the Hobbywing booth, he told us sales of RC Rally cars is witnessing huge growth thanks to its ‘play with it anywhere’ appeal.  With both the Chinese National Crawler and Drifting Championships being staged at HCFC, with two very well presented ‘mini venues’ for each championship, while Masami is no stranger to drifting it appears he has been sucked in by crawling!  Having checked out the Crawler course, he told us he now wants to have a go.  On that request, the show organisers have told him they will see what they can do about getting him some track time in between the official running of what appears from our visit to Crawler pits to be a very busy National Championship schedule.  One cool element of the main Crawler course, there being a number of courses for the different scales competing, is the real road going Volkswagen that is part of the course with competitors driving in through the back seats of the car.  This is a pretty cool link up with Volkswagen who have branding and car information boards around the course.  With the Crawling appearing to be a very family orientation competition, VW might be onto something with supplying the car as a element of the course!

With the National Championships part of HCFC this year, it is pretty impressive to see the CMAC (Car Modelling Association of China) presence here.  The national governing body of RC cars have very strong branding for the championships from the minute you arrive at the exhibition centre and also have an information stand as part of the main show.  Giving their Crawlers and Drifters the opportunity to compete in front of thousands of people is exciting but should also work the other way round and attract other kids plus some ‘big kids’ into the hobby/sport.  Meeting up today with our host Tom from our very first race coverage in China, the 2013 FEMCA 1:8 Offroad Championships in Beijing, he has arranged for us to a chat with a CMAC representative during our time here at the show for an insight into the championships happening this weekend.  Another positive of competing in front of thousands of people is you can go big with the opening ceremony and they are doing just that.  With today the quietest of the Expo’s three days, we got to see the rehearsals for the tomorrow’s official National Championships opening ceremony which will be held on a purpose built stage with everything choreographed and set to the stage’s video wall.  Again make it look cool & special and you’ll be more likely to attract more participants!

With Hobby Culture Festival China organised by the same people behind Hobby Expo China that we attended earlier this year in Beijing, this show is quite a different experience.  Lacking the crazy 70,000+ crowds we witnessed back in April, this show is very much more aimed at giving visitors the opportunity to try RC, and in many forms.  Making their debut at this year’s HCFC in light of the staging of the National Championships, chatting to FlySky at their booth they explained that while HEC attracts a lot of B2B visitors here it is all about B2C and a good opportunity to interact with the many racers in attendance.  From construction sites, numerous drift tracks, an indoor pool to race boats, the organisers have got creative too with some novel areas that include RC Soccer and RC Pool which scored well today in terms of getting transmitters in to peoples’ hands.  On the RC Pool tables, ‘Dad versus Son’ matches were proving very popular and competitive!

Spread over two massive halls, once again the diecast stands and the collectors they attract are still something that we find fascinating to watch, super long lines forming for limited edition models and groups gathering to share their hauls (and take a break from carrying lots of bags!).  In the Expo’s media centre, it is also clear that the diecasts are the main attraction, as photographs of show models spark many discussions.  It was interesting to chat with the guys from the Chinese edition of ‘How it Works’ magazine.  Unlike some magazines that still exist in ‘ultra light’ printed format (following the trend of ultra light touring car bodies!) this is still a proper old school paper quality magazine.  With phones taking up increasing amounts of peoples’ time and especially kids, it was great to hear that the magazine is experiencing an increase in subscriptions.  Aimed at 8 to 14-year olds, parents are seeing the magazine as a way to encourage interest in science and all things mechanical as well as being a break from screen time.  As a follow on to getting kids off phones, it was pretty cool to see some of the faces of kids today when the got to try the various RC tracks on offer.  One kid, who had to stand on his own stroller to see the track, was one of the happiest kids we’ve seen when he discovered how to get the drift car he was trying out to do donuts!  We couldn’t also help noticing that some of the dad’s attending today may have been using their kids as an excuse to try out RC based on how their faces lit up when they got to grips with the track and he found it hard to give back the transmitter!!  It was an interesting first day here at HCFC and great to see such positivity around everything RC.  We look forward to watching how tomorrow’s bigger crowds are entertained and engaged by our hobby.

[*We can physically confirm Hangzhou International Expo Center is ‘huge’ because we got our taxi to drop us to what turned out to be the wrong building/expo which resulted in our daily step count quickly getting off to a very healthy start as we made our way on foot to right location!].