It is starting to become a yearly tradition that, as a family, we pack our breakfast sandwiches and head out for the New York International Auto Show – and that’s what we did, this morning.
Now over the years I’ve learned to avoid crowds, but being a family and visiting museums, theme parks, auto shows and even the mall, it can be difficult. Visiting the NY Auto Show on a weekday at 10am (when the doors open) was as close to perfect as I could get.
Ticket prices for admission are $17 for adults and $7 for children and for people who dislike crowds more than I do, there’s an option to buy an early access ticket which gets you into the show at 9am (one hour before the common folk) and those tickets are $45 for adults and $17 for children.
So where do I begin? Firstly, this place is huge. Pay the $5 for the show guide because it has a convenient detachable map on the inside of showing what’s where! The lady who told us about the show guide called us back to give us something much more valuable for a family – the Kids Activities sheet below. Print the full page PDF here.
Visiting the New York International Auto Show can do a few things:
- Gets the family out of the apartment.
- Helps kids learn how to act (behave, mingle, have fun) in public places where there are crowds.
- Offers a learning experience – history of cars, technology (engines, in car tech and also the tech used at the exhibits), there’s even a great learning experience in figuring out where the exhibits are by reading the show map.
- Just like us adults, kids can be involved in making a plan of where to visit and how to spend their time.
- Because of all the walking, you’ll be almost guaranteed the kids will sleep early!
Below is a snapshot of our journey around the show and what we experienced, but the place is so big that I’m sure we missed a lot.
Oliver and I had a bumpy fun time around the Jeep course outside of the front of the New York International Auto Show. It was a little too wet for us to attempt the steep obstacle but the 30 degree tilt felt much closer to 90 degrees!
The old and the new was on display at the Porsche exhibit at the New York International Auto Show – It’s nice to dream!
Honda returned with their cloud machine which is great fun for kids. After typing your name and picking an animation on an iPad attached to the cloud rocket, you take a quick photo and the rocket shoots a ring of mist towards the panoramic display. Your name and face then float along the screen hoping to never appear in a TV ad for Honda or any promotional material in future (did I check the checkbox?).
Honda’s show space at the New York International Auto Show was really impressive. Not only did they have the cloud machine but they also were using Microsoft’s HoloLens, which are mixed reality smart glasses, to help show features of one of their new vehicles.
Kids can ride for free in a Slingshot. I don’t have it on camera but there was one close call when a child rammed the back screen with the car – even the kids’ version is fast!
The Ford exhibit was very popular with kids because of the free Lego character they could make and take home. We must have been the slowest family in the line: choosing the right face expression and hair style, then taking photos of them in the staging area!
Ford also had a VR simulator but the lines were too long for us.
We took time to sit, rest and eat. There was a Starbucks and a few other coffee shops. Food available included pizza (small personal pie $9.50, slice $4.50 and large pie $21 – 8 slices), Chinese food, sandwiches, mac and cheese, burgers, fries – most meals were in the range of $11 each and $4 for a soda.
It was a lot of walking and there was so much to see. As you can tell from my short write up, we were more there for the experience and day out and not to learn about the newest specs from each car maker. Saying that it was nice to be able to get into many cars that we wouldn’t normally experience and it’s possible we may buy a new car in the next year or two.
If you didn’t already visit the New York International Auto Show this weekend is your last chance – Sunday is the last day.
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