with Tom Zielinski, Founder, Z Performance Group
Most automotive events fail because the people running them forget the attendee is the customer.
Founder, Z Performance Group
Tom Zielinski is the founder of Z Performance Group, producing consumer events, OEM media programs and brand activations across the automotive and powersports industries. He is a co-creator of Detroit 4Fest, a programming partner at Holly Oaks ORV Park, and involved with Cars at the Station in downtown Detroit. He serves as Secretary of the Board for Tread Lightly, and his career spans dealership sales management, Pit Bike Nationals, Supermoto, X Games and Red Bull productions.
Most automotive events fail for the same unglamorous reason: the people running them forget that the attendee is the customer.
Tom Zielinski has seen it from both chairs. He spent years as the vendor getting wedged into a bad booth location and told the gate closes at six — and he has spent the years since building Detroit 4Fest, Cars at the Station, and OEM media programs for Jeep, Toyota and the Stellantis brands. That double perspective is what makes this conversation useful rather than theoretical.
If you run events, sponsor them, activate at them, or you’re just tired of writing checks that don’t return anything, this is the one.
On the social-first reflex. A million impressions is not the win condition. Tom’s question — “but will they do anything?” — is the one most marketing decks never answer. His alternative is blunt and repeats through the whole episode: butts in seats. You cannot build enthusiasm around an appliance, and you cannot build it from a post.
On sponsorship math. If your first move is “I need to generate thirty thousand dollars to make this work,” don’t do it. Identify the people first. The brands resolve toward an audience that already exists; they do not create one for you.
On the 90%. Events get captured by their most hardcore participants — the four guys chasing one rule set — and everyone else quietly stops coming. Give the enthusiasts something to play with, but build the thing for the person who has never wheeled their Jeep, never run a bracket, never been to a track day. That’s where the volume is, and volume fixes most problems.
On being easy to work with. A Jeep executive once remarked to Tom that vendors seemed to actually like him — because at a lot of events, the relationship between operator and vendor is openly adversarial. Staying thirty minutes late so a vendor’s late truck can unload is not a strategy. It’s just the thing people remember a year later when they’re deciding whether to come back.
Detroit 4Fest · Holly Oaks ORV Park · Cars at the Station · Tread Lightly · King of the Hammers · Ultra4 · Easter Jeep Safari · Goodwood Festival of Speed · The Quail · Monterey Car Week · AMA Vintage Days at Mid-Ohio · SCCA · Michigan Central
Tom Zielinski is the founder of Z Performance Group. Beyond his own events, he consults on OEM launches and media drives, and serves as Secretary of the Board for Tread Lightly, the nonprofit focused on responsible recreation and land-use access for motorsports and off-road.
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