I’m wondering if they have all the hotels in Forest City on lockdown as a backup, it is only 15-20 minutes away.
Well the one team that I know (not US) has its rooms over in Spartanburg.
Yikes!! That’s certainly not optimal by any stretch :no: I feel for the riders and teams having to sort through all of that. With the limited access points to the grounds, even just getting the riders, grooms and officials in and out will be a production!
I’m only going to show jumping because I didn’t trust the set-up for eventing, I’ll stick with the more spectator-friendly events I go to at other points in the year, but I wouldn’t even have bought tickets for SJ if we didn’t have friends to stay with give the distances to the available hotels!
A a c h e n
I’m local. From what I saw Saturday, if you told me WEG was a year away, I’d be encouraged… But it’s in 42 days!
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Well, call me Pollyanna, but I seem to remember that all the venues looked like they would never make it to the finish line, but they all did. So who knows. But if it does turn out to be a cluster, I bet this will be the last one…
This is utterly stupid. The whole thing. TIEC. FEI. WEG. All of it.
The best thing that could emerge from this wreckage is an end to the repeating fiasco known as WEG. There is no compelling reason to have this festival of missed deadlines, rushed construction, compromised competitions and wasted money every four years.
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I would hate to lose the competition, OTOH, if we could then slip the STUPID requirement of 3 person teams… not a bad switch. It is easy to see the FEI totally in cahoots with Olympics committee. What is good for the sport? Hell no. What is good for Olympics. No matter that eventing is very dangerous and inviting teams not up to the challenge is a very bad idea. But what do I know?
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I actually like the concept of WEG. And have enjoyed the ones that I’ve been too. Great to see top levels of other disciplines. But I do think they should stick with just one or two venues that are already capable of hosting.
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The concept is fine.
The execution is always doomed to be an unwieldy, expensive, unsatisfying mess. There are too many entities to please and too many compromises made.
Multi-sport fiestas like the Olympics and WEG have had their day. The IOC and FEI are bloated, antiquated, out-of-touch, too-often corrupt entities. We’ve lived through a century where the IOC was taking bribes hand over fist from cities bidding on Games; the new century features the IOC bribing cities/nations to bid for the Games so that the IOC can continue to line their pockets and rack up five-star hospitality bills on someone else’s (often the taxpayers’) dime.
It’s time for a complete reset and the first step is to pull the plug on these boondoggles. Now. A total waste of resources that the actual sports could put to better use.
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I agree. Every sport should just host their own World Champs and let those become their own Olympic type hype.
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This is and interesting article. I know at least 3 people looking to move/retire to the area because of the Equestrian center. I’m actually really rooting for it to be a success.
http://businessnc.com/monstrous-impact-likely-from-tryon-equestrian-centers-september-event/
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Thank you, bornfreenowexpensive. I can make good use of that link. It’s quite illuminating.
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This is a really good read. I can’t help but wonder though, if this venture goes bust this entire area will be devastated. They’ve put all their eggs in one basket. That never works out well in the long run.
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I went to the WEG in Normandy for XC and eventing SJ. Tryon and the location in France have several similarities…rural location, limited lodging and one road leading to the venue. We walked the last 2 miles to get to XC in Normandy because the backup on the only road into the venue were literally hours long. Driving thru the traffic circle pulling into Tryon for the AECs I thought there is no way they are going to be able to accommodate 40-50,000K spectators on XC day. While the facility is lovely and built around the comfort for the horse…big stalls, mats, fans in stalls, walking track for horses, plus nice bathrooms, suitable places for vendors…I worry they will be overrun by the number of spectators.
In addition, they don’t have enough land for a proper XC course. The courses in general are twisty with limited room for open galloping. Despite very wet conditions at the AECs last year, the XC footing held up well and horses were not slipping if you put huge studs in. But when walking the course on foot there were many spots that were “slicker than owl shit” as they say here in the South. The footing in the SJ ring and warm ups held up extremely well despite copious amounts of rain.
I hope they pull it off.
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Is the writer related to Boyd? LOL just noticed the name.
It would be amazing if the park was successful.
They’ve already booked USPC for 2019. I stayed for the “Saturday Night Lights” both in 2016 and this year. Both times featured the senior Pony Club mounted games teams. I don’t know if all of their Saturday nights are like this, but both times, they really seemed to draw in a whole lot of locals to watch for free (and spend their money on food, etc). They had a lot of free variety entertainment, like a guy on stilts, a juggler, face painters, bubble blowers, etc. It was very carnival-like on the walkway out front. I think they really are trying to make it more accessible to the public while having a world-class facility. Whether it will succeed in the long run remains to be seen.
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Not very likely. The owner of the property is no longer dealing with MB.
I like the WEG concept as well. I have enjoyed watching the best of the best in the various disciplines and there is no way I could afford to go to seperate World Championship events held in different locales at different times.
We went to Normandy and yep it was a shamozzle, but it was FRANCE, the competition itself was terrific and we made it to the XC with time to spare, which was just dumb luck rather than planning. Went to Kentucky and it was a ticketing, accommodation and parking nightmare, but again the competition itself was wonderful.
I do, however, wish someone would figure out the logistics of holding such a huge event so that we don’t loose the concept.
Brainstorming here, but would breaking WEG up into 2 or 3 festivals, each containing 2 or 3 sports, maintain some of the draw for spectators while making it more reasonable for host facilities to pull it off?
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