It was announced on social media at the end of last week that Big 7 Scooter Club have had to change both the date and venue of their 2023 National Scooter Rally.
The decision was made after the original Hop Farm venue literally doubled its substantial costs to hire the venue. This came after the company that runs the Hop Farm in Kent renewed their lease and wasn’t prepared to negotiate.
Aside from doubling the cost they also removed all the extras previously included in the hire cost, except for the campsite and main venue. Big 7 organiser, Mark told us “All the organising for our 2023 rally was pretty much done, but now we’ve had to start all over again! It’s going to be a challenge in such a short time, but we’re confident we can pull it off.”
South East of England showground
After much frantic searching for a replacement venue at short notice, Big 7 found the South East of England Showground in Ardingly West Sussex (postcode RH17 6TL). The original June date wasn’t available so they were forced to move the rally to the weekend of 14th-16th July. This leaves June without a National but sadly this was the only option available to them.
Mark had this to say “We’d been at the Hop Farm for 10 years but all good things come to an end. Onwards and upwards to a great new venue, The South of England Showground, already equipped with a huge brick-built venue, which will make an awesome main room for our rally. Also on site are various other agricultural outbuildings, so it will be interesting to see how we change these buildings into music rooms, creating the type of atmosphere everyone’s used to at one of our rallies. If all goes to plan, we will have a live music arena and an undercover food court with a good variety of food on offer, dyno and all the usual rally attractions. The camping fields are perfectly flat with not a hump or bump in sight, unlike our previous venue.”
The Showground usually hosts large agricultural shows (as seen on the site plan above), as well as concerts and other big events. It sits in 150 acres of beautiful Sussex countryside so there is plenty of space for a scooter rally and it is easily accessible.
Tickets/glamping
If you’ve already bought advance tickets for the original date through Skiddle or have booked glamping, those bookings will be valid for the new venue and you don’t need to do anything. If on the other hand, you can’t make the new date for any reason you can get a refund by calling Skiddle on 03333010101. For glamping contact Honeybells. If you have already booked an electric hook-up at the Hop Farm you can contact them directly at touring@thehopfarm.co.uk.
Big 7 will update their scooter rally website as more details get announced.
