There are some of the fancy portable restrooms around the stadium and a bank of portapotties sort of by the dog park
2 Likes
There definitely need to be more food options. I changed bags and left my food at home because Iām an idiot and had a medication reaction out in Saw Mill. Some lovely volunteer and the medics offered some fruit when we were trying to find a shuttle (we ultimately flagged one down vs waiting 40 min in a super long line as the end of the 3*) but if there was something other then the coffee/waffle truckā¦ I will say, the main area wasnāt much better with only 3 real options for food. Hopefully next year there will be more food so we donāt have such long lines.
More shuttles too! The old hay wagon used to fit so many people and while that may no longer work, 4 person golf carts arenāt a solution. There are some gators with wagons but when theyāre also running other errandsā¦ again, stuff to improve. Itās a work in progress. I put 7 full days of volunteering in so I hesitate to criticize anything! But itās a new event and stuff can be better next year.
I did luck out with parking and got out in about 10 min. Someone let me out but being in a front row, we didnāt have an attendant so we were reliant on cars letting us out. The mud got bad and I felt my truck slipping around but 4 wheel saved me. Being soaked wasā¦less fun.
Weāll see what tomorrow brings. I have seats, but bad ones. Iām looking forward to just sitting after today. And not making any ill-advised purchase!!! I might also bring some lunch.
I was happy that the whole bag thing turned out to be a non-issueā¦ but they should remove all of that from the website if they arenāt planning to enforce it. Why make people scramble around to try to meet some requirements and have it all be for no reason? Especially when a lot of the issue is comfort and convenience for your customers. Make it too much of a pain and people wonāt want to come.
The course was great and I had a fun day, but I think they have a lot of organizational stuff that can improve for next year.
Porta-potties were plentiful and in good locations.
There definitely need to be more shuttles. I arrived before they had started running, so I walked all the way out to the end of the 3*, then worked my way back for lunchtime. After lunch my friend and I decided to ride the shuttle out to the water for the 5*, since I had already walked over 4 miles, and walk back along the course. We waited a very long time even though the line was fairly short. The shuttles were tiny golf carts or a single much smaller hay wagon that held maybe a dozen people. Either bring back the big hay wagon and have multiples, or get a few small buses or something. It might be nice to have a second one that drops off somewhere in the middle of the course, maybe down where the trail riding stables were or at the southern road gate so people can go over to the coffin area. I walked 7.6 miles today and feel fairly thrashed, and Iām relatively young and in a lot better shape than many.
Signage was poor when I arrived at 8, and I couldnāt even figure out how to get to XC because they were still doing things like laying the walkway across the turf course. When I was leaving, I saw a lot more signs had been set up. That stuff should be out by the time gates open, not hours later.
I also agree that there need to be more food and especially drink vendors along the course. I only saw 2 - the coffee and waffle bus out by the water, and a funnel cake truck that was close to the beginning of the course. There could easily have been more food trucks scattered around, and I think they would have done great business. Itās a long walk back to the vendor area from almost anywhere. I had an empty water bottle and never did find a place to fill it. I didnāt get anything to drink until after my first 4 miles of walking and was on the verge of dehydration thanks to the unusually warm weather. It seemed like there were way more tents selling alcohol than there were food or non-alcoholic drinks. I am not anti-alcohol but thatās not what I want to have when itās hot and Iām thirsty.
3 Likes
I gave my tickets away because I spent the day frantically trying to get my farm ready for the horses to come home.
But I wonder if the lack of food/drink vendors was because they were trying to get people to buy tickets to the beer and food festivals they were concurrently hosting? I think the beer festival was today and a separate ticket purchase? I didnāt love that idea: I get their point that they were trying to do something for the non-horse folks. But then they are kind of obligated to not compete with their own festival, which limits options for people there for the main event.
Itās like they donāt understand that there are two entirely different demographics here that arenāt going to overlap much. If I paid to watch XC, Iām not going to pay extra to spend half of the 5* drinking beer where I canāt even see the action. But I would like to be able to buy a bottle of Gatorade while out 2 miles away from everything. I might be happy to attend the beer fest if it wasnāt overlapping with XC time.
This feels almost like the people making decisions about rules and vendors have never been out on an XC course before and donāt understand what the spectators will want/need in order to be out there all day. Especially a course like this where the geography makes it difficult to return to the vendor area. The old course and Kentucky are more condensed/roll back on themselves more and you donāt end up so far away.
4 Likes
@furlong47 Well you are right in the sense that the many of the people making decisions havenāt been out on an XC course because they are totally new to the sport.
To be fair, no one had been out on THIS XC course all day yet, so hopefully next year they will have some better insight.
I know the idea with the beer fest was to hopefully give non-horsey spouses and friends something to do, bring in other outsiders to the sport from the local area, and maybe just create some new fans. All of that is good, but I think you have to do it with something other than the food and drink that everyone needs.
There are porta potties behind the GA grandstands, behind the green building. Near the Wellwood restaurant set up.
1 Like
And we need that and itās a great ideaā¦ but it can be done in a way that accommodates those people and also the folks out walking around on the course. They might know each other but they arenāt going to be the same people.
Itās not almost like people making decisions about rules and vendors have never been on XC before, it IS that people making decisions do not know nor seem to care about horse people. The Maryland Stadium Authority is in charge of the whole thing and they know nothing about horses and do not care to listen to those horse people in their employ. That said, it has been nowhere near the cluster you know what that I was expecting due to their ignorance and hope next year shows positive results from their major learning curve.
10 Likes
Hopefully the stadium seats/sections are numbered by today 
Anyone know how we can leave feedback for MSA? I want the event to succeed and become amazing, but right now Iām really not sure Iād go back, especially if my kids wanted to go.
But isnāt that the US business model?
1 Like
Well, we all know how the GA peasants have a tendency to get drunk and stagger dangerously on the x-country course.
1 Like
Happy to report that Tier 2 seats are labeled today!!
The walkway over the track is pulled up and put back down every morning. As of 9:45 they are still setting it up.
As others said here are my thoughts on the day (had a tailgaiting spot on the 3* way up at the top.
Good:
- Great maps to find where we needed to drive in (tailgating), zero problems finding the place
- The actual event and course was amazing!
- There were some great vendor options, hope there will be more later.
Not So good:
- not enough food drink on the course
- frankly there werenāt enough food at the vendor area either! More options please
- so many more shuttles needed. If you werenāt 100% mobile or slightly not in 100% shape it was going to kill you
- Leaving was a mess, even though we came in a back route that had us miss any traffic (for tailgating up on Sawmill) we had to leave with everyone else and it took us almost an hour to get off the property with not a cop in sight to direct traffic - not that we deserved no traffic, but it seems like more points of exit would have been better for everyone!
- Said you couldnāt bring your own tent for tailgating and wanted another $200 for them to put one up, for the safety of the horses that seemed sane so we bought one, except 3 other tailgating spots came and set up their own tents so that was $200 wasted
Did you send that feedback? I sent mine via their contact email on the site. Hope they read it 
1 Like
Adding one more kind of dumb piece of feedback. Please play more than 3 songs on rotation during show jumping for hours. It was really really annoying
6 Likes
UPDATE for everyone who attended: Please use this survey link to share your thoughts about the 5* experience overall:
https://us4.list-manage.com/survey?u=2fe08f04b40870ac936d1232e&id=acdaee89ea&attribution=false
4 Likes
First I know from a very reliable source, that more golf carts and port-o-johns were requested but those requests could not be fulfilled due to the supply chain issues weāre having. Additionally just like everywhere else, food vendors/caterers couldnāt find help so staffing was an issue. Also the number of attendees was greater than they had anticipated. I believe Fair Hill averaged 8,000-9,000 people and I think the # on XC day was 14,000 - nearly double! and close to that on Sunday.
I think overall the event was really good considering many of the issues they had with securing items.
I completely agree that more food / drink options need to be available and given the terrain of the course bringing back the hay-wagonā(s) / shuttle should be a priority - if nothing else for spectator safely. I was cooked when i got up to the crab area. Unless you were a Mars guest you were pretty much out of luck for food / drink.
the president is very experienced at putting on large sporting events, while he is new to equestrian sports, he is not new to major event planning. I would venture to say he has a list already of what needs improving many of which are probably the same things discussed on here.
Interesting about the no food/drink and back packs - I saw many people with their own beverages and saw plenty of people with backpacks. I didnāt see anyone checking bags as much as checking tickets and giving armbands.
4 Likes
NO NO Dogs in the Grand Stands watched a lady get kneecapped by 2 dogs on leases w/ 1 handler ā¦also if you buy numbered reserved seats make sure its not on steel bleachers with no backs no rows no numbers. Friday afternoon in Tier 2 was aweful crammed in people thinking they could find their reserved locationā¦NOTā¦while Tier 1 with nicer seats which was sold out had less than 15% of seats usedā¦.
1 Like
