Do you feel BE has done it's best coping with this dreadful season?

Popsdosh - competitors entry fees do not cover the cost of running an event. Event organisers have to glean extra income from sponsors, tradestands, start fees etc to make an event wash it's face. Hence why they are all loosing money on cancellations. Please note too that it is the BE officials who make the decision to run or not and not the organiser. In some cases organisers are happy to run but BE will pull the plug due to concerns about the ground/safety etc. I am on the committee for our local horse trials and this year our cancellation and re-scheduling meant we ran at a loss in excess of £8000. Nobody is happy with these cancellations but with the rain we have all had it is totally unavoidable for the health and safety of everyone
 
popsdosh said:
Afraid you miss the point totally the organiser already keeps all the ENTRY FEES!! whether on or not, or are you telling me this is not correct .
In practice the competitors are insuring their events for them!as the riders pay the abandonment premium for the insurance so they get their entry fees back.The old system meant riders got their entries back from the organiser which they dont any more.
Can you enlighten me as to what extra cost the organisers face when they abandon that is not already covered,as the cost you quote are already costs of running the event and is not an additional cost.This comes out of income they have already received and do not have to refund to anybody.
I know the tradestands are having a bad year but so are the riders.
I just merely wished to make the point because some people are under the illusion that events are losing all their income if they abandon which is patently not the case,they lose very little if anything.
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There is no need to shout just because you are wrong. Thank goodness there are other posters on this forum who are more knowledgeable than you when it comes to the way that the maths works out for an event! Start fees are not covered by the abandonment insurance.
I run a BE event which had to abandon after just one day this year (& therefore lost 2 days) and as others have pointed out the shortfall comes in loss of entry fees, gate money, %s paid by tradestand concessions & sponsorship - it is quite hard to ask sponsors to cough up for an event that hasn't happened. Also, I don't feel that you can morally not refund competitors for stabling at an event that didn't happen & stabling is not covered by the abandonment insurance.
As someone else has correctly pointed out the chances are that ground prep to mitigate against ground conditions has also been an additional cost as you need many tonnes of aggregate & lots of manpower to make sufficient difference to a sodden lorry park for example.
I can appreciate that you are disappointed because the weather has twarted your plans, but presumably you are not in danger of losing your livelihood in the way that exhibitors are having lost not only horse trials, but large county shows, the game fair and so on.
 
millitiger said:
I don't think they could have done anything better/differently in terms of notice when cancelling events.

I do think they should have looked in running more JAS/arena eventing days to compensate for the lack of runs people are getting, considering the membership prices people have paid for such a washout of a season.
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I agree with this they should look to run some arena eventing/JAS days. I keep my horses with a pro rider so pay a lot of money to watch her compete but so far she had only done 2 events this season! I know they cannot help the weather but they could look at options so horses have something to show on their records!!!
 
LCH611 said:
I can appreciate that you are disappointed because the weather has twarted your plans, but presumably you are not in danger of losing your livelihood in the way that exhibitors are having lost not only horse trials, but large county shows, the game fair and so on.
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I actually have no gripe with the way things have gone or with the organisers as in my line of business I probably understand how the weather influences things more than most on hereI just tried to point out after after 2 or 3 post making out that the events lose everything that this was not the case we all have to shoulder our own share of the loses but I have to be honest and admit that the start fee totally passed me by so for that oversight I do apologise.
Obviously events are better protected now than under the old system .
As for me if things carry on much longer my business will come under extreme pressure so there will be no money to carry on eventing and supporting other riders so it may have a large effect.
 
I am very impressed with how Stafford has been handled. I'm grateful they cancelled it today, rather than waiting until the day because I hire my transport and cancelling today meant I incurred no cancellation fee :cool:

I'm on a ticket so things aren't too bad for me. It would be nice for arena eventing or similar to be organised, but I don't expect too much. Certainly not a refund on people's memberships. When you become a member of that type of organisation you take the risk that you can't compete that year- be it ground conditions or your or your horse's injury.

Do you get your entry fee/ticket back in the event of abandonment? I've not been in this situation before!
 
I was going to register my youngster for a half season but definately will not now as its not worth it for 4 runs if I'm lucky. If the cost of membership goes up I would be livid as paying for a full season this year and only had 2 runs. Its just not value for money.
I think they have done well with the cancellations just not so well with rescheduling. Even if rescheduled events clash that are relatively close to each other I think they should go ahead to prevent ballotting.
From a competitors point of view we don't get the full entry fee back, they deduct admin fees and bdwp have credit card charges when we enter. It all adds up!!! Also BD judges will be paid next year so expect entry fees to go up for that aswell.
 
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