[QUOTE=riderboy;5150808]
FOOD! Better food [/QUOTE]
Somehow I don’t think the lack of good food will be an issue in France.
Stadiums in Caen
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stade_Michel_d%27Ornano
http://france.stades.free.fr/SITE/DISTRICTS/CALVADOS/CAEN%20Venoix/caen_venoix.htm
You’re kidding right? Ever been to a normally price place in France? Croque Monsieur or Croque Madame and that’s it and oh a hot dog.
Not a veggie to be found.
Yes, honestly that would be better than that s- they served at the KHP.
Better crowd control.
The traffic was horrid.
There was one large place for food and then 1 pizza place. Then the small place with that same ick in the vendor area.
They needed to have a sit down and eat place like where the alltech experience was. Have more food options!
And yes, the Alltech is gracious to sponsor it all. Thank you. But seriously, if someone doesn’t like your beer and doesn’t do bourbon, would it hurt you to allow a Budweiser in there?
The nickel and diming could get you in trouble.
Everything was very spread out and if you didn’t research the venue, you missed out on a lot. The big maps should have had a bit more detail and maybe a daily listing of what is where. I saw nothing while in the park that would lead me to something other than what I bought my ticket for.
Or make announcements like ‘Exhibit A is starting in 30 minutes here.’
The vendors were hideous! I expected the tack stores to actually have tack <gasp>. The art was good but I expected to see more. Still LOVE the mosiac guy. I expected to see the unexpected or different. But not incredibly impractical or something I wasn’t going to buy right there.
$5 to get into the int’l horse expo? Come on … I wasn’t going to do that.
Pluses:
The buses were great.
BoB was awesome
The main stadium and x-c course were phenomenal.
Loved the use of the jumbo trons and the announcing was fantastic.
The volunteers!!! OMG! They were the best!!!
Everything ran right on schedule. Have no idea how they did it but they did!
A few things I noted:
I found the announcements in the stadium to be very difficult to hear, especially if there was any crowd noise at all. On freestyle night, they were worthless. The announcers were much easier to hear on x-country than they ever were in the stadium. That should have been addressed.
The radios for listening to commentary were great and I wouldn’t want to go to an event without them now. But - the batteries were awful. By the time I got to stadium jumping, I went through three batteries in three hours.
More places to sit down and eat would be really important. There was only one real place to get food and the tables were packed every single day. There was flat out not enough room for this.
Better signage for the “other” areas - it was hard to find places in the equine village and it didn’t seem worth the effort.
Enforce times the vendors need to open by! It was frustrating to arrive early to shop and have them all still closed.
I had a great time but I agree they could have had better maps with more detail. And shuttles around the park for everyone would have been nice.
.’
The vendors were hideous! I expected the tack stores to actually have tack <gasp>. The art was good but I expected to see more. Still LOVE the mosiac guy. I expected to see the unexpected or different. But not incredibly impractical or something I wasn’t going to buy right there.
Just curious - were you planning to buy tack and art or did you just want someone to pay a gazillion dollars to bring it all there for you to look at?
Having been on the vendor end at Rolex for years, I continue to be amazed at the expectations people seem to have about these trade fairs. No one pays all this money without honestly thinking they have a marketable products but all the comments from people who clearly aren’t going to buy anything yet complaining that there’s nothing to look at!
[QUOTE=LisaB;5150990]
would it hurt you to allow a Budweiser in there?[/QUOTE]
Good luck with that! :lol:
I don’t think Dr. Lyons plunked down $10M+ in title sponsorship to let a competitor in the door.
I bought from the mosaic guy. And I guess I should say that the tack stores should have had their inventory there. Like horseloverz should have had their stuff that they normally have online. Not just the FITS brand clothing and then another brand (forgot what it was).
And Kerrits had only their new line and nothing in my size - 32.
They should have followed the BoB model.
The mosaic guy had small stuff for a pleeb like me and then big expensive stuff for me to drool over. Like eventually I want to buy one of his sinks. But he had small stuff too.
I’m not going to buy a stall kit, a tread mill, antique flooring, trailer waterer. But I will remember them and when the time comes, I will research them. But I’m kinda peeved that they would expect actual sales on such big ticket items like that.
[QUOTE=mares tails;5151143]
Good luck with that! :lol:
I don’t think Dr. Lyons plunked down $10M+ in title sponsorship to let a competitor in the door.[/QUOTE]
try 35 million in the end:)
[QUOTE=LisaB;5151152]
I bought from the mosaic guy. And I guess I should say that the tack stores should have had their inventory there. Like horseloverz should have had their stuff that they normally have online. Not just the FITS brand clothing and then another brand (forgot what it was).
And Kerrits had only their new line and nothing in my size - 32.
They should have followed the BoB model.
The mosaic guy had small stuff for a pleeb like me and then big expensive stuff for me to drool over. Like eventually I want to buy one of his sinks. But he had small stuff too.
I’m not going to buy a stall kit, a tread mill, antique flooring, trailer waterer. But I will remember them and when the time comes, I will research them. But I’m kinda peeved that they would expect actual sales on such big ticket items like that.[/QUOTE]
Did he have a website??? can you please post it if he did…I missed him and I LOVE mosaic. thank you
There is no bad food in Normandy.
And I can taste the Calvados already…
Signage, signage, signage. Do not make people read the name of the facility (often in language other than their native language), e.g. indoor arena or covered arena, and then stare at ticket to decipher whether that is the correct venue. You have those little pictographs for each discipline. Use them. At every intersection, put that discipline picture and the appropriate directional arrow. If the facility has ‘regular’ landmarks when the event is NOT there, incorporate those into the WEG map. May not apply in France, but those of us visiting KHP for the first time had a devil of a time finding Funny Cide and Cigar, for example. Finally flagged down a KHP native in a golf cart who walked to a big map to us and pointed out the unlabeled building that was our target.
In other words, make the grounds user friendly (read idiot-proof) and do not assume that most attendees will have had the time, knowledge or skills to thoroughly research and print maps, schedules and the like from web sites. But for the official web site, I’d say some improvement there in terms of information and ease of navigation wouldn’t hurt.
[QUOTE=mares tails;5151143]
I don’t think Dr. Lyons plunked down $10M+ in title sponsorship to let a competitor in the door.[/QUOTE]
I’d be willing to bet that if Anheuser-Busch had plunked down $10M, or $35M, in title sponsorship, that Budweiser and other A-B products would have been the only beers available. That kind of exclusive product placement in exchange for sponsorship is pretty traditional. I’m just glad the sponsorship went to a real beer company, and not a purveyor of horse piss like Bud
Uhhh, that was real beer? How about it was bourbon without as much alcohol content?
And that isn’t their main focus so I would think allowing a piss beer like a Bud in there wouldn’t hurt their marketing. It just made folks leave for their food and beer is what I’m saying.
Get some variety in there to make folks stay for dinner and do some evening shopping and stuff.
Now with Normandy, I fully expect to have a plethora of wine tasting everywhere you turn.
Will there be tours of Haras de Pins or any of the other Normandy stud farms? Normandy is the French equivalent of Kentucky, or maybe even bigger. I’ve already started saving my pennies and expect to be wowed.
Anyone know who won the trip that they were giving away?
Dr. Lyons’s original products were yeasts, and he’s a Brit. Thank heavens the beer he did provide doesn’t taste like the iguana P**s that the big American brewers put out in such massive volume with rice and such as primary ingredients. Could be he brews to suit his own tastes. I’m personally a Bourbon Barrel Ale convert and wish it could be found here.
I wish that the events sponsored by Bud, etc. would offer decent ales and beers as alternatives.
I do hope Normandy has good beer. IME, French beer was barely drinkable.
Belgian purveyor of horse piss at that ! I’s be a happier camper if somebody could brew proper bitter on this side of the pond.
[QUOTE=vineyridge;5151354]
.
I do hope Normandy has good beer. IME, French beer was barely drinkable.[/QUOTE]
Since Alltech is also the title sponsor of 2014 WEG, I don’t think you need to worry.
Gee, I liked the Kentucky Bourbon Ale. And the lighter version in the other spigot.
When we went to the Irish Derby in 2002, guess which beer was the official brew of the races? Not Guiness…
And I must stand up for my Belgian heritage…they only BOUGHT Budweiser, now Stella Artois is in my book a pleasant brew!
Too cool in Normandy for beer anyhow, typically…go for the Calvados.
Sounds like they already have a very good handle on it:
http://www.kentucky.com/2010/10/11/1474141/the-games-go-on-to-normandy.html
I’ve already begun saving for it!
Actually the only time I ever buy tack is at Equine Affaire or Rolex. I have bought boots, breeches, show shirts, hunt coats, vests, helmets, bridles, gloves, reins, bellboots, wormer, books, pads, blankets, and many other things.
It needs to be good prices so it balances out the entry fee, but I go to see things in person and catch any specials.
One of the MAIN reasons we didn’t go to WEG was the lack of shopping. We were going to get a general admission pass and shop all day. Since there was only one tack shop there was no reason to go.
