I’m watching a replay of yesterday’s dressage and noticing how empty the grandstand is! Here’s a screenshot if you haven’t watched: https://photos.smugmug.com/photos/i-wZccDCh/0/L/i-wZccDCh-L.jpg
Is that normal?
yes it is sadly normal. Look, Eventing dressage isn’t rocket science. It is only interesting to hard core eventing peeps. Even at Rolex or Badminton, the first day is very slow. Here the crowds won’t be as large as it would be in Europe, and there might be difficulties in getting to the venue. They probably realize it will be a long two day slog and are looking around first.:yes:
I watched yesterday and saw that the grandstands were pretty empty. More people were at the basketball game which was also shown on TV, but lots of empty seats in those stands also. The buzz is that Brazilians are not paying for tickets, even those who can afford them.
The swimming events looked well attended but then there are not as many seats at that venue as at the other venues. People do watch football (our soccer) down there more than they watch dressage and basketball.
Horses looked good though.
[QUOTE=Larksmom;8783531]
yes it is sadly normal. Look, Eventing dressage isn’t rocket science. It is only interesting to hard core eventing peeps. Even at Rolex or Badminton, the first day is very slow. Here the crowds won’t be as large as it would be in Europe, and there might be difficulties in getting to the venue. They probably realize it will be a long two day slog and are looking around first.:yes:[/QUOTE]
Maybe I’ve just never noticed before! Even the commentators said it was a good-sized crowd.
Can’t wait to see the x-country course tomorrow. That usually brings out a lot of people.
There will be a larger in-house audience for (regular) dressage when it starts on Wednesday 8/10.
Maybe they will greatly reduce the prices or offer free tickets to entice locals to fill the empty seats in preliminary rounds or less popular events? They have done that before at other Games.
It is all relative to the size of the arena and camera angles though…
[QUOTE=Mardi;8783649]
There will be a larger in-house audience for (regular) dressage when it starts on Wednesday 8/10.[/QUOTE]
But still, the Freestyle will far out-number the GP and GPS.
That stadium seats 14,000. I can’t imagine anywhere even half-filling a stadium that size for Eventing Dressage. Not knocking it, I understand how the average sports fan is not going to choose that for their ticket money.
It will be full for the “real” Grand Prix dressage (sorry, eventers).
Anne and Daisy, did I not say that in my post? Anyone knows you have to really want to ‘understand’ the remarks if you are martyr enough to watch these. I guess I want to see it ALL, and seeing the ride is better than reading about it. It will be fuller to be sure, but I don’t think it will be really ‘full’ until the free style.
Honestly, it probably has more to due with all the problems in Rio than anything else. Those stands are usually packed at the olympics, but who wants to go there when it’s much safer to watch from home. I know plenty of people who would have gone but backed out due Zika, water, potential to be robbed, etc. even KY is usually packed by day 2 of dressage. Europe knows how to pack a grand stand 
I’ve noticed that ALL of the equestrian events have had poor attendance, including each day in eventing (including along the xc course) and today in dressage. It’s kinda sad. Would love to know why…
Show Jumping will get a big crowd, always does, plus it’s the only one of the three disciplines that the locals are familiar with and have a chance of medaling in.
In fairness, outside of horsey countries, Eventing and Dressage are pretty rarefied sports.
And the dressage phase of eventing? I love eventing, and you couldn’t pay me to watch the dressage phase. The couple of times I’ve been to Rolex 3DE at the KY HP, I’ve watched a couple of the early tests and then went to the races at Keeneland.
[QUOTE=Daisyesq;8783817]
It will be full for the “real” Grand Prix dressage (sorry, eventers).[/QUOTE]
Wish that were true. But the stands have been sadly empty for the past 2 days. There really weren’t even many people there to cheer on the top tier.
I think it is worth noting that the average Brazilian has difficulty affording all of this, and that there’s alot of stress regarding the allocation of money to Olympic venues and not Brazilians/Brazilian infrastructure. I invite everyone on this thread to understand the economics of Brazil, and Rio in particular, to understand why many of these stands are empty. Also, Please remember that the water off the most famous beaches is toxic in a variety of regards. And there was no attempt to clean this up (despite the fact that clean-up was in the bid). Also, note the economics of giving away free tickets. Many venues are loathe to do this and you might be loathe for this to happen if you paid for your seat and someone gets a better seat for free because they’re bored that day and want to watch horses.
I would say it is not normal at all for the stands to be that empty.
Honestly, we can get more people than that in the stands for a pretty ordinary horse show in the US. I suspect that (a) not a lot of horse people ended up wanting to be in Rio (b) the venue wasn’t an attractive choice to random tourists around for the Olympics and c) locals can’t afford the tickets or have other obstacles to attending.
In Los Angeles 1984 any ticket to the Olympics was hard to come by and the straight dressage stadium was completely full. IIRC at Sydney and maybe London the cross-country was sold out, and had the highest attendance of any one ticketed event (in part obviously because you don’t have to have a stadium). At WEG in Lexington, the eventing dressage certainly had some holes in the seats as people wandered the venue to visit vendors etc but even so the stadium was pretty well attended - definitely more than Rio.
