Ian G wrote:Actuall vampire, you have a very good idea. I work in a theatre aside from my main job, we were looking at ticketing systems the other day and there were some where you printed off a ticket with a unique barcode type thing on it. Once it's been scanned, that's it - for instance, if someone photocopied the ticket and tried to cheat getting in, it would recognise that the barcode has already been scanned. Maybe there are other avenues to explore here.
RIAT was selling e-tickets this year. I bought mine on Thursday night , printed it off (several copies actually). At the gate, a nice lady read the bar code with a reader attached to a PC and that was that. Is that the sort of thing you meant?
Had it not been for the e-ticket scheme, I would probably have given it a miss this year. I did, however disagree with paying the same £4 "admin" fee on the e-ticket which was the same fee I would have paid if the tickets had been posted to me.
Ah, yes! Apologies, didn't realise they had it in operation already
speedbird2639 wrote:I was only relating my observations from attending 3 fairly major shows this year - as soon as the Reds, Vulcan and BBMF had done there slot no matter what else was scheduled for the remainder of the show 50% of the people had gathered up all their stuff and were rushing to the exit. Doesnt bother me - I stopped til the end and was able to drive straight out of the shows (well apart from Waddo!) and on my way home with no delay - personally if I was doing the running order for a show I wld always finish on a big note like the Reds or the Vulcan - but it suits me when they dont coz I get home two hours earlier less tired and in better humour!
Re Mildenhall -I've never attended but 500k does sound a bit exaggerated - I'm sure RIAT was only ever 250k when it was at its very peak - and now its down to 138k - so repositioning itself as a famil day out seems to be working well - NOT!
Crowds currently react to the Vulcan 'cos its there. As Caper says, no Vulcan, Reds or BBMF don't equal end of shows and/or poor crowds. Since the days of Hendon in the '20s the British GP have been enthralled and captivated with flying displays, and also of course have been obliged to pay for them. Mildenhalll crowd figures were always huge, I'm sure a figure of 300,000 was reached, which easily eclipsed IAT/RIAT figures.
You say the 3 staples of an airshow for the GP are the Reds, BBMF and Vulcan. I'd say actually what they want are a nice bright coloured team with pretty smoke, some nice old 'planes to remind them of their grandparents and what made this country great and a noisy fast jet of any make or shape....
speedbird2639 wrote:I was only relating my observations from attending 3 fairly major shows this year - as soon as the Reds, Vulcan and BBMF had done there slot no matter what else was scheduled for the remainder of the show 50% of the people had gathered up all their stuff and were rushing to the exit. Doesnt bother me - I stopped til the end and was able to drive straight out of the shows (well apart from Waddo!) and on my way home with no delay - personally if I was doing the running order for a show I wld always finish on a big note like the Reds or the Vulcan - but it suits me when they dont coz I get home two hours earlier less tired and in better humour!
Re Mildenhall -I've never attended but 500k does sound a bit exaggerated - I'm sure RIAT was only ever 250k when it was at its very peak - and now its down to 138k - so repositioning itself as a famil day out seems to be working well - NOT!
Crowds currently react to the Vulcan 'cos its there. As Caper says, no Vulcan, Reds or BBMF don't equal end of shows and/or poor crowds. Since the days of Hendon in the '20s the British GP have been enthralled and captivated with flying displays, and also of course have been obliged to pay for them. Mildenhalll crowd figures were always huge, I'm sure a figure of 300,000 was reached, which easily eclipsed IAT/RIAT figures.
You say the 3 staples of an airshow for the GP are the Reds, BBMF and Vulcan. I'd say actually what they want are a nice bright coloured team with pretty smoke, some nice old 'planes to remind them of their grandparents and what made this country great and a noisy fast jet of any make or shape....
First before i start, RIAT have a feedback mechanism, so like me use it and they may get the message http://www.aeroresource.co.uk/survey.php
So RIAT 2011 for me was lacking a certain something, im still trying to work out what it was apart from the lack of Aircraft, yes the show was understandably rather depleted when it came to static aircraft due to the fact that too many nations have military assets tied up in multiple conflicts, but there are other nations that are not involved so try and get some of their exotic aircraft to attend. For me, this years show was out done by the RNAS Yeovilton Airday! The static display was too fragmented for me, take the C130's as an example, they were positioned in 3 places but only has 7 aircraft, the static should be more organised into the shows themes. There may be a point about having a GA sales area, fine if it needs to be there create a corner for it but not in the prime static display area. The flying display, from my point of view there were too many team displays that did roughly the same routines and not enough Individual displays, and also with the individual aircraft displays there were 4 F-16 displays, why not a couple of F-16 an F-18 and something else. A-10 was great as were the helicopter displays and also the Tornado Role demo, however the Role demo really lacked pyros, there were really tight with them in my opinion. RAF participation was considering everything thats happening in the World quite good, however I really think that its time for us to get behind our industry and have a role demo at least from the RAF's Merlin's. Food was yet again overpriced, but sadly thats the same at every show. Fairground attractions need to be positioned so they dont impact on the Aircraft, like RAF Cosford when they parked the JP's by a bouncy castle, RIAT did the same with the IL-76 which had a massive bouncy slide behind it! I found that Security was not as much hassle this year as last year and they the security teams seemed to apply some common sense with the queues and the weather. FRIAT, well the Grandstand was loads better this year than last, I didnt hit anybody at all with my camera lens! But I think knowing what our weather is like a larger 'Tent' is required for those wet moments during the show which we always seem to suffer! I look forward to my feedback!
pbeardmore wrote:Sorry, can we just clarify something here?
Are some people who did not actually go in offering critiques of the show?
Yes it does seem that he Freeloader element that are slated at other shows are quite vocal about RIAT, and nobody seems to care as they pay the farmer to use his field.
You wouldn't have been saying that if the sun hadn't been out Dan, you just got unlucky with that (yes, unlucky that it stopped raining and the sun came out )! But, I still wouldn't advise watching the whole show from there, it's alright if you're complementing your shots from a day inside, but you'll certainly be missing some good stuff if you spend the whole weekend at the farm as you can get some decent shots from the crowdline that can't be had outside.
StevenH wrote:You wouldn't have been saying that if the sun hadn't been out Dan, you just got unlucky with that (yes, unlucky that it stopped raining and the sun came out )! But, I still wouldn't advise watching the whole show from there, it's alright if you're complementing your shots from a day inside, but you'll certainly be missing some good stuff if you spend the whole weekend at the farm as you can get some decent shots from the crowdline that can't be had outside.
That's up to the people though and whether they feel comfortable forking out £40 in advance...
I don't understand why RIAT has to be clogged with so much non-aviation related crap. The music stage, Ford Focus stunt driving (bit like our estate at 2am), fairground rides, stalls selling crap etc etc. Has it occurred to RIAT that they might attract more visitors by making the event the premier UK airshow of the year and concentrating all their finances on aviation content? (rather than just saying it's the worlds greatest airshow and hyping it up with misleading articles).
For every person they think they'd attracted by inviting Ms Burke, how many have stayed away because of the disappointing line-up? An airshow can still be a family day out without all the peripheral nonsense (e.g. Yeovilton), that just detracts from the experience for a large proportion of the visitors. Why not replace the market stalls with a larger selection of food suppliers? The way it looked to me was that money came first and it cheapened the look of the showground. And as for bouncy castle and fairground rides, if your kids aren't going to be interested in the planes, then why take 'em? RIAT didn't get an entrance fee from anyone under 16 anyway.
I'd quite happily hand over my £40 for next year right now if I could be confident of seeing a decent show but after the numerous cancellations and lacklustre line-up this year, I'll be hanging on until the last minute to make a decision. I understand the reasons given, but that doesn't explain why other smaller airshows have managed to attract visitors that RIAT should have. Perhaps the tacky format it's descending into is seen as demeaning for an air tattoo and certain participants don't want to attend any more?
I appreciate it's hard work to put an event like this together but perhaps a whole different approach might produce something that really attracts the visitors and gives them a day to remember. And if numbers were really down this year, you can't necessarily blame a recession for it. People will find the money for something they enjoy, I guess a lot of people didn't think it was worth it this year.
I think that the general tone and balance of views in this thread could have been predicted from the postings on pre-show threads on this forum. What is more I have the distinct impression that many of the negative comments have been aired in prior years, which is worrying in that either the RIAT management are either not aware of such comments or chose to ignore them.
Ill preface my comments, to try and provide some background to my post with the following, so please read my comments of RIAT in general and this year in particular in context of the next paragraph.
RIAT is still the premier airshow in the UK, if Waddington or Yeovilton (and I know VL has got UKAR drooling) had got just a fraction of the line up for RIAT then people would have been creaming themselves. This just goes to show how high RIAT has set the level of expectation over the years. Just taking some of the statics as an example, you have a static E6 (only UK appearance), B52 (when Wadd gets one people are over the moon, when RIAT gets one people complain there aren't two or that its not a flyer), P3, CASA AWACS Thing, A330 Voyager (first appearance). Put any of these at any other show and they blow peoples socks off, at RIAT they are the norm. And that's the problem, expectations, hype, publicity, previous shows - call it what you will but we expect more at RIAT because historically it has delivered more. It still delivers more than any other UK airshow, but it does not deliver what it used to do, or what it says it still does ('Worlds largest military airshow', though this is sometimes subtly changed to 'UKs largest military airshow'). Finally, I am not knocking any of the volunteers who all do a great job. But........
…..I believe that RIAT has been approaching a crossroads for a number of years (in my book since the loss of Paul Bowen), and its now getting time to decide which direction the show goes.
Airshows have always been a family day out, but they have been designed to show the family audience a variety of aircraft both flying and static. Yes there will also be food/drink stalls, and yes there will be trade stalls of many varieties, this is the same at many 'day-out' events up and down the country (how many times do we see an AA/RAC stall at an event and wonder who on earth signs up to them at that particular day-out). But RIAT has been an airshow first and foremost, yet Im not sure that you can say that now, these days we have Tri@ RIAT, robot wars, car shows, concerts, and other manner of entertainment laid on by the show (presumably at some cost) to keep the family entertained. Well in years gone by the aircraft used to keep everybody entertained so why the change to these ground attractions recently. I don't remember attendances suffering when the show was primarily an airshow, in fact to my untrained eye, attendances are well down on those of a few years ago, so has the switch to a 'family day out' worked, I don't think so. In my view the show needs to go back to its roots.
So what does going back to its roots entail. All of the following, more military aircraft, less teams, less civilian acts, genuine star items, rare aircraft, one-off special paint schemes, fewer themes, ditch the concerts/stunt shows/tri@riat etc (these drain resources from the main event - the aircraft), be bold in the flying programme, bring back the theatre of the air concept. In short get RIAT back to being an airshow, and back to being the best airshow in the world.
Attendances have been declining, why? I would think that the decision to abandon on the day sales has something to do with it. Now the family has to decide in advance whether to attend, then they take a gamble on which day will be best. In the 'good old days' JP could have looked at the weather forecast the night before, looks good, then lets go to RIAT, now that option has gone, this must surely hit attendances. I know that if, as a semi casual member of JP who went to one or maybe two airshows a year, I had prebooked for say a Saturday and that day was poor weather-wise compared to the Sunday then I would think more than twice about going to that event the year after and getting caught again. But if I was still wanting to have an annual airshow visit then I would go to another show where you can turn up on the day if the weather was good. And as a semi-casual punter if that show delivered the Reds/Noise/a Spitfire/a few stalls then Id go home happy and more likely to return (even before you get onto cost/VFM). Result is that RIAT loses a family to another airshow.
Now onto comments on this year in particular.
The good Tigers in the loop, brilliant giving thought to the photographers 10/10. FRIAT photo-op on Thursday, good effort at trying to give the FRIAT-ers something extra. Cones - like em, better than barriers, so much easier to photoshop out if you're that desperate. Sensible decision to delay whole of flying programme on Sunday. FRIAT giving out just the flying display timetable on Saturday. P&V West, a gamble, but when it pays off its the best. Traffic management, seems now to be well and truly sorted (that will bite me on the ar$e next year Im sure), or is this down to lower attendance?
The bad So many vehicles up and down through the crowd, why? Doesn’t happen at other shows. Wasted themes, Star 11 anyone? Was the flying programme really arranged to suit Ms Burke, it looked like it, shameful if it was. Same order of flying programme each day, lazy. Couldn’t rejig some of the juicier items on Saturday. Yet in the afternoon the Tornado & Rafale were well away from their programmed slots (maybe others as well). Where there's a will there's a way. Grand finale the Breitlings - as the worlds largest military airshow, are you serious. Commentators (or journalists as they have described themselves on here!) announcing that the cancelled item will be great tomorrow/was great yesterday, unnecessary. Most people do only go for one day, don’t rub it in. Music/sideshow volume, enough said. Security, I was asked if I was carrying tweezers FFS show some balance. Live aircraft on southside at each end, an attempt to beef up the painfully thin static. If you're going to do this why not have a walkway which is open before/after flying that gives people the opportunity to get a closer look, simply close it off during the display. Didn’t affect me but the free 2012 ticket offer after the most loyal have already bought their tickets, hows that going to hit advanced sales for 2012. Think it through RIAT.
Improvements Knock Wednesday on the head, have arrivals condensed into a relatively busy Thursday, practices on Friday. FRIAT - shave a tenner of the price and do away with the programme & free gift (after all you can only wear one baseball hat at once). If we have to live with a smaller static park then separate the majority of it from the stalls/fair/food outlets. Offer aviation traders a reduced fee and put them in an aviation village. If there aren't enough quality items to fill an 8 hour display then cut it down, the Tutor types (good in their own way) just aren't suited to RIAT/Fairford. Try to get multiple aircraft of the same type again (were there really no European C130s that could have made the trip).
And finally, but maybe most importantly, be honest with us enthusiasts, we support you, tell us why there aren't the aircraft (is it they weren't invited, were invited and didn’t come, or whatever), etc, answer the questions and complaints. The wall of silence on the forums is deafening. Im really surprised that someone very senior in RIAT hasn't been on the net to clarify some of the issues, this would go a long way to appeasing the enthusiast community. If RIAT don't get a net presence quickly then the criticisms (which are genuinely felt but which could be due to being uninformed of the real facts) will continue, and these are bad publicity whichever way you look at it.
So, come on RIAT, you’ve done it before, you can do again, but change before its too late, the clock is ticking.
Excellent post, zigzag. Agree 100% with just about everything you've written there.
I think "wall of silence" is a tad harsh though, we do have several RIAT people posting on UKAR including the head of Aircraft Ops... viewtopic.php?f=19&t=34300
We'll be delving into these issues on UKAR in the near future btw - everything that is being posted at the moment is being noted for reference, so keep it coming.
zigzag wrote: RIAT is still the premier airshow in the UK, if Waddington or Yeovilton (and I know VL has got UKAR drooling) had got just a fraction of the line up for RIAT then people would have been creaming themselves. This just goes to show how high RIAT has set the level of expectation over the years. .
Very good posting zigzag. Probably the most balanced and factual so far. I would still argue though, that Yeovilton had a better flying display outright then RIAT.
HMS Seahawk wrote:I think everyone who has raised comments good or bad on this forum should e mail their thoughts to RIAT at DBH in the next week or so whilst it is still fresh in your minds. Alternatively if you have the comments card that came with the programme fill it in and send it off.
I filled my FRIAT comments card in on Monday.
The more people that raise issues will hopefully push it further up the agenda when the various committees meet up "post show" to discuss how things went (assuming that something like this takes place).
Does anyone know if anyone "high up" from RIAT actually reads any of these type of forums and takes on board what is said (good or bad)?
It would be even better if someone from RIAT would spare some time to answer some of the main points raised here.
The gauntlet has been thrown down - come on RIAT put someone forward to answer questions and comments raised here.
As the subject has come up again I reiterate my thoughts from Tuesday evening!
It seems to me that the main questions that require answers from RIAT (from those who were there on the Saturday) is:
Why wasn't the display delayed, as it was on Sunday ? Why were so many of the juicy items (Turk F16, C27, ITAF Tornado, Saudi Hawks) planned into the first two hours of flying on Saturday, when the weather forecast always suggested this would be the part of the display to suffer? Why couldn't some of those items be rejigged into the afternoon instead of the aircraft that can be seen at any Airshow in the UK this Summer?
There may be perfectly reasonable answers to these questions, but if advance ticket sales are not to suffer in 2012, as people leave it late for a weather forecast, then it would be nice to know.
Nicely encapsulated there Mr zag. You are of course correct - most of what many have been saying on here and elsewhere recently (I really don't mind being known as a protagonist concerning this) has been said many times before but has been written off for "moaning", "not accepting the modern state of affairs or world events", "not accepting that RIAT has to change/diversify" etc etc etc... None of you realise how refreshing it is to me to see so many now, finally expresing themselves so forthrightly.
zigzag wrote: And finally, but maybe most importantly, be honest with us enthusiasts, we support you, tell us why there aren't the aircraft (is it they weren't invited, were invited and didn’t come, or whatever), etc, answer the questions and complaints. The wall of silence on the forums is deafening. Im really surprised that someone very senior in RIAT hasn't been on the net to clarify some of the issues, this would go a long way to appeasing the enthusiast community. If RIAT don't get a net presence quickly then the criticisms (which are genuinely felt but which could be due to being uninformed of the real facts) will continue, and these are bad publicity whichever way you look at it.
So, come on RIAT, you’ve done it before, you can do again, but change before its too late, the clock is ticking.
Totally. Many questions have been asked re a/c participation and all we hear is the same old spiel. I think the Spanish F.1 debacle highlighted it for me and many others - there was something just not quite right about that from the start. Some have also said that the appearance of the BAe Typhoon came about as a direct result of what many have so frequently said on here and elsewhere. It may not seem it should be so or may be bitter to taste but you owe it to us RIAT.
The clock is indeed ticking - I'm sure I said something similar back in 2007/8 time...
I dont think you would have had half the gripes on these threads had there been two full flying programmes in good flying weather.....like I always said,Its sometimes worth half the airshow! and whats more,you can sit on the grass without any risk of a soggy backend .... I personally do not think an RIAT more or less aimed at just the the enthusiast's would get enough people through the gates to survive another year after that,the average jo public wouldnt be able to take 8 hrs of flying without breaking the day up with other entertainment etc....the old BoB shows at about 4 or 5 hrs they could just about do maybe,but 8 hours,no way I seem to remember seeing stuff like demonstrating the 'puncture proof' Denovo tyre for instance mid 70s (mind you I believe they had a bit of a lunchtime back then didn't they?) the fairs and craft tents & loads of stalls etc...fantastic days were had,but Mr Weather was always the master! I always bought and studied the flying programme pronto,not only to sort out my times for a walkabout etc,but to see what was flying!....no internet to sort things out beforehand then you see
Zigzag - an excellent, well thought out summary that fully covers everything and more that I was going to say. You just said it better!! Genuine thanks
I would add that entering and leaving the green car park was easier by far than any other RIAT. Was that becuase of a reduced attendance? Have any official figures been released? Those turnstiles presumably served some purpose? The security check was quick and painless too when I got to the entrance at about 7.50.
Just out of interest, how does RIAT compare with the Zeltweg experience? How big is their static? Do they have funfairs & trade stalls? Looking at the pictures, it looked stacked out with public, surely making photos of the static difficult. I heard that the event is bank rolled by Red Bull & doesn't give any money to charity.... is the food, etc expensive there too? Or is the Zeltweg model what RIAT should be getting back to?
)! But, I still wouldn't advise watching the whole show from there, it's alright if you're complementing your shots from a day inside, but you'll certainly be missing some good stuff if you spend the whole weekend at the farm as you can get some decent shots from the crowdline that can't be had outside.
