RIAT 2019

[Brevet Cable]

Or if DBH do away with the 'loyalty discount scheme' ( or whatever they call it )

[Airshowhammer]

‘Just don’t go’. Its our hobby its not as simple as that, 99% if able to afford it will go. I will go depature days for sure if they decide to put a shuttle bus on!

[MiG_Eater]

What i'm saying is that if people are willing to pay it - a price increase is justified. If it leaves a bad taste in the mouths of some people, they will not go and ticket sales will take a hit. I don't believe this pricing decision will affect many decisions.

As for Mach 3 costing £350.00 - i'd pay it in a heartbeat!

[Brevet Cable]

If I do go next year, I'll be back to freeloading in the campsite for the Friday.
No doubt many others who went in on the Friday this year will also revert to freeloading.

Not that DBH will care, as long as they sell enough tickets.

[MiG_Eater]

That's exactly the point.

Everybody is happy: you get to see the shortened flying display from the campsite, DBH get enough money to keep the Friday viable and people like me who want to go in pay to do so. Why the uproar?

I might hope that Friday is less crowded than usual meaning the ground displays are more accessible - but genuinely, I think it still represents excellent value for money and I doubt the price-hike will damage sales much, if at all.

[Brevet Cable]

Because they keep claiming they are a charity.
Charities are supposed to be all about maximising fundraising potential.
There comes a point where the 'cost of tickets/number of tickets sold' equation reaches a stage where they're making less money off more expensive tickets ( and that's not including sales of merchandise )

[The Baron]

I'm seriously considering giving Friday a miss next year based on the ticket price, and if I do I know another three people won't go either. Not that RIAT will notice but I really dislike the feeling of being exploited by them without so much as an explanation.

[MiG_Eater]

If the price increase leads to less money, i'm certain they'll reduce it. I just can't see that it will.

I get that it is a sudden price increase - but I feel the previous Friday displays to have been way under-priced. We shall see, of course - if significantly fewer people turn up then clearly they've made a mistake.

[cg_341]

Not sure how you can say they're under-priced considering how much less you actually get?

[jasonT1981]

Any price rise will always be greeted with complaints, sometimes justified. But you have to balance if the cost justifies the event.

You would pay more for a football match and 90 minutes 'entertainment' where as RIAT has more than double that on Friday and 7+ hours on Sat & Sun. Concert tickets can go upwards of £100 for a few hours. F1 can go for big money for just under 2 hours.

Though the no shuttle bus to departures stopped me going with FRIAT this year.

[Brevet Cable]

F1 can go for big money for just under 2 hours.

The Grand Prix weekends aren't just for F1 cars.
Even on the Sunday there are still the support races as well.
Don't know if it's changed, but it used to be that the actual Sunday saw something like 8 hours of various races with the F1 race being the last one -- Long time ago, but unless I'm mistaken the first support race used to start somewhere around 07:00hrs & the F1 GP was scheduled to finish at 17:00hrs ( if it went the full 2 hours )
And one thing that probably hasn't changed is that the support races were usually a lot more exciting & entertaining than the actual F1 race.

[vulcanshammer]

F1 can go for big money for just under 2 hours.

The Grand Prix weekends aren't just for F1 cars.
Even on the Sunday there are still the support races as well.
Don't know if it's changed, but it used to be that the actual Sunday saw something like 8 hours of various races with the F1 race being the last one -- Long time ago, but unless I'm mistaken the first support race used to start somewhere around 07:00hrs & the F1 GP was scheduled to finish at 17:00hrs ( if it went the full 2 hours )
And one thing that probably hasn't changed is that the support races were usually a lot more exciting & entertaining than the actual F1 race.

F1 races have been poorly supported by other race series for many years now sadly. I went to the British GP in 2006 and the only other race that day was a GP2 race. This year they had one F2 Sprint race and one GP3 race. This was the same at this weekends Russian GP. You definitely do not get 8 hours of track action. More like 3 - 3.5 hrs.

[MiG_Eater]

Not sure how you can say they're under-priced considering how much less you actually get?

Well I generally think almost all airshows are under-priced. I also think its fair to say that Friday is not necessarily any worse than a weekend day. There are advantages to it over a Saturday or Sunday - particularly the opportunity to see arrivals a flying display *and* a static display on the same day.

[Chopper81]

Bear in mind, Sanicole 2017 cost me 45 EUROS for the Friday sunset show, Saturday on base at KB and Sundays full show that in my mind almost matched RIATs for a line up!
2019 I will be returning to Sanicole and it will cost a lot less than my visit to RIAT thats just up the road!!!

[cg_341]

see arrivals a flying display *and* a static display on the same day.

But I did all that on Saturday this year. There were a number of arrivals (GA, biz, etc.) before the flying. I then watched some of the flying, then walked around the static, before ending up watching more flying - leaving just after the B-2 flypast.

Oh, and don't forget you lose out on a third of the static as it's shut. Why "green" has to be shut in its entirety on the Friday is beyond me. Open it all and just have the barrier up to where aircraft need to be parked, and that would go a long way to offsetting the price increase.

[Ouragan]

Well, I must say that the plan I was formulating for RIAT has been totally scuppered. After enjoying the three arrivals days at this year's event I was going to do the arrivals days and take Mrs. Ouragan into the show on Friday, but RIAT's, dare I say it, avaricious decision to charge full rate for half a show (great marketing there, guys: "buy two -get one!") has caused a certain amount of rethinking.

And could we please have less of the annual and frankly tedious comparisons with football matches, concerts etc? I never believed it the first time I heard it all those years ago. I am an aviation enthusiast; I do not go to Premier League football matches, rock concerts, the British Grand Prix, Wimbledon etc etc. I go to airshows, and as such RIAT competes with Yeovilton, Duxford, Shuttleworth and so on. I believe also that fans of Formula One will choose the Grand Prix over Fairford every time, fans of Premier League football clubs will choose their interest first, and so on. Unless of course they are rich enough to do them all, in which case they won't give a rat's behind about the prices.

[MiG_Eater]

Fair enough Ouragon - but surely a Friday at RIAT beats a full day at any other UK show?

Back in the olden days Farnborough, Mildenhall and Waddington could at least slightly give (R)IAT a run for their money... but nowadays there is no contest; not even close.

[Brevet Cable]

but surely a Friday at RIAT beats a full day at any other UK show?

Not a hope in Hell.

Particularly if that "any other UK show" is Yeovilton or Duxford.

[LN Strike Eagle]

Or Old Warden.

[MiG_Eater]

but surely a Friday at RIAT beats a full day at any other UK show?

Not a hope in Hell.

Particularly if that "any other UK show" is Yeovilton or Duxford.

It just goes to show - different strokes!

Don't get me wrong, I love Yeovilton and at least concede that Duxford sometimes gets excellent participation (although I have very little time for the venue itself) - but RIAT is, for me, just perfect in every way. Apart from getting participation back to how it was in the '90s and having the showground stay open a couple more hours, I literally wouldn't change a thing. I'd also gladly pay double the ticket price for FRIAT!

Variety is the spice of life and all that though, so I won't be foolish enough to try and persuade you round. I am surprised though!

P.S. When was the last time Old Warden had an Su-27 in the flying display!?

[cg_341]

and having the showground stay open a couple more hours

Christ, there's some irony there.

[MiG_Eater]

Genuinely lost on me...?

[cg_341]

You want the showground to be open for a few more hours and would be happy to pay more for it, in a thread where people are currently complaining that they're paying more now and getting less (a third of the showground closed and a shorter flying display) on one of the days.

If that's not clear irony, I don't know what is.

[MiG_Eater]

What i'm saying is that I feel that RIAT, in terms of pure entertainment value, is under-priced (for me). My only wish for the showground to stay open longer is that it used to be quite pleasant slowly meandering around the static whilst the sun went down. I don't feel hard done by the way it is, and, although i'd rather have a full flying display on the Friday - my point is that even with the reduced flying, I feel that the price is fair - it's certainly worth it for me.

I just cannot understand why people take issue with the price of events, of any kind - if it's not worth it, just don't go!

[Brevet Cable]

Apart from this year, unless I'm mistaken there's been nothing scheduled for the Fridays which wasn't also displaying on the weekends.
Again unless I'm mistaken, weren't the majority of the aircraft on the Friday schedules also displaying at Yeovilton and/or other airshows?

When it comes to statics, they're back to having 'Green' closed on the Friday, which means that those interested could potentially miss a lot of the more interesting aircraft.

Fair enough if someone can only do the Friday, but as you're paying the same price I can't see any benefit over doing one of the weekend days.