Decided Not to go to YHL :(

sidesaddlegirl

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Just can't afford it this year, especially with no deals available on tickets. 3 of my friends feel the same and are not going either as they can't justify the price to get in. We are all just too skint and need every penny to put towards our hay and feed this year as it's probably going to be a looooong coooold winter. I've had to start feeding hay early this year.

So gutted too as I was looking forward to seeing the Carl Hester demo and going on the mechanical horse.

Anyone else gutted about not being able to go? :(
 
Have you a lot of traveling to do? I though £16 was quite reasonable compared to what I forked out for HOYs - but then I do live about 5 minutes down the road.

Paula
 
sidesaddlegirl, I'm not going this year either, just console yourself with the thought that the queues will be massive and half the people won't even get to see Carl Hester.
 
I've been planning to go for the last few years but never get around to it what with one thing or another - last year was due to having to find £2K for the vet bill for horse involved in RTA :rolleyes:

This time of year is expensive anyway with hay and bedding costs ready for winter and with Christmas just around the corner.
 
Its not so bad now they have returned to free parking. I missed several years because it seemed to go down hill but returned again last year and thought it was pretty good value for money. There was a lot of very good information and new products being exhibited, along with some excellent demo's and trade stands.
It was also better organised and the marshals were more crowd friendly. If I can make the time, I'll probably go but other than window shopping, probably won't buy anything there as its too frenetic on the day.
 
I consider YHL to be a bit of a con tbo to pay £16 to go shopping for stuff that are cheaper on the internet! Some of the demos are ok but with the best will in the world they end up churning out the same info. Save you money for individual demos or DVDs and have an evening with friends with a glass or two much more fun and you can playback useful snipits to put into practice. :-)
 
I'm gutted that I'm not going as really wanted to see Express Eventing this year. Am away that weekend as friends BIG birthday in France - different reasons for not going but still peed off that I'm missing it.
 
Paula, it's a about 30 miles so not a huge travelling distance but with diesel prices how high they are, i'd have to fork out another £20 to give my OH for the round trip of bringing me and picking me up.

Yes, it is an expensive time of year (have a vet bill coming this month too :P ). I hate being a adult and making responsible decisions!
 
I'd have gone if there had been a BOGOF on tickets like last year. It's a fair trip for me but with several of us in the car we shared fuel costs and made it more affordable. Decided to go to the SW Equine fair instead as it's closer and cheaper to get in :).
 
To be honest I've never thought the shopping was particularly good, lots of cheap tat on sale at most stalls. The displays will be good & worth seeing but with their success at the Olympics I expect the queues will be enormous for the displays & I hate queues. I've seen Carl Hester, Mary King & Ben Maher before anyway so I'm also giving it a miss this year.

The parking area will be so muddy after all the rain & I don't have a 4x4 anymore :(
 
Quite fancied going this year but like many finances are stretched and although the entrance fee is reasonable and comparable with many other events, I've not attended those either.
The final decider was being offered overtime on both days. Being able to pay for a long overdue car service and keep Mr British Gas and Severn Trent happy won the day.
Yes it is nice to go and have a wander around the shopping but as it takes a lot of will power not to get the debit card out and I have no willpower I'll stick to working and the local tackshops.
 
Just my luck . I bought everyones ticket and not one for myself as working and as soon as I do it work offers that I can work Wednesday instead of Saturday. So I have bought another ticket and paid another booking fee. Typical
 
I'm not going this year either, just cant justify the cost when I've found it cheaper to buy online or 2nd hand for most things... and to make up for it i'm off to see the Spanish Riding School in a couple of weeks, Charlotte, Carl and Lee all 'performing' there so get the best of both worlds (well the tickets weren't exactly cheap....)
 
I too think that £16 is a bargain and to be honest I find it crazy that people want discount codes.

I paid £42 for a HOYS ticket and to be honest I get more out of the demos at YHL than watching showing/SJ-ing/mounted games at HOYS.

Shopping is much or a muchness anywhere now to be fair but to sat Mary King, Carl Hester and Charlotte Dujardin are there this year is good enough for me!
 
I agree £16 is a good price for the demos IF you can get a seat (and don't have a teenage daughter to pay for too!!). We left at the crack of dawn to ensure we got there early enough for the first one of the day. We didn't bother with the later demos having seen what the queues were like in the afternoon the year before!!
 
I went last year for the first time and bought nothing bar synthetic saddle cleaner! Everything struck me as more expensive than eBay etc and I've had a very expensive month with box rest boy, x rays and a course of injections :( I'm buying loads of wood pellets tomorrow too, so really can't afford it. :(

Best bit last year, IMO, was the Oli Towend/Geoff Billington bit and they're coming to my local show centre in December, already have my ticket!
 
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I say every year Im not going again, same stalls, same faces. BUT yes we are going again. LOL :)

lol! me too ,tickets came today,only an hour drive for me.i really dont think that £16.50 is alot to pay for a horsey day out at all
 
LOL, HOYS has always been too expensive for me to go to any ways so I guess it's all relative! :D

Just did my book keeping and bill paying to see if I could manage to scrape some pennies together to go but after just ringing up my vet to see how much the bill will be this month, and seeing the 2 digit sum left afterwards in my bank account, there is no way I can afford to go now. :P

It's amazing how it takes me all month to earn my pittance pay cheque and only a few minutes to spend it paying bills!! Grr...

I'll see if there isn't some cr*p around here that I can flog on ebay so I can go.
 
Best bit last year, IMO, was the Oli Towend/Geoff Billington bit and they're coming to my local show centre in December, already have my ticket!

I enjoyed that too - one of the best demos I have seen at YHL. Made even better as one of the horses they used is related to mine!

In previous years, Tim Stockdale and Carl Hester have been good. But there are a lot that aren't so good. We were very disappointed with the Laura B demo the other year and the showing one last year was dire!
 
Have people looked at horse world live ? its more expensive that yhl but tbh so is every where else and they have Laura Bechtolsheimer, Natasha Baker, William FP, William & Pippa Funnel, Geoff Billington and then all the express eventing crowd...Oli Townend, Mark Todd, Lucinda Frederick... they've got sj, demos, evening "show"... I hope people give it a chance as it would be nice to have a good show in the south east that isnt as tacky, overcrowded and parked in muddy fields like yhl.
 
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