We were there Tuesday evening and all day Wednesday.
Parking: Parking lot E is right off 74 on Pea Ridge Rd. That lot is also the designated lot for people who are being dropped off e.g. by Uber or your Mom/Aunt/friend with whom you are staying. You can’t park in Lot E, but there is a private lot across the street and the church and another private lot on the closest side street were also parking cars. So, you can park in one of the private lots (we paid $25 at the church for parking in a paved lot) and walk across the street and catch the shuttle. Advantages are that it’s feasible to actually walk back to your car if you need to via the new tunnel that goes under 74 (we did Tuesday night) and that the shuttle is a smaller van that you catch down the way from where the big buses pick up people to go to the general admission lot out on 9 and the wait is not horrible. Yesterday when we left, the line up for the general admission shuttle buses was long enough that it would have made me cry to have had to wait in it and the lot is so far away that you can’t possibly contemplate walking there.
Heat: It is hot. Mercilessly hot. We didn’t have tickets for covered seating for dressage and we broiled. Except for when we were getting rained on. The second time it rained, the sun was still shining so we baked under our plastic rain ponchos in the sun AND got rained on at the same time.
As someone else has already mentioned, there is no ventilation at all in the reining arena. It was fairly pleasant in the morning, but by late afternoon it was approaching oven temperatures. We were so sweaty that we joked that we were going to have to take two showers to get the stink off.
Facilities: You know, for only having 18 months to put this thing together, the folks at Tryon did a fantastic job. They deserve lots of praise. The footing in both the reining and dressage arenas looked great. The actual competition areas, i.e. where horses would be, looked good. However, you simply cannot accomplish 4-5 years worth of preparation and infrastructure development in 18 months. To say the place is unfinished is an understatement. You are literally in the middle of a construction zone. For example, the indoor arena has piles of construction material around it and the inside has, e.g., electrical cables strung up with temporary fastenings. The aspect of that with, in my opinion, the biggest potential impact given the weather forecast is that a lot of places that were clearly intended to be paved, graveled, or sodded simply aren’t. The mud is going to be epic. If they get a couple of days of hard rain, as they seem likely to get from the hurricane, you will not be able to get into or park in many of the lots. I don’t know what they’re going to do.
Eating: Just forget about trying to have a sit down meal at any kind of reasonable meal time. Just go straight to one of the food wagons that are scattered around. There are a number of food trucks/tents all the way at the end of the vendors displays (back behind the small tent vendors). Also, Mast General Store sells food and if you want a bottle of Coke, it’s half the price charged by most of the food trucks.
Vendors: Give your credit cards to a friend who can be trusted to refuse to let you buy things you don’t need. I spent the whole time drooling over and caressing the beautiful saddles/show clothing/tack. And boots, did I mention the boots in an infinite variety of styles, colors, and leathers? Sigh. I managed to restrain myself to a souvenir T-shirt, but it was hard. Good thing I was only there for one day because if I was there for a week, I might have completely lost control.
Overall: I had a great time. So many beautiful horses and talented riders. I’m really glad we went in spite of the mud and rain and sweat.
