Truckfest, the longest running show at the East of England Arena and Events Centre, reached its 35th edition this year, with thousands of vehicles on show at the 3-day event.

Truckfest’s ongoing success lies in the combination of being a consumer and a trade event, with the original concept being to establish a festival of trucking where owners and drivers could attend and enter their vehicles into the annual concours competitions.

Colin Ward creator and organiser of Truckfest explained, “Visitors to Truckfest are not just truckers and their families, but also the general public who see and enjoy Truckfest as the area’s leading May Bank Holiday event. It has indoor exhibitions that include everything from customised trucks to custom cars, and in the main arena activities included motorcycle stunts and car-crushing American monster trucks, it really is a festival of trucking.”

By bringing so many vehicles to one place, together with enthusiastic audiences, Truckfest has also created the perfect environment for major industry brands such as Renault, Mercedes Benz, Volvo, DAF and Scania to engage with their target market through large presences at the annual festival. This year Renault expanded their presence and featured a Renault F1 racing car on their stand.

Jason Lunn, venue director for the East of England Arena commented, “The Sunday of Truckfest features our single biggest day attendance of the year and it’s a pleasure to see the event continuing to grow with more truck entries each year. The economic benefit of Truckfest is not only important to us as a venue but also to the whole of Peterborough. The exhibitors book into local accommodation, and food outlets, exhibitors and visitors all use local amenities and filling stations, the positive ripple of Truckfest is substantial. The show is already booked in for 2020 and 2021 and we look forward to working closely with the organisers to make the shows return an even bigger success.”

Celebrities have also become key component of Truckfest, and this year was no exception! X Factor winner Shayne Ward paid a visit to the event on Sunday whilst football legend, and winner of ‘I’m a celebrity …’ Harry Redknapp attended the festival on Monday.

“The true spectacle of Truckfest is the vast array of trucks that attend each year, and this year we exceeded 3,000 entries, which is not just a record entry for Truckfest but also we believe it’s a world record for any trucking festival”, claimed Ward.

He concluded, “This year we even had “The Bandit’s” actual truck from the 1977 classic film “Smokey and the Bandit” starring Burt Reynolds. All of this is possible because we chose the East of England Arena and Events Centre as our venue. It is uniquely positioned and has all the excellent facilities needed to make it the ideal location for our colossal, space-hungry event.”

Adam Parry
Author: Adam Parry

Adam is the co-founder and editor of www.eventindustrynews.com Adam, a technology evangelist also organises Event Tech Live, Europe’s only show dedicated to event technology and the Event Technology Awards. Both events take place in November, London.