Land Rover Packages/Tents

[notlost]

I’ve been attending (and fence judging!) Rolex-now-Land Rover for 19 years now, and I’m considering doing one of the packages for next year to celebrate my 20th year (Patron Club, Patron Plus). For those of you who’ve done them, are they worth it? I know Patron Plus has seats right next to the Rolex arena for dressage and for SJ; do you get seats with Patron Club? From the description, it sounds like you have access to a large screen TV, but not actual seats in the stadium–is that right? You get food/drinks in both, it sounds like, but golf cart rides everywhere if you are Patron Plus.

Patron Plus is twice as expensive as Patron Club, which is not quite twice as expensive as buying tickets/preferred parking. Just trying to figure out how celebratory I should be.

[bornfreenowexpensive]

I did the Patron Plus before…but had a discount as I was an owner (if you order through a competitor there, there is a decent/significant discount). I thought it was worth it…especially for me as I had an older relative with me who I could plant in the tent and they could watch, drink and eat all day while I ran around.

It was open bar…

I also added the Kentucky Club as well. I didn’t take as much advantage of it as I should have…but my relative did :0. You have good seats in the tent to watch SJ/Dressage that is along the rail. You don’t need other seats.

ETA: Now that I think about it…not sure I did just Patron Club not Patron Plus. I have a set a wine glasses they gave us…so I’m thinking it was the Plus.

[RSEventer]

I have always wanted to go to Landrover. This past year my SO and I even got as far as buying the airplane tix and reserved a rental car and hotel room. We had to cancel due to his job, so we did not go. UGH!
I thought we could just walk up and buy tickets, but reading this got me interested.
The cost is WAY more than I thought it would be! Now I see that it is a discount to buy early! I want to do maybe two days and that Kentucky Club sounds like a lot of fun!

[jcraig10]

Thank you for all of those years of volunteering!

Ive only been twice, and did Kentucky Club this year for XC day which I thought was really nice. My husband bought me the tix for Christmas so he had no idea what he was buying :-). It included meals and an open bar. The food was very good. I can imagine the Patron clubs would only be better! Enjoy

[Lusoluv]

jcraig10, I’ve been going to “Rolex” on and off for the last 8 years. I wasn’t going to go this year, but my husband bought us tix for Christmas, too! He had no idea what he was buying and I guess the online customer service folks were not very helpful either. They were happy to sell him the tix, but all the options (and him never attending in the past) it didn’t make it easy for him to decide what to get…like stadium tix for the dressage portion, etc.

Anyhoo…we got everything settled when he gave me the package and he also got Kentucky Club for XC day. It was nice, like attending a garden wedding reception, after we had trekked around the course a while. We had TVs and a decent view of a fence near the tent. The food and drinks were quite good, but was it worth $300+/person?? Nope. Now…if $$ is no object, then go for it! Do Patron Club and everything else that’s offered. Why not? But for me the trip to KY, shared hotel room, ground admission, parking, meals, seats, etc. already add up to over $300/day at minimum. So I couldn’t say I’d do it this way again. But I’m on a beer budget…

[gottagrey]

I wish the event organizers here would take some pages out of the planning books for Badminton and Burghley. $750+ per person is a bit steep. That’s a lot of food and drink to make it worthwhile. I went to both Badminton and Burghley - got members packages for both of them which was about 1/2 of Landrover Kentucky charges. Granted you paid for food and drinks but with all the different food vendors at both events it’s nice not to have to be committed to 1 place and both events had food, drink (and ice cream) vendors on the cross country course. Sure they had big corporate sponsor tents. Burghley was nice because their member package included 1 guest pass for 4 days and you had the option of buying additional guest badges for a nominal fee. I didn’t notice that the tents were mobbed, but the weather was great.

So my response to OP is to skip Landrover Kentucky - for that kind of money head across the pond to Badminton or Burghley. Badminton’s members tent is along one side of the arena so you can stay there the entire event if you want - from Dressage to SJ… They have a giant jumbotron going plus additional TVs in the enclosed tent.

[bornfreenowexpensive]

@gottagrey

Badminton’s members tent is along one side of the arena so you can stay there the entire event if you want - from Dressage to SJ… They have a giant jumbotron going plus additional TVs in the enclosed tent.

That’s not the case for Burghley. You still have to buy seats for dressage and SJ. I will say I went to Burghley twice (once as an owner). Members tent was mobbed one year as weather wasn’t nice. Not bad the other. I only ate there once or twice though. They do have more expensive options too. Just different experiences. I will say that Badminton, Burghley and Blenheim did treat owners far far better than any US venues, including Kentucky.

[gottagrey]

@bornfreenowexpensive

That’s not the case for Burghley. You still have to buy seats for dressage and SJ. I will say I went to Burghley twice (once as an owner). Members tent was mobbed one year as weather wasn’t nice. Not bad the other. I only ate there once or twice though. They do have more expensive options too. Just different experiences. I will say that Badminton, Burghley and Blenheim did treat owners far far better than any US venues, including Kentucky.

Right - burghleys members area offered no view if the stadium. But did have a giant Jumbotron and a few TVs inside but not nearly as many as badminton but they did have an area for members to watch dressage but you needed tickets for SJ so in that regard I preferred badminton’s setup. But I really like how they make it very affordable.

[notlost]

Thanks, everyone! Turns out several friends want to go with me this year, so I ended up buying regular stadium tickets like I normally do. I love the idea of saving my pennies and going to England. I figure I’m retiring in a year or two, so that sounds like a fine post-retirement plan. .

[tbchick84]

Do the dressage and stadium seat tickets get you access into the park too or do you have to buy separate tickets for general admission? I don’t remember having to buy separate tickets last time I went in 2014.

[Madison]

@tbchick84

Do the dressage and stadium seat tickets get you access into the park too or do you have to buy separate tickets for general admission? I don’t remember having to buy separate tickets last time I went in 2014.

You have to buy separate grounds passes to access the park, in addition to your stadium seats. I don’t remember when they started that but it has been that way for years now, and it makes the ordering process very annoying. I wish they’d just up the ticket price to include it, and sell a separate ground pass for people who don’t want seats.

[CindyCRNA]

We always drive and use Sun to go home so normally don’t stay for stadium. If you do dressage, get the ear phones. OMG, have a drink called a 4-Star then listen to the commentary. We were dying. While watching some beautiful tests, hearing commentary on a less than perfect movement is hilarious with a little alcohol on board. "Oh my, that movement was dreadful, really. " when I never in my career will EVER be able to produce a movement as nice as that!

[Hollydae]

@CindyCRNA

We always drive and use Sun to go home so normally don’t stay for stadium. If you do dressage, get the ear phones. OMG, have a drink called a 4-Star then listen to the commentary. We were dying. While watching some beautiful tests, hearing commentary on a less than perfect movement is hilarious with a little alcohol on board. "Oh my, that movement was dreadful, really. " when I never in my career will EVER be able to produce a movement as nice as that!

Isn’t Sally retiring as commentator? I hope her replacement is as up to snuff! The commentary MAKES dressage for me since I’m too much of a dunce on my own to know what’s going on lol.

[CindyCRNA]

@Hollydae

Isn’t Sally retiring as commentator? I hope her replacement is as up to snuff! The commentary MAKES dressage for me since I’m too much of a dunce on my own to know what’s going on lol.

Sally is the one I am familiar with. And she’s not trying to be funny but it is with my dressage flunky self. I always think to myself, “If you want to see dreadful, let me come down that center line!”