Beware of Sommer Sound Systems
Why 2011 Spring Fling has no dB Drag
On March 9th, Neill Barber (one of this country’s longest registered car audio competitors) makes THIS POST requesting that someone up the ante at SPRING FLING [It's a big car show in Panama City that's been going on for 20 something years]
So various promoters, including Casey from this forum, attempt to get something happening. And by happening I mean make it a 2x IASCA AND a 2x db Drag show (you know, it’s what everyone considers an awesome show that makes your time worth while, attracts the big dogs from out of the wood work, and gets everyone official world finals scores and points.)
Well it turns out the VITAL SIGNS car club promotes this event and is currently run by Doug Augustine. The process of hosting and organizing the car show is enough for them, so they pass the car audio side of things off to a local (Panama City) car stereo shop. They’ve typically been using Terry Floyd for years, but for the past 5 or so, it’s been Bill Sommer of SOMMER SOUND SYSTEMS.
Ole’ Bill thinks that this show is his big chance to make some money every year. He pulls out all of the stops and gets the IASCA judge (Terry Floyd) to pay all of the sanctioning fees (about $350) plus his annual retail member fee ($100) and he takes HALF of the entry fees per competitor ($20-40 each).
Can you imagine? Most judges offer a show to a retailer as an opportunity to promote their shop, get attention, and maybe even raffle off some equipment. But this guy thinks that because he spends a weekend in Daytona telling crowd members about Doug’s car show, that he should get half of all profits and ZERO of all expenses.
We started calling him at his shop on March 24th and his associate told us that he “wasn’t available” call after call, day after day. So yesterday (March 29th) I left him a message telling him that his antics were lame and that I wasn’t interested in waiting on him to help him make money any more. Miraculously, he called back……to attempt to ***** me out. I hung up on him twice for acting like a jerk.
He left this voicemail for me (Thanks for the property Bill!) Click here to listen
If you believe that a shop owner (who obviously doesn’t care about the competitors…hell I’d pay him for every rule he even knows if you know what I’m saying) who is trying to make money on the backs of the competitors is out of line, feel free to “call” his shop phone at 850-215-6664 or email him at sommersoundsystems@knology.net and tell him what you think. Tell him I sent ya! Please!
We’ve spoken to Doug at Vital Signs and let him know who we are and what we can do for his car show. Those of you who’ve attended our events or events we’ve sponsored know what we’re capable of. If you see Doug or any of the guys from Vital Signs at the show let them know what they’re missing out on by not having a multi-sanctioned event. Maybe next year we can make this thing right.
This year, we did our best.