Airshow pricing

Sorry, but I couldn’t be bothered to wade through all thet lot.so please forgive me if someone has got in before me with this info. Regarding the debate about whether our airshow prices are too high. The only decent airshow I’ve been to that cost less than £25 was Southend Sea Front and Sea Wings 2000 whic were both free. Margate is only about £7 but for decent photos you need a lens a mile long as the display line is too far away from the crowd.
The last price I heard for the British Grand Prix at Silverstone was £85 in advance or £96 on the day, not sure where that would get you but I do know that if you want to tour the pits it is another 10-15 quid. I’m a petrol head at heart but that’s too rich for me when you get a better view of the race on TV. The only thing you miss on TV is the Supporting event.

I too got caught up in the notorious Fairford jams, and resolved do something about it.

The answer was to throw the bike ( quick release wheels) in the back of the car, park in Lechlade and cycle the 5 miles in about 25 mins. Some shows will give you cheaper admission as you are then nominally a pedestrian, and no more hassle queueing to leave the car park.

Not a solution for every family scenario I realise, but I took my seven year old son on the trailer-bike and it all went fine.

I’ll be at RIAT this year, when you see what is coming then I for one think it is good value.

Richard

I’m considering it, but even so, it’s a lot of money for a family day out and a bit of a git to get to from here which might require a B & B stopover, doubling the cost. The last time I went to Fairford I had to set off at 6:00 and didn’t get home till 1:00 the next morning, the traffic was so bad that there was still a jam on the M25 at midnight, not much fun really, especially when I had to go to work the next day.
Incidentally, I notice a Raptor on the poster but not listed on the flying display, is there something we don’t know.

Personally I think that £40 plus the usual expenses (petrol, food, drink etc) is very reasonable when you compare it to what else you can do for the same money:

Football match – Very overpriced and only lasts 2 hours for the same money.
Theatre show – Again for an evening out you can pay alot more than £50 for something that lasts a couple hours.
Day trip to London – Train ticket, lunch, dinner, museum entrances getting on for alot more than £100

The list really is endless. I think that although it does seem like alot it is money well spent when you look at how much flying takes place each day, the evening concert and whatever else is on offer.

If you want to save money then why not try bringing your own food & drink??

I’ll be at RIAT this year, when you see what is coming then I for one think it is good value.

Richard

I was mad enough to purchase tickets for Saturday and the weather was quite decent. Yet by my estimate only about 2,500 people attended at most.

If the tickets were nearer £15.00 with no extra charges they probably would have done much better.

The Abingdon debacle (Spirit of Avarice) has been put out of its misery

CANCELLED early this morning, due to inclement weather, and not because it was a totally shambolic rip-off…

What a shame for all the ‘worker bees’ who will have put in a lot of time and effort to try and make this doomed project work. Lions led by donkeys etc.

What seems to be overlooked is that an entry price to an airshow means that you are booking the services of hundreds of specialist services for at least 3 hours.Because the costs are shared it becomes possible to witness avaition displays close up for far less than booking one display item on its own. The public sadly have little idea just how much it costs to rent the equipment and services for just one day. For example a PA system, or enough portaloos or setting out crowdline fencing or emergency cover and I have not even mentioned the cost of the flying displays.

A lot of aviation activity is taken for granted and perhaps its time to explain more in the programmes.

Hi
Tom , I have been to EVERY IAT / RIAT since the Greenham Common days but me ( and a LOT ) of people ceased going since 2002 when the prices got VERY HIGH and there was NO airfield (even for the disabled ??) car park.
You would think for the stupid price they charge as least you would NOT have to walk (carrying all your gear) to the airfield:eek: :eek
At least when you go to an RAF :ie Waddo and the likes you pay a reasonable price and are not treated like cattle.

Unfortunatley Airshow organisers have to pay a lot out on things such as insurance and security etc these days,This all stems from September 11th attacks in 2001.
Having said that Biggin Hill next weekend is £20 for the day thats for a show around six hours of entertainment, Compare that to a football match or concert and you would see that the cost is value for money.

Just to take everyone back to where we started. have a look at www.air-meeting-evreux-2007.com/en profits from the air show go to the French Air Force Social Charities . So they do make money on the day.

Almost certainly because it’s a forces show for charidee, so a lot of services donated for free.

You too, can run a show for charitee, and get stuff free, or cheap, as a result. Better still, be part of the nations’s operations. Still a trick to pull off though. If it’s not primarily a charity fundraiser, all costs are going to be greater.

A stat not mentioned before is that England (notably NOT Britain) has the greatest number of airshows per-annum within an equivalent geographical area. I’d imagine than only the USA might have more shows, but spread over a much greater area. A shows per-capita and defence (defense) absolute spend would be interesting. Also notable that while individual units of the British forces make a significant contribution (at low cost) the proportion of defence shows to private / corporate events is much smaller than the US, or as a percentage to most other ‘western’ nations, I’d guess.

In the 80s – early 90s heyday, the UK claimed 250 plus aviation events a year. While that’s presumably shrunk, the UK’s shows, whether jet, classic or warbird, remain (IMHO) the envy of the world in quality and variety.

As to cost, I’ve yet to see a show that was as gougingly rapacious as the ‘You can’t afford to talk to me’ cash-rape-fest of Lord March’s Goodwood. Great car show, but an escalating entry tariff from Friday to Sunday says the guy thinks we are ‘suckers’ very clearly. Liked the show, didn’t like coughing up to the landed gentry.

(Edited to add I’m sure Lord March is a lovely man, kind to children and animals, loves cars and Ray Hanna’s aerobatics, gives lots to charity and has no resemblance whatsoever to the late (un)lamented lords-asparent Alan Clark who also liked old cars.)

Back to the beginning.

Just to take everyone back to where we started. have a look at www.air-meeting-evreux-2007.com/en profits from the air show go to the French Air Force Social Charities . So they do make money on the day.

Hi
Tom , I have been to EVERY IAT / RIAT since the Greenham Common days but me ( and a LOT ) of people ceased going since 2002 when the prices got VERY HIGH and there was NO airfield (even for the disabled ??) car park.
You would think for the stupid price they charge as least you would NOT have to walk (carrying all your gear) to the airfield:eek: :eek
At least when you go to an RAF :ie Waddo and the likes you pay a reasonable price and are not treated like cattle.

It’s my understanding that a fair proportion of the profit made by RIAT goes to RAF and other service charities. £40 is a significant amount of money (though I believe a ticket to this year’s RIAT will still cost you less) but it compares very favourably to a Premiership football match when you consider you are getting a whole day’s top-class entertainment – and if you doubt this, I can only imagine you’ve never been!

Tom

as for some other attractions if i spent £25 to get my son in say RIAT just for a small plot of grass to sit at . for the same money i could take him to Alton towers and every ride once in the park is free. i do not get this after i have paid the same money for something like Riat i then have to spend the same amount again for every other attraction fair rides etc .
.

To be fair , how many days of the year is Alton Towers open ,compared to the two days of RIAT?
How many hours of ‘free entertainment’ do you get for your money at RIAT ? Probably more than you have time to spend watching. How much of your time, at Alton Towers would you spen, in queues, waiting to get on rides ?

How many airshow organisers actually make a profit ? Nearly all of the admission costs are swallowed up by the bureauracy that it takes ,nowadays, to put them on, policing costs, insurance,venue hire,facilites hire etc and then you have to pay for the acts, the vast majority of whom are probably just about covering their running costs anyway.
Plus why go to an airshow to ride on a funfair? Just wait for one to come to your town…
Remember the old adage, how do you make a small fortune in aviation ?
Start with a big one !
Alan

I’ll throw two bits in here

Each year we host an event called Airfest. It’s meant to be accessible to all the community and NOT a money maker for the museum…the goal is to break even.

We only charge $2.00 Canadian for everyone 6 years and over, the event also includes admission to our museum.

while the event is well attended every year, and this years event on the June 24th is expected to once again have a large attendance, the difficulty is with Corporate advertisers.

Even our small event is expensive to put on, admissions even at $10 or $15 would not cover expenses so we need to have corporate support to have the event.

We go out of our way to insure Corporate sponsors get good value for their advertising dollar with high levels of media coverage and on site exposure, yet it is tougher every year to get them involved.

I would bet the large events are having the same problems…the corporations are chosing to spend the money elsewhere, resulting in many shows over here being cancelled.

It really surprises me, in our case we track attendance, exposure, advertising hits etc. and compare it to other events in our region. Airfest is consistantly the better value across the board and is less expensive for a sponsor to participate in than most of the other festivals and events. I don’t get it!

None the less the event will run this year and we are confident it will once again be successful…..but next year?????

Tom H

Another way to look at things with regard to value for money is this. Having spent £30 in petrol to get to the show the £30 to get in and the £20 plus on food, drink and programme did you enjoy yourself?

If yes then it was money well spent, if no then you know to vote with your feet next time! :dev2:

Probably lager – which was made by passing bitter through a yorkshireman!

Steve.

As Pete says there are free airshows like Southend around, and there are a lot of other good value events around too. Personly I don’t like the big shows like RIAT and Flying legends, so this year I will go to Shuttleworth, the DH Moth Club Charity flying day and perhaps another small show.

At the end of the day ‘you pay your money and take your choice.’ Mine is not to spend £40 getting into a single show only to be charged another £80 for a burger & £160 for a pint;)

Steve.

Yes, and usually a pint of what?

What’s worth remembering here is that airshows don’t take place in an isolated, cocooned world of their own. Their organisation is totally contingent on the nature of the world generally. And of course in the everyday world prices for everything are rising and rising (just look at house prices). So it follows that the cost of running shows, and therefore the cost of gaining entry to them, tends to increase year-on-year. It’s simple economic reality.

Airshow pricing is bound up inextricably with “value for money”. Whether a person regards an airshow as expensive really depends I think on whether you think what you’re going to get in return represents reasonable value for the money you’ve paid.

As Pete says there are free airshows like Southend around, and there are a lot of other good value events around too. Personly I don’t like the big shows like RIAT and Flying legends, so this year I will go to Shuttleworth, the DH Moth Club Charity flying day and perhaps another small show.

At the end of the day ‘you pay your money and take your choice.’ Mine is not to spend £40 getting into a single show only to be charged another £80 for a burger & £160 for a pint;)

Steve.

Well, one of the best airshows this weekend is at Southend, and thats free, obviously paid for by the local authority and they aren’t going to throw their money away are they.
Unfortunately, looking at the local weather forecast, it looks as if it could be a washout on both days, really sad for all concerned, bloody typical wet working mans weekend.