So I have some informal personal research to share, and then very interested in hearing more from across eventing …
I’m not mentioning Area numbers so as not to out anyone by implication, as it isn’t hard to figure out what event is referred to … for many years I’ve paid some attention to the viability of being a LO/organizer as it is something I would LOVE to do. These are common situations that I’ve observed/learned about lost eventing venues from personal contact & research …
Between the coasts
Caveat: I am between the coasts and so my little write-up is about this regional bit of mid-America. Outside this region I don’t know. Areas II and III especially have some of the largest events and seem to have a different event management model from many events between the coasts. Don’t know as much about how it works on either coast and outside this region.
Some wonderful eventing venues between the coasts have been lost primarily due to
a) aging owners who sold out to retirement, and
b) lack of financial viability for younger owners to step into their place, or start their own event on their own land, even when there was/is an interest.
Unfortunately it hasn’t made financial sense for too many of the next generation of would-be LO/organizers. They need financing to make it work, and it’s hard to get bank financing with this plan. And, their time away from another job / career to make an eventing venue viable is a big consideration. Even with extra paying activities added such as schooling days, unrecognized horse trials, fun-jump days, other-discipline shows, and other horse & non-horse activities, it tends not to work out in the balance of time, work and finances.
I am aware of a couple of long-time eventing venues that sold to new owners who continued the events. But those were the exception rather than the rule. Far more venues have been lost altogether to eventing.
LO/organizers
In the areas I’m more familiar with, the landowners were/are also the organizers. The package makes for a virtual full-time job for much of the year. But for the younger landowners with full time jobs/careers to devote the time to accomplish this, the event needs to pay them enough to cut back on their other paid work. If that means a sacrifice of future career opportunities, of course that is a heavy consideration.
Paid organizers?
For the most part in the event venues I’m most familiar with, paid organizers haven’t worked out for the LO’s who tried them. Primarily because the horse trials didn’t pay the organizer enough, and the LO was left with a lot of upkeep between events. Both LO and organizer are dependent on each other, and while some individual events went off well with a paid organizer, over the long term for the most part it has not worked out for the events I’m more familiar with.
It seems that even the ‘larger’ events in the general areas I’m speaking of just don’t have enough entries to make paid organizers work. The entries are nothing like the Area II and III entry list. (My eyes popped the first time I took a good look at those Area II entry numbers! )
Time vs Career
One of the biggest LO/organizer jobs is the necessary ongoing course maintenance throughout much of the year. One LO/organizer who did the horse trials as an almost full-time job for many years told me “my only holidays are Christmas and Easter”.
Lack of ongoing course upkeep will deeply affect the quality of the event and the interest of the riders in going there. All year long, occasional heavy rain, erosion, and accumulating detritis from the flora and fauna will cause the course to deteriorate rapidly, if not kept up. The bigger the event, the more course and more work to keep it up.
(Many years ago, course deterioration from lack of consistent maintenance caused the demise of at least one small event that I knew.) (At one time one of my volunteer efforts was coming over out-of-season to just clean up some jumps and thereby cut down on the predations of nature between events.)
Other paying activities on the land
The several successful , long-running eventing venues that I’m familiar with in the mid-America area maintain the finances by running paying activities almost all year round. Schooling days, fun-jump and other activities, other-discipline shows, non-horsey activity, and sometimes unrecognized horse trials. The whole thing is a full time job, year round, for the LO/organizers.
So if someone is serious about another career, for reasons of either inclination or finances, it is hard to keep this going. Throw in a spouse and children and it becomes really complicated.
Of the venues I’m most familiar with, none are working farms providing a living to the LO aside from horse activities. So the LO is not a full-time farmer. Rather, the LO is making a living with activities at the farm, or else the LO has a career in another interest and the farm is where they live and enjoy life.
Equity vs Debt
This is a critical make-or-break point for numbers of would-be LO/organizers. Like any business that is based on a large asset, how much must be paid to the bank monthly for mortgage or other loan against the property/event can make all the difference to financial viability and cash flow.
LO’s who have little or no debt on the property will be in the best financial position to maintain an eventing venue. That will usually be older LO’s who have had years to pay down / pay off whatever was owed on the farm. Or LO’s who inherited the property (seems to be fewer all the time).
In one case, a younger, energetic organizer very much wanted to purchase the farm from a retiring LO/organizer and continue an outstanding event. But she needed financing and the bank didn’t consider the events to be a sufficient income stream, even though the event had been a going concern for years.
Younger LO’s being unable to get sufficient financing to acquire a large enough farm to run a horse trials may be a more widespread issue than we know. Personally I would love to do just this and would like to have started about 10 years ago. But it wasn’t & isn’t financially viable for me, and maybe not ever.
The USEA
Just from what I know from conversations with the organizers, these events seem to have gotten along well enough with the USEA. Nothing is ever all roses and sometimes there were pressures and tensions. But for the most part, both sides made efforts to cooperate for the greater good. The USEA was not the reason the several events that I know about came to an end.
New Events
The good news is that new events have cropped up in these areas. Of the ones I know more details about, the LO/organizers brought money to the table and have been able to do it with no or minimal debt payments. That absence of significant debt made it feasible, along with predictable income streams from whatever sources they come from.
The total number of eventing venues in any Area seems to rise and fall over time. If we lose some, it may take a decade to fully replace them, but often more do come forth.
I think that the business model for an eventing venue is very different than it was in the past. It is more of a real business now. Fewer LO’s seem to be able to do it just for the interest than may once have been the case. Starting new eventing venues seems to require not just a willing set of hands, but a financially-viable business plan, in this day & age.
