Summarizing… (more numbers)
WEG Gate Tally
…day…/… daily…/… cumulative
[LIST=1]
Sweet!!! Thank you!! I can’t do that much math! :lol::lol:
Lexington newspaper reported yesterday: “The Games have brought in 234,243 visitors, students, volunteers and members of the media in a week.”
The LexTran bus from downtown has been a big help in keeping traffic moving - 3,455 passengers on Eventing-Cross Country Saturday.
There were WAY more people on the cross country course for the WEG than for a typical Rolex. We were talking at the head of the lake, early in the morning, to some Western riders from Idaho. They didn’t know a thing about eventing, so they asked my daughter a lot of questions; they were completely fascinated and obviously having a blast.
Eventing dressage about half full on Friday, but the stands were very full for showjumping. Lots of people in the trade fair and merchandise tents. And, the line to pet a penguin was long–but worth it.
I heard the line for the dressage horse simulator was 2 hours long! Nuts!
The eventing showjumping stands were full yesterday, even though it was raining, even though they were on the rider in 48th place or so.
The shuttle bus service is working great!
They have a dressage horse simulator at the Expo downtown as well (unless they have moved it to the KHP). I was there last week and it was almost empty.
I exhibited in the Equine Village from Sept. 25th thru Saturday Oct. 1st with my Nokota and Spanish Mustang.
The first 4 days were nothing less than disasterous in terms of attendence. Its not surprising for our rinky-dink Nokota/Spanish Mustang demos to be sparsely attended. But it is a shocker to see only a handful of people attending demos by John Lyons, Pat Parelli, Clinton Anderson, Tommy Turvey, Lynn Palm, etc. Some breeds didn’t even bother to do their demos, with 20 people in the stands.
The Trade Show was likewise a ghost town and events themselves (dressage and reining) barely half-filled. I heard from exhibiters that the expos in Lexington and Georgetown were even worse, if possible.
Thankfully WEG organizers rallied by busing in school kids, slashing ticket prices and even hotels finally conceded they have been barely to 60% capacity and dropped their prices.
Thursday thru Saturday we saw much better crowds in Equine Village. But overall, far less than expected for an event of this magnitude. I’ve seen better attendance on an average weekend for the KHP’s Parade of Breeds.
But a video’s worth a thousand words, right? Here’s a compilation of our demos for the week, starting with Opening Ceremonies. And keep in mind, we tried to avoid shots of the empty stands as much as possible.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j56kC82-y7M
While part of this is a reflection of the high prices of WEG, I believe its also a reflection of the state of the horse industry. Top to bottom, everyone is suffering. Breyerfest, Dressage at Devon, Quarter Horse Congress, etc… the story seems to be same.
I was at DAD Saturday night- and while it wasn’t the crush that it can be, and has been, it was still pretty much SRO.
I do know that entries were waaaay down, and it was interesting to have the GP Special AND the Kur- in one night!
I don’t know what everyone was complaining about for the cost of parking/food. I was ready to get gorged after reading the previous posts, but when I got there nothing surprised me. $20 for parking at a major event…normal. $4 for popcorn in a grandstand…normal. $7 for a beer…normal. $3 for bottled water…normal (or you could go to any number of organizations that were giving away free bottles of water). Plus, if you went for more than one day you realized that they did allow food/beverages in, so could have packed your own lunch if you thought that was too much money to purchase inside the venue. I packed sandwiches/snacks/water each day and didn’t buy anything (except a beer once) in the park. PS. Kentucky Bourbon Ale, YUM!
I wish I’d been more brazen about bringing in food on cross-country day. It really sucked to be 2 miles away from the nearest food with a grumpy 10 year old. I’d fed her a clif bar but that did not hold us.
[QUOTE=Sonoma City;5138756]
I don’t know what everyone was complaining about for the cost of parking/food. I was ready to get gorged after reading the previous posts, but when I got there nothing surprised me. $20 for parking at a major event…normal. $4 for popcorn in a grandstand…normal. $7 for a beer…normal. $3 for bottled water…normal (or you could go to any number of organizations that were giving away free bottles of water). Plus, if you went for more than one day you realized that they did allow food/beverages in, so could have packed your own lunch if you thought that was too much money to purchase inside the venue. I packed sandwiches/snacks/water each day and didn’t buy anything (except a beer once) in the park. PS. Kentucky Bourbon Ale, YUM![/QUOTE]
I agree with everything except that p.s.–straight up Kentucky Ale, please.
Having lived in Atlanta at the time of the 1996 Olympics, this is just the same pricing if not somewhat less for a major event. Is it expensive in this current economy to the average American who is currently sweating to keep her job and stay out of debt? oh heck yes. Are the prices outrageous and unfair? No, I can’t say I think so when compared to other large-scale events.
WEG is being treated like the big event it is. Simple facts are that there is still a recovering economy and not everyone cares about this sport enough to put up the money they would for the soccer or football equivalent.
I too thought the prices were fair. Have you been to Disney lately? Food, parking, hotels, etc are much more expensive. Plus just getting through the gate is a fortune.
I think food and beverages are expensive at every concert, football game etc.
We got our hotel reservations 2 years ago at $119.00/night for a suite. I won’t say how much those suites were going for at the time we got there.
Tickets at the same time, and I must say that I ended up with better seats by just sitting down in the empty ones at the events I had paid for. Only once did I have to move for the actual ticket holder and that was no problem for anyone…I just scooted down two seats.
The volunteers were FANTASTIC, everyone was super friendly and helpful, even after what I’m sure were very long days.
Getting to the shuttles back from watching the dressage FS was no problem, as I just asked my friendly neighbourhood volunteer with a golf cart for a lift. You can ask any empty non-handicapped cart for a ride if you want to and they will take you if they are headed that way and have room…The shuttle lines were horrific, making me wish I had ridden my bicycle from my hotel as I had done the day before, BUT, I also made some new “friends” in line when we started discussing reining fs vs dressage fs, who I ended up going out with in Lexington for the evening and who I had a BLAST with and exchanged e-mails for the next QH Congress , so that was worth it. Sometimes what seems like a big inconvenience can turn out to be great fun if you get into the spirit.
The bike path that leads straight to WEG is totally paved, is patrolled and lighted and bicycle parking is quite close to the gate if you take your bike.
We stayed in the same hotel where all the staff from the food concessions were staying, and some of them had been there for a month before the WEG began, setting up. Those people worked HARD, were super friendly, and invited me for fanastic Chinese food in the lobby of our hotel around midnight one evening! Thanks guys! I was starving!
All in all, I had a fantastic time and want to say that Kentucky did a GREAT job!
NJR
The news just reported that the final attendance count for the 16 days is 507,022. 
Caitlin
507022 !
WEG Gate Tally FINAL 507,022
…day…/… daily…/… cumulative
- 1. Sat 9/25 23,081 23,081
- 2. Sun 9/26 12,259 35,340
- 3. Mon 9/27 12,115 47,455
- 4. Tue 9/28 24,237 71,692
- 5. Wed 9/29 31,026 102,718
- 6. Thu 9/30 34,211 136,929
- 7. Fri 10/01 46,496 183,425
- 8. Sat 10/02 50,818 234,243
- 9. Sun 10/03 27,815 262,058
- 10. Mon 10/04 31,246 293,304
- 11. Tue 10/05 29,841 323,145
- 12. Wed 10/06 28,429 351,574
- 13. Thu 10/07 27,419 378,993
- 14. Fri 10/08 44,393 423,386
- 15. Sat 10/09 44,954 468,340
- 16. Sun 10/10 38,682 507,022
Side note- I would love to see a video of this! :lol:
I can’t personally claim outrage at the concession prices or the parking prices for an event of this scale. But. The ticket prices, and more importantly, the way the tickets were sold, I honestly found outrageous.
Example: Eons ago when I purchased tickets for show jumping ‘phase I’ on the Tuesday, I assumed I was buying tickets for the ‘entire’ first class, the speed class. I paid $60 each for 4 tix. Imagine my dismay when midday Tuesday came, after watching 60 horses go, and the announcer cheerfully said that’s it for this morning folks, rest of the class is this afternoon, if you don’t have tickets you can go and buy some. Well, yeah, we came all this way to see the ENTIRE class, so we forked over another $40 bucks for more or less the same seats in the afternoon. That is just wrong. I have been attending horse shows for decades and other big events, including Olympics, in several countries. You don’t make people buy two tickets for one entire class. Apologists said ‘oh, you are wrong, think of events like the Ryder Cup, yada, yada, yada…’ Well, okay. I cannot think of a single golf event that sells you a ticket for a half a round. Nor any other sporting event, for that matter. So, I gotta wonder what they were thinking. In that same jumping class, when we were buying tix for the afternoon, we encountered a pair of lovely ladies from the UK, who had $150 seats…where they could not hear the announcer! The folks at the ticket counter addressed their issue satisfactorily, but these ladies had been to EVERY WEG and had ours ranked at the bottom of their WEG experience, unfortunately.
We also attended the team medal round, which was somewhat confusing because there were also a number of individual goes, but as with the speed class, stands much less than half full. I cannot help but think that if the ticket prices had been halved from the get-go, they would have filled those stands and further increased their take by the additional parking revenues, and concession revenues, and perhaps the unhappy vendors might have benefitted as well.
As for the total attendance, sounds great, but of course that includes the 50,000 or so tix they gave to local schools (that they might have sold at reasonable prices, although allowing the local kids the opportunity is indeed a great idea). When we attended the vaulting on Friday the announcer said the event was ‘sold out,’ that could be true but a good 10 to 15% of the seats were empty.
As a PS, I sincerely hope that some of the parking revenues will be going to those little churches that furnished shuttle service. We tried to make a donation to one of those drivers for his church and he said oh, no, absolutely not, they could not accept gratuities. It seems to me WEG ought to at least cover their gas!
[QUOTE=BetterOffRed;5130143]
I think I will save my money for Normandy in 2014. Even with the Euro up over the dollar, I should still get a better return!:lol: And the food will be way better! :lol::lol:[/QUOTE]
As I said in another thread, I did Badminton and toured Britain and Wales for two weeks. Added up the cost. WEG in Kentucky would have cost me more. Ticket prices for Kentucky were particularly outrageous. B&B’s in Bath didn’t gouge Badminton attendees. Tickets were reasonable. Airfare was reasonable. Typical US greed.
Do we have a final tally anywhere? Just curious.
